Mood: irritated
Now Playing: Accuradio's 80s Channel
Topic: Throw the Bums Out!
I know, I know, I promised to continue updating my blog despite the increased responsibilities of life. Unfortunately, this has not happened. I have been crafting some blog entries, but many of these, being of a gaming nature, have found a home at my gaming blog and not here. However, as I currently find myself severed from the internet due to a cable outage, I thought now would be a very good time to rectify this paucity of FEBA entries.
The issue at the top of my list is politics. A lot has happened since my last few entries and I think now is a good time to catch up.
Despite Democrat posturing, the recent election results were not a mandate for left-wing politics, but a protest vote against Republican spinelessness. Mid-term elections historically work against the party in power and this election was typical in its outcome. Democrat gains were pretty average and long overdue (Republicans dodged the bullet with their counter-historic gains during the 2002 midterm election) – which is remarkable considering how the GOP dropped the ball in almost every category. In fact, I will go so far as to say that if…
A) President Bush hadn’t been hiding under his desk for the last three years and had actually provided some leadership to congress
and
B) Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist were competent leaders less interested in getting along with their Democrat counterparts and more interested in opposing their left-wing agenda
…then I believe it was quite probable that the GOP would have dodged the midterm bullet yet again. Alas, that did not happen.
Dick Morris, the used car salesman of the political world, said something clever not too long ago (and don’t underestimate how difficult that is for him). He remarked that President Bush is “a one term president well into his second term.” Exactly right. At the close of his first term, I believed, as did many other conservatives, that President Bush would finish his second term on a level with the great Ronald Reagan. After all, his first term was not just marked by a long-overdue steel-spined foreign policy, but was also characterized by innovative domestic ideas (reforming Social Security, doing away with the current tax code, and implementing healthcare savings accounts). Regrettable, shortly after being sworn into office for the second term, President Bush & Co. seemed to have promptly gone to sleep. Social Security reform was surrendered without a fight. Doing away with the IRS in favor of a flat tax or national sales tax was quietly killed when a special committee (of questionable pedigree) concluded that the IRS was doing a fine job (!). Even the all-important issue of Supreme Court nominees was nearly botched when, in a fit of remarkable stupidity, President Bush nominates Harriet Miers, his own attorney, to the highest court in the land (!!). I sometimes think that the real President Bush, the courageous Bush of 2000-2004, is being held captive somewhere….
To this sorry presidential record, we can add the outright incompetence of congress. Due to the lack of leadership in the Senate (Bill Frist, at best, was a hapless majority leader), the “gang of 14,” those feckless renegade Republicans lead by John McCain, wielded the true power in the Senate. Countless important legislative items, from border security to domestic spending reform, were sidelined, mangled, or outright killed by this unholy alliance of RINOs and DemoRats. And while the House displayed more conservative gusto, Dennis Hastert (the great stealth Speaker of the House) was often more interested in linking arms with Nancy Pelosi than he was in actually passing conservative legislation (it still boggles my mind when I think of him rallying to the defense of William Jefferson, a corrupt Democrat congressman found with marked FBI money in his freezer!). What a disgrace.
Add to this a number of ridiculous spectacles. For example, who can forget Tom Delay’s epic stand when, after being indicted on trumped-up charges and vowing to fight to the bitter end to prove his innocence, promptly resigned with nary a whimper (I still snicker when I think of GOP sycophant Fred Barns claiming that Delay’s resignation was a victory for the Republican party!)? It really is no wonder why the GOP lost control of both chambers. Heck, even a stalwart conservative Republican such as me felt a tinge of satisfaction with the electoral results (I don’t tolerate treachery well). After all, I voted for conservativism, not a bunch of political clowns in business attire selling out their principles at every opportunity. What a shame and sham….
So now the Dems are in charge...but don’t worry, these are “conservative democrats” (as Fred Barnes constantly assures us). Really now. I guess that is why a San Francisco liberal is running the House, Harry Reid is running the Senate, and Rangle, Kennedy, Murtha et alia are chairing committees, eh? Give me a break. While there are some DINOs (Democrats in Name Only), the “bi-partisan” spirit is usually limited to weak-kneed Republicans. A Dem is a Dem is a Dem. In short order, the House has passed an increase in the minimum wage, reinstated funding for embryonic research, and called into question (yet again) the entire War on Terror. Where are all these “conservative Democrats”?
Sorry to break the news, but America is back on the left-wing express for the next two years, perhaps for even longer. Why? Because the GOP has not figured out why it lost the trust of the American people. Since the elections, all I have heard from the new Republican minority leadership is insipid rhetoric to the effect that a) it was overly conservative (i.e., “divisive”) legislation that cost them congress, or b) the way back to power is with conservatively fiscal legislation (i.e., tax cuts), but not conservative social and domestic legislation (pro-life, anti-illegal immigration, etcetera). In short, the new GOP congressional leadership (led by the unreliable House minority leader John Boehner and assistant senatorial retread Trent “I apologize” Lott in the Senate) has not gotten the real message of the American people. What cost Republicans Congress was a failure to deliver on the conservative promises of the last twelve years, a problem extending all the way up to the president himself. If the GOP wants to have any chance at winning in 2008, the party needs to grow a spine (a tough proposition for most Republicans) and exhibit the conservative leadership of a Reagan or a Gingrich.