You keep telling yourself that and maybe if you wish just hard enough you'll wake up tomorrow and John Kerry will be president.
"If we can't give the President the benefit of the doubt long enough to hear what she has to say at the hearings, how can we expect the rest of the country to give him the benfit of the doubt about anything."
The rest of the country already DOESN'T give the President the benefit of the doubt on much. This is not an enormously popular President, sailing high in the polls, etc.
The people who DID give him the benefit of the doubt, the social conservatives...us...have just gotten the back of the hand (again and again) from the President and his team, because he made a damn-fool pick and we told him so.
Rather than pulling back when he saw what was happening - as he DID rapidly in the Schiavo case - he's going to go to the mat, WITH US, because we are the only people who were left in his cheering section.
So, now we're the ones getting beaten up and threatened.
But that doesn't work. As politicians, they can't do DIDDLY SQUAT to us individually. They've got no REAL power. But we can take their jobs away, not just by actively working against them, but also through simple INDIFFERENCE. A priest who screams at his congregation too much ends up having an empty church, and eventually the diocese closes it down. A politician who goes after his own base ends up without a base, and the other politicians who follow him end up going off the cliff like lemmings, because they lose the base too...and end up in civilian life with the political opposition wearing the crown.
The Republicans got REAL GOOD at turning on the attack machine. And it worked, against Democrats, and against RINOs. But the only REASON it worked, the REASON Bush's "stand tough" attitude was successful, was because it pleased THE BASE. WE were the "peanut gallery" that was cheering him and and giving him power. You come after US with that rubber truncheon that's worked so well on Dems and RINOs, and you end up with no peanut gallery...and not voters...and no power. And then you go home a broken, loser politician.
And you deserve it.
President Pyrrhus needs to BACK DOWN this time.
He did it on Schiavo.
He can do it again.
And he's got to.
You don't. In fact, there are many more conservatives who are willing to give Miers a hearing than actively oppose her.
So, Bush is not going to "pull back." He doesn't read polls, but, if he did, he would see that he is supported more than opposed.
The rest of the country already DOESN'T give the President the benefit of the doubt on much. This is not an enormously popular President, sailing high in the polls, etc.
And you believe the same biased Dem-skewing polling agencies that said Kerry would win the presidency?
And the party blames the voter after the fact. The GOP lost in 1992, not becuase of Ross Perot. Perot represents a failure on the part of the GOP to attract more votes than any other party.
Anyway, what you said was well said. Don't be surprized to be called names for it. That rubber truncheon thing, you know?
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