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"What happened to the Reagan Republicans?" I know what happened to the Reagan Republicans they were allowed to put their theories to work, and they didn't work. I know; I was there, and saw us do it.

We used to sit around the Houstonian Hotel and drink Bloody Maries, theorizing that private industry could provide more efficient services, more economically. We wanted to privatize everything, then. We attended fundraisers, gave our over-taxed earnings to the leaders of the movement, and voted our consciences. Yes, Republicans had consciences then! Or, we thought we did.

We thought it was unconscionable to run a government differently than a corporation. We thought it was wrong to tax the wealthy so heavily, who provided the opportunity for laborers to have jobs. We thought that if anyone could run America efficiently, and productively, it was the Republicans. Boy, were we wrong!

I wrote, but haven't published yet, a non-fiction book, titled, "Confessions of a Recovering Conservative." In it, I admitted to an ongoing struggle with conservative issues, like a balanced budget, limited government interference in personal lives and business competition. I long for the good old days when the separation of church and state meant that one person's religious values weren't allowed to be imposed on others.

Somewhere along the way, it all got confused. I blame everything on George W. Bush, because it helps me feel vindicated. See, I didn't vote for him. I knew he was incompetent. What I didn't realize was that all the people around him would become incompetent, too.

It would be easy to blame everything on Bush and his associates, but the Republican Party, the Republican voters, and the Republican Congress must take some of the blame. I will take some, too, since it's only fair. I was there when we decided that privatizing part of the Social Security contributions was a good idea.

While we are passing out blame, we can't skip the neuvo-right-wing of the party, the Christian Fundamentalists and the Southern Baptist Convention. Where did they come from? I grew up in the heart of their dominion and I didn't see it coming. In "Confessions of a Recovering Conservative" I wrote, "George Bush is one of the most brilliant political minds of the century. I meant it sarcastically, but it says what I meant to say, that he formed a union of the anti-gay, the pro-gun, and the anti-abortion crowd, when we still thought it was about good management of government money and power. He was

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