The GOP Senate does need this.
Posted on 10/30/2003 4:08:07 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Call me laughably optimistic, but I believe the Republican Party is in deep trouble. Even if you don't share my optimism, it's indisputable that the GOP is, like the Know Nothing and Bull Moose parties, ripe for a fall. We're talking smoldering ruins, defections, patricide, fratricide, and acts of contrition the likes of which Jimmy Swaggart never imagined. This situation has nothing to do with the formidable (ha) opposition of the Democrats, last seen playing patty-cake in Congress with the Future Felons of America in the White House. It is just a fact of life, like water running downhill and the Red Sox losing Game Seven.
If images are more important than issues, try this one on for size: The White House has banned the media from covering the arrival of the flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers on all military bases; Bush himself has not attended a single one of these 340-plus homecomings. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil is the Republican mantra, and they're sticking to it even as their ship runs headlong into a perfect political storm.
To wit: Republicans control the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court. They control all three branches of government, have no checks and balances on their power. They also control Wall Street and the media. They not only run the show, they massage the message.
My point: This is their bad. By "this," I mean an all-time record federal budget deficit that's bleeding states, cities and towns dry ($374.2 billion for 2003, doubling last year's deficit and likely to reach $500 billion in 2004). "This" is a quagmire in Iraq that will not end soon, or well. "This" is virulent international pariah status, even among allies (Bush was heckled by Australians and Filipinos! Thai farmers put a curse on him!). "This" is setting back environmental progress 100 years. Etc.
In short, the GOP can no longer blame Bill, Hillary, Franklin Delano or Eleanor. Their so-called agenda has had time to prove itself, and it has proven only one thing: It's a miserable failure on all fronts (economic, environmental, racial, morality, foreign affairs, even war). The only things they have to show for themselves are Bush in that flight suit and 9-11. These are not reassuring items on which to build a campaign. Indeed, the foot-dragging on and censoring of the 9-11 probe (expunging links between Bush's Saudi pals and al Qaeda) and the ongoing Iraq carnage -- despite Bush in that victorious jock strap -- are too obvious even for Fox viewers to deny.
Telltale signs of GOP desperation are everywhere. Let me share one from my town. The "community relations chairman" for the local Republicans has, in a website posting, called Democrats "neo-Nihilists" who are "greedily enamored with the destruction of this nation." Further, Democrats "eschew rational debate," "hate America" and consider Saddam Hussein "a hero." Got that, you Al Gore-voting soccer mom?
Then there's George Nethercutt, a Republican running against incumbent senator, Patty Murray (D-WA). In a recent speech, echoing GOP talking points, he said, "The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." Makes a great campaign slogan, doesn't it? I mean, for the Democrats.
Or how about this from my Republican Congresswoman Nancy Johnson. In a recent letter to constituents, she said, "We are in Iraq to help ourselves and the Iraqi people because 9/11 proved how deeply intertwined are our lives." Huh? Even Bush now admits there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Since the pretext for this war is gone, even "moderates" like Johnson are forced to deploy semantic deceits (or what I call Republican pretzel logic).
Last and least, former first lady Barbara Bush recently described the 12 Democratic candidates for president as a "sorry group." The Democratic lineup contains two decorated war veterans, a Rhodes Scholar, a top West Point grad, a longtime legislator, a successful mayor and governor, and numerous other public servants, none of whom warrant such an undignified characterization. Especially not from the matriarch of three substance-abusing grandchildren, a felonious whoremonger son (Neil), ethically challenged son (Marvin), HMO-fund-embezzler and election thief (Jeb), coke-sniffing AWOL Air Guard pilot son (W.), vehicularly homicidal daughter-in-law (Laura) and father- and grandfather-in-law who traded with Nazi Germany.
My bad in last week's column: I blew Red Sox manager Grady Little's name, calling him Grady Wilson. The latter was Fred Sanford's wine-bibbing partner on the great Sanford and Son . Fred's Grady might have made a better manager.
I deal in results, not rhetoric...the results are the same...a weak wristed Republican leadership not quite up to doing battle in the trenches and zero new judicial appointments.
The GOP Senate does need this.
Can we just call you laughable?
Is this a great country or what !!
Republicans control the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court
Two for four, guy. Anyone who asserts that the GOP's relationship to the Senate and SCOTUS is one of "control" is deranged.
You cannot be serious. Are you suggesting that Republicans should devote their efforts in the direction of creating "buzz" about a candidate who does not face election for five years?
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Or when the President of Panama failed to make his payment to the CIA so we invaded Panama ? No . I might think like you Jim but not on this 1 .
Have a laugh at the article winger -)
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