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Lackeys To The Bitter End

The Mark Foley scandal is another area where the conventional wisdom is wrong. Many in the media are claiming that conservatives and evangelicals are being turned off by Republicans because of their association with Foley and their handling of the scandal. Some conservatives may be feeling like they just can’t support “the party of Mark […]

The Mark Foley scandal is another area where the conventional wisdom is wrong. Many in the media are claiming that conservatives and evangelicals are being turned off by Republicans because of their association with Foley and their handling of the scandal. Some conservatives may be feeling like they just can’t support “the party of Mark Foley,” and that seems to be the Democrats’ best chance of success next month. The reality is quite the opposite.  While Mark Foley might have been a believer in tax cuts and a strong defense, he was certainly not living a Republican or conservative lifestyle. ~Jonathan Garthwaite

As for a conservative lifestyle, that is putting it mildly.  But what on earth is a “Republican lifestyle”?  The possible answers to that question after years of graft, abuse of power, and cynical manipulation of supporters are not exactly favourable to the GOP.  One might say that Abramoff and DeLay were living the modern “Republican lifestyle.” 

The trouble here is not so much that Mr. Garthwaite is a Red Republican bittereinder (no offense to the admirable Afrikaner patriots intended), which so many professional pundits must necessarily be at this grim time for their party, but that he and others like him literally don’t seem to understand that you cannot live by the symbols of the culture wars without also dying by them.  You cannot switch on a people’s sense of outrage at moral disorder and corruption and then expect them to conveniently switch it off when you are implicated, however indirectly, in these same things.  You cannot make rallying against a radical homosexual agenda a prominent part of your appeal while winking and nodding at the misconduct of one of your party’s own homosexuals, especially when he is engaged in behaviour that would be inappropriate for any Congressman.  With respect to Iraq, you cannot claim to be the party of responsibility and competence and preside over four years of irresponsibility and incompetence.  Eventually, your credibility runs out.  You cannot blunder along with no real strategy in the war and then accuse your opponent of having no viable alternative to fix the mess you’ve made.  You cannot betray every conservative principle in the book and then say, “You have to look at the big picture.  The other guys are really bad!” 

This is like nothing so much as a robber who, having just beaten you over the head and taken your wallet, tells you not to go to the police because they are corrupt and might hit you up for a bribe.  “How can you pay the bribe, after I have just taken all your money?  Think about it.  They’re the real enemy here.  In fact, I’m really on your side, because I also don’t like the corrupt police.  If you could just go get some more money and bring it back to me, I’m sure we could help each other a lot.”  If conservatives have any self-respect this year, they will not collaborate in their own fleecing and poor treatment any longer.  Like a battered wife who has finally had enough, they must stop making excuses for the party that has abused them for years.  They need to stop saying things like, “The world is so dangerous–what will I do without my GOP?”  For decades, like some greasy con man who has seduced the gullible mark, the party kept telling the conservatives, “I love you, and one day, baby, we’re going to make it big, and then I’ll get you all the things you ever wanted.  I can’t do it without you.  Now I just need to borrow some money….”  Now that the con man has been found out, he wants her to forget the lies and betrayal and, if at all possible, just give him a little more money.  When the GOP resembles no one today so much as Sawyer from Lost, it is time to move on.     

Then there is the predictable rallying cry:

Some Republicans have decided that the best strategy might be a quasi-suicide-turned-resurrection whereby Republicans lose Congress in 2006 so they can retain the White House in 2008. But this is no time to go wobbly. With less than thirty days left before Election Day, it’s not time to sulk over a legislative failure here and there. It’s time to pick a horse and place our bets.       

A legislative failure here or there?  That’s a good one.  Where exactly have the legislative successes been?  No, wait, don’t tell me–Medicare Part D!  Or maybe the endorsement of torture?  Perhaps the do-nothing attitude for most of the past four years on immigration?  The runaway spending?  The total lack of oversight of the executive branch?  Stop me before you’re overwhelmed with giddy excitement.  The problem isn’t just legislative failure or legislative inaction (the latter is not necessarily such a bad thing, considering the laws this crowd has been passing), but that even when they “succeed” they usually endorse abhorrent policies. 

A lot of Republicans like talking about Bin Laden’s reference to the “strong horse” and the “weak horse.”  They never get tired of using this story when they think it will help vindicate their Iraq policy.  But what if we applied this to the midterms this year?  What is the GOP if not a flea-bitten, broken-down nag of a political party right now?  Does it inspire confidence?  Trust?  Enthusiasm?  Not a bit.  If you were a betting man (and, if the GOP has its way, you will not be much of a betting man online), would you put money on the nag?  The other horse in the race might be pretty pathetic, too, but it at least seems to be well-fed and doesn’t limp.  Why should anyone back such a “weak horse,” especially when that horse has spent the last four years stomping on everything most conservatives used to hold dear (and which some of us still do take seriously)?  Why, in fact, shouldn’t conservatives take the horse out and shoot it to put it out of its misery?

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