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Part of what has happened is that the Dem'crat "opposition" does not provide a true constrast to the political dialogue any more, because on most questions that come up, there is both a shared range of views, and areas between that have a shifting point of agreement. What is evolving is a Republican "party" that is really becoming two parties, and the Dem'crats are becoming irrelevant.

Something like this has happened in American history before, when the Whigs simply petered out, and the remnants formed the nucleus of the Republican party. In the dominance that the Republicans held from about the time of the Civil War until shortly before the Great War, a similar fissure occurred, which gave rise to the Progressive Republicans, the "RINO's" or their day. Finally, the Progressives severed their ties with the Republicans altogether, with the rise of the Roosevelt dynasty, first Uncle Teddy, then FDR, and cast their lot with the Dem'crats, once the party of rebellion and suppression, but by the 1930's, well on the way to becoming the socialist party they are today. By default, the remaining Republicans became the "conservative" party, and pretty much lived in the wilderness for some five or six decades, before they were were revived by a true conservative visionary, Ronald Reagan. It took over a decade to move the party from seemingly minority status to a real majority, then almost immediately, as if they could not stand prosperity, the edge was lost. The death of the Soviet Union, from its own internal hemorrhages, also spelled the end of most of the ideology that spawned it in the first place, except on the campuses of US universities. Slowly, the Republican majority was reborn, only to undergo the same schism referred to above, in which there is the branch of the believers, and the branch of the accommodationists.

But there really is nobody to accommodate any more. The Dem'crats have grown meaningless, lacking the sense or depth of experience to govern, or to negotiate, or even engage in civil conversation. They have decided to make overtures to like-minded foreigners, but they have become the awkward new kids on the block. Attempts to appease those factions in the world that are openly hostile to the US has left them looking stupid at best and treasonous at worst. Their one last remaining tactic is to be obstructionists, something they could not successfully accomplish without the assistance of the branch of the Republicans who have chosen to be accommodationists.

Their one last remaining tactic is to be obstructionists, something they could not successfully accomplish without the assistance of the branch of the Republicans who have chosen to be accommodationists.

BUMP.

Miers is an accomodationist nomination, GWB is an accomodationist President, and the GOP-lead Senate is accomodationist. The President and Senate (GOP and DEM alike) collaborated to start a murky confirmation process - one designed to avoid open confrontation on the issue of balance of powers, and be driven by arguments about the unknown instead of arguments about principle.

I detest accomodationist "strategy." But I do love some of the accomodationists. ;-)