Posted on 11/05/2004 7:18:17 AM PST by TGOMedia
As it turned out, the Great Outrage of election day were the tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of minorities denied the right to vote by Republicans in key battleground States like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It says something particularly devious about modern politics when ... oh, wait. I'm being told that no minorities were denied the right to vote, by Republicans or anyone else. Huh. Well, that's just one more thing this election has in common with the one four years ago.
Let's go back to late Wednesday morning for a minute. At the exact moment Senator Kerry was calling President Bush and conceding the election, CNN - hereafter known as FES, because it is the Flat Earth Society of the American Left - still had the electoral count at Bush 254, Kerry 252. This means that even though simple mathematics and logic had President Bush winning Ohio, and even though Senator Kerry was able to correctly decipher the same data apparently baffling (only) FES, the Bitter Enders from Atlanta chose the path of least intellectual resistance, the journalistic equivalent of balling up on a couch, rocking maniacally, and muttering to itself about how what it was seeing just couldn't be possible. (It was still a more dignified display than late Tuesday night's episode, when Judy Woodruff looked and acted as though someone had butchered her cat on the air.) Minutes later, news of Senator Kerry's concession broke; FES was consumed by Davidian-like flames by noon Eastern.
Republicans are struck by the joy of this; watching the Left attempt to explain What Happened continues to be great fun, made even greater because the arguments previously used against the president are no longer "valid." Not only did President Bush win the popular vote, he received the largest number of popular votes ever cast, and was the first candidate since 1988 to secure over 50 percent of the vote. At no time was the Supreme Court asked to explain to a State that it should enforce its own election laws (mainly because none of the States Bush won were close enough for Kerry to legitimately - or illegitimately, as in Gore's case - dispute.) As noted in the striking bit of satire above, no one was "denied the right to vote" - so much so, some polling places stayed open as many as 90 minutes after their scheduled closing times so that everyone left in line could vote.
There is no argument against this election, unless it's simply that Bush won and the thought is unacceptable. If this is your primary objection, I casually remind you that Bill Clinton - a mentally ill Communist sympathizer - won twice, and drove Republicans (and sensible Democrats) just as crazy with his thoughtless jackassery. If you're mad, suck it up and take the battle back to the trenches.
However, there is a desperate hope that President Bush will understand the opportunities wider Congressional majorities have allowed him. Rank-and-file Republicans take some solace from the president's willingness to kill more terrorists and (if necessary) overthrow the toilet regimes supporting them, increase defense, cut taxes, oppose federally funded embryonic stem cell research, oppose partial birth abortion. But at no time during his Thursday press conference, amidst all the talk of "reducing the deficit by growing the economy," did President Bush say anything about substantially reducing spending, which gives pause.
No one familiar with Bush's record in Texas expected him to roll into Washington DC and adopt a strict, constructionist conservatism. On the other hand, no rank-and-file Republican ever thought "compassionate conservatism" would come to mean the federal government would be prohibited from saying "No," or that the Congress would go right along with it all. Large sections of Republicanism believe, correctly, that President Bush was disloyal to the party when he dramatically increased federal spending and submitted to entitlement expansions that will one day send the United States spiraling into bankruptcy. (In other words, the president should take Republican dogma at least as seriously as Skull and Bones dogma.)
Modern Republicanism is ideologically and emotionally superior to Democratism because it takes itself and the world more seriously, yes, but also because it stands as the polar opposite of a party that thinks it can solve any and all problems with flowery words, good intentions, and cash. Unless President Bush takes aggressive steps to repair the damage done, he risks further blurring the line between the two parties on a federal level, as well as the line between his successes and failures.
That is one moron! He should run for office. He gets it as much as Kerry got it!
GWB, extended understanding to the Democratic four years ago and what did it get him? (Other than nothing it exposed Ted Kennedy for the swine that he is.) The 'Crats can pound sand.
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