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Title: Jonah Goldberg: Bring on the Democratic Takeover
Source:
LA Times
URL Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion ... 14sep14,0,5423843,print.column
Published: Sep 14, 2006
Author: Jonah Goldberg
Post Date: 2006-09-14 03:13:04 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 115
Comments: 7
Losing control of the House after November's elections could be exactly what the entrenched GOP needs. September 14, 2006 CONSERVATIVE Republicans have learned a painful lesson over the last few years. It turns out power isn't all it's cracked up to be. Republican control of the White House and Congress hasn't resulted in lights being turned off in Cabinet agencies or enormous garage sales of office furniture. Instead, Uncle Sam is still looking like Marlon Brando at the end of his career: bloated, sweaty and slow moving. The GOP has become a Brando-like parody of its former self, reading its lines about cutting government without plausibility or passion. The rub of it, from a conservative perspective, is that Republican control of the House doesn't equal conservative control. It may not seem that way to liberals who think Joe Lieberman is right wing, but from the vantage point of the conservative movement, GOP dominance has been an enormous disappointment — good judicial appointments and tax cuts not withstanding. Our hopeful joy upon the 1994 takeover of Congress was like finding a new pony by the Christmas tree. Now it's more like finding it slumped over dead on top of the presents. This may be why some of us aren't contemplating the possible, if not probable, Democratic takeover of the House with too much dread. (Losing the Senate would be something else.) Yes, the thought of Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker and John Conyers Jr., Henry Waxman and Alcee Hastings as potential committee chairmen does cause an involuntary gag reflex and a shudder for the future of the republic. And yes, the image of all those Democratic staffers returning to Capitol Hill like the marauding caddies during open-pool hour in "Caddyshack" does churn the stomach. But what would actually happen? Well, the first thing we'd hear would be the metaphorical snap of the rubber glove as the House prepared to investigate the executive branch with a zeal and thoroughness normally reserved for prison guards who enjoy looking for contraband just a little too much. Subpoenas would fly. Perhaps printers would churn out bills of impeachment. BUT AS UGLY as some of this might be, the silver lining would be fairly thick. First, as a matter of simple gitchy-goo good government, one has to admit that the executive branch could use an independent audit. Amid the orgy of spending and deal cutting, the GOP-controlled House has largely abdicated its oversight responsibilities. Someone's got to check the receipts. Second, as a matter of rank partisanship, letting the Democrats run wild could be good for both the GOP and conservatives, as my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru recently pointed out in the New York Times. If you think Americans are itching for change now, wait until they break into hives after two more years of Republican monopoly on power. But a Pelosi-run House could so horrify voters that it would probably prepare the soil for a Republican presidential candidate in 2008. Pelosi is, if anything, a moderate in the Democratic caucus, but she is indisputably far to the left of the American center, in part because she and her colleagues mistake passionately angry bloggers for the mainstream. Letting voters see this crowd try to have its way for two years would only help the GOP in the far more important 2008 election. Moreover, it could very well boost President Bush's popularity in his final two years — popularity he would need to conduct foreign policy, which tends to dominate the final years of all presidencies. It's one thing to carp and snipe at the president as the party out of power. It is quite another to use congressional power to hobble a wartime commander in chief. When the economy was strong and the world was deceptively peaceful, perceived Republican overreach kept Bill Clinton's poll numbers up. It's entirely possible that similar behavior — behavior the Democratic base will doubtlessly demand — would have a similar effect on Bush's popularity, especially with troops fighting overseas. A Speaker Pelosi couldn't get left-wing legislation through, and nothing too terrifying could survive in the GOP-run Senate or be spared Bush's veto pen, which, sad to say, still has plenty of ink in it. One exception might be immigration, but that would hand conservative Republicans a dream issue for 2008. As for Iraq, antiwar liberals also would discover that having a majority within a party is not the same thing as controlling it. Democrats would not be able to force a withdrawal from Iraq, but they'd look even more McGovernite in the process. I can't quite hope the Democrats win. But I can't bring myself to say I'd like more of the same either. As Henry Kissinger said in 1986 of the Iran-Iraq war: Too bad they can't both lose.
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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
And here we have it! About as clear an admission by a Beltway bootlicker toady as it gets that all they care about is power. Goldberg doesn't care that the GOP has made government bigger or that it has gone on a hog wild spending spree. No- his "silver linning" if the Dems win is not "Gridlock" and hope for a less spending or reducing the size of government- it is that the blame will be taken off the GOP for any new spending so that they can do well in 2008 and then- fight his pet wars. See - that is ALL American "Conservatism" is about these days- the Warfare state. Nothing else. I also love his mention of the "conservative" accomplishments of Bush- his pathetic "tax cut" and his judicial appointments. Same old crap. Am I supposed to get excited by Bush's miserly little tax cuts? Am I suppossed to get upset that Dems would tinker another way with taxes- perhaps cut some and raise others? And Bush's jurists who would make the executive branch a revolving Ceaser position more so than it is today are "conservatives"? Guffaw. This little brat neowhore makes me puke.
Except that the economy now sucks and Clinton at least had the brains to wage Airpower only wars where the "Brave" US armed forces could bomb and kill with little to no chance of the enemy firing back. With the troops dieing overseas at a much too fast rate, this "stay the course" crap will not play well with the voters.
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death" - Me.
Well, they could both lose if third parties had a hope in hell of winning... but, oh, yes, I forgot, the two parties have a total hammerlock on the political system in America, and third parties have less chance of winning than I have of flapping my arms and flying to the moon. So, we get to dutifully trudge to the hopeless tar pits of demonic Diebold counting systems and cast our pathetic votes for corporate controlled shill "A" or corporate owned whore "B". Now be sure to go out and VOTE, after all, it's your duty as peasants, er, "citizens", in our "participatory democracy". Or was that "pathetic demonacracy". I can't keep it straight any longer.
#2. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
When the economy was strong and the world was deceptively peaceful, perceived Republican overreach kept Bill Clinton's poll numbers up. It's entirely possible that similar behavior — behavior the Democratic base will doubtlessly demand — would have a similar effect on Bush's popularity, especially with troops fighting overseas.
#3. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
I can't quite hope the Democrats win. But I can't bring myself to say I'd like more of the same either. As Henry Kissinger said in 1986 of the Iran-Iraq war: Too bad they can't both lose.
 | Gold and silver are real money, paper is but a promise. |
#4. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#2)
They are volunteers with signing bonuses of 40 grand and the vast majority of Americans only know this war as a headline, sound bite, or whisper. Put a microphone in front of their faces and they will say how "concerned" they are about Iraq. But in reality? They don't care as it doesn't involve them in the slightest. And they are right. This is very much DC's war- not America's. It doesn't involve us. Dem or GOPER it is going to be fought with nary a difference of who is in charge. And if they leave- it won't have anything to do whatsoever with American public opinion.
With the troops dieing overseas at a much too fast rate, this "stay the course" crap will not play well with the voters.
#5. To: Elliott Jackalope (#3)
The Party's O.V.E.R. ... regardless of which political jackal wins ... we lose.
"eventus stultorum magister"
Fools must be taught by experience
#6. To: Elliott Jackalope (#3)
So Goldberg see American politics as Kissinger sees international politics. It's not about mutual benefit, but about the spoils that war criminals and their kapos can gather from the carnage. In a just world, Kissinger and Goldberg would share the same scaffold.
As Henry Kissinger said in 1986 of the Iran-Iraq war: Too bad they can't both lose.
"Stiff-necked and thin-skinned is no way to go through life, son."
#7. To: Elliott Jackalope (#3)
Nice.
So, we get to dutifully trudge to the hopeless tar pits of demonic Diebold counting systems and cast our pathetic votes for corporate controlled shill "A" or corporate owned whore "B". Now be sure to go out and VOTE, after all, it's your duty as peasants, er, "citizens", in our "participatory democracy". Or was that "pathetic demonacracy". I can't keep it straight any longer.
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