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Posted on 12/03/2005 6:27:44 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
By Tony Snow
Dec 3, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Democrats gibber about Republicans' writhing in a culture of corruption, they're on to something -- but not what they think. The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards -- and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society.
The collapse stems from the simplest and most natural of causes, the survival instinct. Within months of seizing power in 1995, Republicans began backing away from Big Ideas, from tort reform to the necessary overhaul of the Social Security system. They started consulting pollsters to assay "correct" issues and positions. They played it safe -- or so they thought.
Over time, imagination-grabbing ideas melted away. Gone was the Reaganite breadth of vision, and in its place stood the musty idol of Incumbency. Republicans drew the wrong morals from the decline and fall of Newt Gingrich. They thought his boldness got him in trouble, and chose to crib plays from the Bill Clinton playbook -- tacking left, at least oratorically, so as to appease, rather than confront, their critics.
Hence, George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" -- a slogan that exceeded skeptics' worst expectations. That phrase, aimed at reassuring suburban white moms and queasy left-wing Republicans, became a white flag on the core issue of government size and might. Bush insiders even began boasting about "big government" conservatism -- oblivious to the fact that big government does not conserve or preserve; it crushes and digests, devouring institutions that challenge its supremacy.
Leaders in the Party of Lincoln stopped talking about people, and started talking about programs and expenditures. They justified head-snapping shifts in policy by claiming the need to take issues "off the table." The multi-trillion dollar Medicare "reform" is a case in point. It was designed less to save a system than to deny Democrats a talking point. Yet, the only things Republicans really took off the table were their moral authority and the loyalty of their partisans.
This helps explain one of the great ironies of the age. We live in what ought to be an era of Republican triumphalism. The president's one reliable bit of domestic-policy conservatism, his tax-cut agenda, has succeeded brilliantly. The most recent Commerce Department figures peg the third quarter economic growth rate at a sizzling 4.3 percent -- despite the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the oil shocks that followed.
Republicans have won the battle over whether centralized bureaucracies can eradicate poverty, or perform social services more efficiently than private or volunteer operations. Throughout the country, the same patterns appear: Where elected officials govern with a light touch and without imposing onerous tax and regulatory burdens, prosperity flourishes -- and people flock to the scene. "progressive" states, on the other hand, are becoming empty husks, with more rigid class distinctions than in any other section of the country.
The GOP also wins big on values. Virtually every time the ACLU files a lawsuit, Democrats lose supporters. Despite these advantages, however, the GOP founders. Its Washington potentates simply refuse to embrace the party's ideals or successes (including the war). They have forgotten the most important rule of political survival: If you want to remain an incumbent for long, you don't jettison your principles. You act on them.
When House Speaker Denny Hastert broke arms to secure votes for a pork-packed highway bill, calling the legislation a "jobs bill," it was an embarrassment. When the president signed a campaign-finance bill he called unconstitutional, he seemed to lack not only conviction, but vision.
Fortunately, irate constituents roused some conservatives from their dogmatic slumbers. Young Republicans rebelled against the apostasy of their elders, especially in the matter of the federal budget, and state parties seized the initiative on everything from spending limitations to school choice.
Capitol Hill Republicans now admit their Democratic colleagues don't want peace -- they want the Alamo. So the GOP is fighting back. Hastert approved calling the bluff of anti-victory Democrats last week by demanding a floor vote on the idea of vamoosing Iraq immediately. He scored another triumph this week by restoring the good name of the National Christmas Tree.
Who knows, he may even figure out the Paradox of Incumbency. Politicians who run just to protect incumbency may save their seats, but only by destroying their party's heart and soul. If you really want to build lasting power in politics, you need to forget about mere incumbency -- and remember the principles that got you elected in the first place.
Wow! Thanks for the ping.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.
Sister, would be the case :-) - yeah, who cares more about your life than you do? The government? That’s not even funny :-)
You may have seen this already – but it’s good and maybe someone reading along hasn’t read it:
>>>…The money I'm talking about getting rid of is the money that the government has at its disposal. Why do lobbying groups spend millions upon millions of dollars ever year just to influence one or two little phrases in a piece of legislation? Because those two phrases could amount to an even greater financial return for the organizations and people that those lobbyists represent. For them, the most efficient route to a higher profit happens to runs directly through Congress.<<<
>>>The logic would follow that the more you cut the scope of government, i.e. restricting its purchasing power by way of lower taxes and lower tax revenues, the less incentive people and organizations will have to spend their cash hoping to get more of that money back in return.<<<
>>>Let's say, just for fun, that both Social Security and Medicare have been privatized and removed entirely from the federal government's budget and purvue. Also gone are the ludicrous pork projects that the legislators use in order to look like heroes to their constituents, regardless of their actual political and ideological persuasion. What's left? Not a lot…<<<
John Warner is my senator and my liberal democrat neighbors LOVE him and vote for him in the primaries (legal in Virginia). If the other republican senators are like him -- then the GOP is not the party for me. I'm a conservative. The only time the republicans want conservatives around is long enough to vote for one of them and then they treat conservatives like the loony old aunt they want to squirrel away in the attic.
Virtually every time the ACLU "wins", the ruling itself is unconstitutional. Such as the Federal rulings regarding State involvement in prayer or the Ten Commandments. No Federal judge has any jurisdiction whatsoever in determining whether a State legislature can start sessions with denominational prayers, unless Congress specifically prohibits it. It is a violation of the 1st and 10th Amendments. But the GOP won't do the obvious--nullification.
For example, Indiana Republicans must SAY CLEARLY they will IGNORE the recent ruling outlawing such prayers. Similarly, the President has no obligation to enforce any ruling of the SCOTUS which he himself determines to be in violation of the Constitution. Nullification is the answer to quickly cut the liberal judicial coup off at the knees.
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."
AYN RAND
Pings
Your post 49 is exactly correct. My stomach turns everytime a RAT says something and our elected Rs just sit on their hands.
Thanks for that link...will read in detail asap! Federal government spends like they're watching QVC channel and every time something sparkles, they have to buy it.
"The talk show hosts are ginning up the sheeple against republicans rather than against democrats. Winning elections is not about being bullies, it's about persuasion."
And you have the mistaken idea that winning means giving in to the opponents ideas, and parroting a watered-down version.
What we have is "Big Tent/Big Gulp"-ism...the "Party over Principles" crowd have run the business into the ground by alienating it's customers.
Like Reagan, you win with ideas...you win by fighting for your ideas...not "persuading", because all that does is let the "persuaded" twist in the wind until they are "persuaded" back the other way...you win by BEATING the other guy...not agreeing with him!
Winning is about doing what is right...not just to get re-elected. When we elect these hosebags, they are supposed to do their jobs, not pad their pockets, mouth platitudes, and get invited to parties!
Just because a Traitor has an (R) next to their name, they are no less a Traitor!
Winning without Values and Principles is not winning...it's feeding at the public trough!
And THAT is what we got with "Compassionate Conservatism"...that is what we got with "diversity"...that is what we got by trying to out DemonRAT the DemonRATs...and that is what we got by letting this Country become the playthings of two political families...Bush and Clinton!
No more...nada...zip...time to throw them all out and start again!
Thx for the ping.
What tkathy does not understand is that the "growth of RAT voters" is not the problem we face but the "turning off of conservative voters" through socialist GOP moves that endangers us all.
Tony Snow is right on. Excellent article by Tony. Practically every single conservative national commentatory from Snow, though Malkin and Coulter and Noonan and to Will and Krauthammer and all the others have sharply criticized what is going on within this weak-kneed GOP.
The RATs are not hurting the GOP. The GOP's own softie agenda and liberal ways is killing the GOP.
I don't need to look any further than the President to see the GOP is in a crash dive.
Spineless, gutless RINO's abound...especially in the Senate. Overpaid, underachieving, bloviating, wussy, no balls, cowards and selfish b@SStards most of them. GOP needs a good sweeping....restock the pool with fresh true-blue conservatives across the board.
there can be no compromise on basic principles."
Part of the problem is the reps have not defined or articulated their principles. Their principles are being defined by the dims as mainly the single issue social issue.
ping
(Including the CARINOS)
The Bush administration and their cronies have chased many long-time faithful members of the GOP away, there's no doubt.
If we had known he was leaning towards socialism, we would have never elected him, even though the choices we had were putrid. Many of us would have voted third party, which is what I did in '04 and what I will do in '08.
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