Posted on 11/08/2006 7:25:35 AM PST by lasereye
Already you're seeing people criticizing outgoing Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist for the failures in the Senate. Frist certainly deserves to take hits over his inability to control the likes of Sen. John McCain during legislative battles, but without Frist the election might have looked even worse. Tennessee right now is the only strategic hold the Republicans got on Tuesday night, and it was largely because the Frist operation saw Corker's problems earlier this year, took charge of the campaign and got him back on track. And while some Republicans - Allen, perhaps being the greatest offender - chose not to run on the judges issue, Corker, in fact, did. And he won. That wasn't an accident.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
"Just shet up!"
Graham is a big-time tool, and no Republican.
Or we like them...at any rate your list is too short but your point is well taken.
Starting with Harriet Miers. That is precisely when Bush started his long decent. The conservative protests against her nomination were ridiculous and the minute it happened, I felt we were going to lose. The party can not turn on it's own because media and liberals will play it to the hilt. Shameful.
I've really had to do some soul searching here myself this morning. And I really do see some positives that I didn't see last night.
I am a firm believer in the two-party system and for a long, long time, I haven't seen it functioning very well because the Dems were just so evil and willing to trash everything and everyone. That's still true, but I'm encouraged that even a handful of conservative democrats have been elected. They could be the Zell Millers and Sam Nunns of this generation. Remember our goal is conservatism (spiritual values), not party Republicanism. I've gotten so tied up in party in recent years that it's hard to remember that sometimes.
While the Dem leadership is radical, some incoming members are conservative or some variation thereof. Unless the Pelosi group just shuts them out, there will have to be some accommodation. Eventually.
Pelosi and Reid were very big last night on talking about working together. I've had to laugh. Pres. Bush came in saying the same thing and tried to do so. He only failed because the Dems wanted to trash his character to win the next election. Now that they're saying the same thing, I think that they're finally going to have to cooperate. Yes, they have the legislative power, but appearances are important and they have new more conservative members to work with. They have a challenge ahead.
The Dems have won on an empty platform. They were elected to produce. Produce what? Even they don't seem to know. If they don't "produce"--and do they even know what they need to do since they didn't run on ideas--in two years, it could bode poorly for their WH run in 2008. Voters do not hesitate to turn out incumbents as we saw last night.
I was encouraged while listening to Pat Caddell this morning. He said most Dems, and most certainly Pelosi and Reid, have misunderstood the polls. Most Americans do not want us to cut and run in Iraq. They want us to win. Until they see that, they will be working against the will of the majority of the American people while they pursue their anti-American agenda (those last are my words, not Caddell's).
If the Democrats pursue the "let's punish Pres. Bush" route, I think they will alienate the electorate who brought them to office. Voters only have to wait two years to give them feedback...
My own personal opinion is that as the Republican party has gotten more aligned with Christians, we as a party are more vulnerable to God's disciplining hand. Discipline is pretty awful while it is occurring. But God uses it to develop His people. I believe we are in a correcting mode. We are now rid of Foley and Abramoff (at great prices) and Chafee. I'm sure I'm forgetting others. In the long run, this is a good thing. We unfortunately lose wheat with the chaff.
God really is in control. He has already won the war. He allows the enemy to win skirmishes along the war in His march toward His final victory.
But God gives us choices. We are responsible for them.
Yep.
Free will.
And look what we've done with it!
Yikes!
Hmmm. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. Will definitely give it some more thought.
These results show one simple thing. The Republicans have done nothing of any lasting substance with the majority they gained in 1994, and the hold on Presidency, House, and Senate since 2000.
Permanent tax cuts? No.
Spending reductions? No.
Elimination of useless and unconstitutional agencies? No.
Reduction in regulation? No.
A cleaner more ethical government? No.
A government not run by moral misfits? No.
Social Security reform? No.
Bigger government? Yes.
More useless unconstitutional programs? Yes.
Spending run amok? Yes.
Corruption/morals scandal of the week? Yes.
Maybe, having cleaned out the dross of the party, we can now recpature our ideals.
We haven't done so well with it, have we? But God wants us of our own free will. My dem husband is slowly coming to believe this. He asked me last night about how God can be in control if He allows abortion to continue. Not so long ago, he wasn't pro-life. I think it was the embryonic stem cell research argument that made him understand the slippery slope argument.
perhaps I should have said "unpopular" war ?
Until Vietnam, our presidents not only had public support, but were able to conduct the country's war(s) without the relentless bashing by the opposition party and the media whose coverage has certainly helped to make it unpopular.
Interesting, and a good point. I haven't been able to listen to his show in a very long time.
No, don't measure the noose for Bill Frist. The failure of failures was Dennis Hastert. When Hastert decided in 2006 that he had to defend William ("Freezer Full") Jefferson because the Congressional brotherhood of graft trumped principle (if he has any) or even party, he threw the House away.
In the Senate, the crummy performance was perennial lightweight Libby Dole. Under her "leadership," the committee got involved in primaries, a situation where the House committee followed suit, to support marginal candidates over stronger challengers -- because they were so "electable," don't ya know. Ask Senator Chaffee (he still is, briefly) how that's working out for Republicans in RI.
Bush deserves a share of the blame, but not for what the conventional wisdom says, the war. Instead it is for making no distinction between the parties in six years, and for making his only legislative priority the deeply unpopular amnesty for criminal aliens. That may have suppressed Republican vote a little, but it's equally unpopular with Reagan Democrats and independent voters who have traditionally provided R's with our margin of victory.
There were some bright spots. Mike Steele in Maryland ran a great campaign, and in a year where Republican incumbents were playing politics rather than stuffing their politics, he might have won. We will see his face again.
Another bright spot is the outing of Mark Foley by the gay Democrat lobbyists at the Human Rights Campaign. It shows that they, too, understand that gay men cannot be trusted around teen boys. This "admission against interest," as a judge would call it, should have impact that reaches far beyond the two-year splash these elections make.
Both parties will probably quietly vet future candidates to keep future Foleys out of the halls of Congress, which is only a good thing for the 99% of society that isn't gay and doesn't need an endless supply of confused teens to perpetuate itself. (Remember that Foley himself came to his gay identity by being raped as a teenager... a pattern he then perpetuated, and what passes for "normal" in the gay underworld).
Finally, here is one lesson we need to take to heart: corruption hurts us. Whether it's the small-scale sexual misconduct of a gay Congressman who likes to bugger pages, or larger-scale corruption or tolerance of corruption like Weldon or Hastert, it hurts. Throwing Foley out when his gay Dem buddies out him was too little, too late. He needed to go when he was first exposed as a page pursuer. The mind-boggling spectacle of Hastert standing up for corruption -- for a corrupt Democrat, no less -- was demoralizing. Likewise, many Senators were tainted by taking money from those who exploit illegal-immigrant slave labor, in order to keep the flow of slaves coming.
Why must we run a tighter ship than the other guys? Why must we abjure and eject corruption, perversion, and criminality while the other guys welcome in their leadership folks who have broken all ten Commandments and God alone knows how many laws? Two reasons. 1. We are supposed to stand for something other than raw power. (As Spider-Man, but not Hastert, says: "With great power comes great responsibility.") And 2. The media retain some (albeit dwindling) influence, and they are absolutely in the tank for the other guys. Anyone from the Massachusetts Congressional delegation could rape a child on his Capitol desk with three cameras running (several of them probably already have) and the story will never be written, or will land upon the editors' spike. Let a Republican park more than a foot from the kerb and the same journalists will howl for his head.
However, we are looking at a day of celebration in the dens of America's vilest enemies -- in South Waziristan, and on 43rd Street in NYC. Their guys won. And their guys won not because, in most cases, they were strong; but because our guys failed.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Your list has largely focused on one thing - reducing government. Bush has appointed conservative judges. A partial birth abortion ban was passed. Missile defense has moved forward over Dem attempts to obstruct it.
Other things would have moved forward if not for Senate fillibusters - oil drilling in Alaska, ending the death tax had the votes but were fillibustered. Social Security reform would have been fillibustered also if the votes were there.
So you're much too harsh in your assessment.
Sure we did. "Vote for us. We're not as bad as them".
The link below shows us what the Democrats were saying, primarily before 2004. It's going to be very interesting to see just how close they come, now that they are in power, to their former positions:
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
Here's a little taste:
"We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict."
Senator Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada)
Addressing the US Senate
October 9, 2002
Congressional Record, p. S10145
"It is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. The brave and capable men and women of our armed forces and those who are with us will quickly, I know, remove him once and for all as a threat to his neighbors, to the world, and to his own people, and I support their doing so."
Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts)
Statement on eve of military strikes against Iraq
March 17, 2003
America is threatened by an "unholy axis":
"We must exercise responsibility not just at home, but around the world. On the eve of a new century, we have the power and the duty to build a new era of peace and security.
We must combat an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers. These 21st century predators feed on technology and the free flow of information... And they will be all the more lethal if weapons of mass destruction fall into their hands.
Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them."
President Clinton
State of the Union address
January 27, 1998
Well, God is in ultimate control, and it is His plan, but He has allowed us free will. Which means we can choose evil and He will let us reap the consequences. That, I think, is what's happening.
It's not that God allows abortion to happen; He always allows us to choose. WE have allowed abortion; we have accepted and tolerated evil. That's what we need to change.
Couldn't have said it better myself!
You apparently haven't been paying attention for the past few decades where except for the occasional wave of discontent incumbents remain in office for far too long.
Why is some scumbag like Foley or Sherwood or Ney hanging out so long? Why do I have to listen to Kennedy or Schumer or ... ad nauseum ... any more?
The congress should be like the military: either you move up or you move out. If a congressman can't get himself elected to the senate after a few terms in the House he should go back to being a scumbag lawyer. If a senator can't get himself elected to be governor or president he should go back to being a scumbag used car salesman.
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