This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize.
Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do.
I'm not talking about the policies of the Contract for America crowd, but the character. I'm confident that 99 percent of the population — if they could see these politicians up close, if they watched their speeches and looked at their biographies — would agree, no matter what their politics or predilections.
Politicians in this country get a bad rap. For the most part, they are like any high-achieving group in America, with roughly the same distribution of pathologies and virtues. But the leaders of the GOP House didn't fit the personality profile of American politicians, and they didn't deviate in a good way. It was the Chess Club on steroids.
The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.
Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.
Having these guys in charge of a radical conservative agenda was like, well, putting Mark Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. Indeed, Foley was elected in the Class of '94 and is not an inappropriate symbol of their regime.
"Conservatives prove incapable of governing" by Bill Press, Progreso Weekly
Reading the tea leaves, there are several lessons to be learned from the Democrats' triumphant success on Nov 7.
Clearly, the American people have turned against George Bush's phony war in Iraq and want a change in direction. At the same time, they've lost any confidence in Bush himself. And they're disgusted with a corrupt, do-nothing, Republican-led Congress. All of which prompted voters to throw Republicans out, and invite Democrats back in.
But there's something more profound going on, too. The defeat of conservatives across-the-board, for everything from school board to U.S. senator, represents the rejection of the entire conservative governing philosophy. Starting with the Gingrich revolution of 1994, conservatives were given a chance to govern -- and they failed. They managed to capture all three branches of government. They controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. And everything they touched, they trashed.
On federal spending, they promised to balance the budget. Yet they racked up the biggest budget deficits in history, effectively burying America's future generations in a mountain of debt.
On personal liberty, they promised to get Big Government off our backs. Yet today -- with the federal government dipping into our phone, bank and library records, holding detainees without trial, torturing prisoners, controlling women's bodies, and prying into the bedrooms of gays and lesbians -- there's less personal privacy than ever before. Conservatives, who once derided the Nanny State, brought us the age of Big Brother instead.
On morality, they promised, again and again, to restore honesty and integrity to public life. Yet -- from Newt Gingrich to Duke Cunningham, Scooter Libby to Tom Delay, Don Sherwood to Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff to David Safavian, Claude Allen and Ralph Reed -- they have mired official Washington in the most widespread corruption since the days of Richard Nixon.
On international diplomacy, they promised to conduct a "humble" foreign policy. Yet, they've delivered the most arrogant and bellicose foreign policy of modern times. Treaties have been broken, old alliances have been destroyed, preemptive war has been adopted as the new way of doing business, acts of terror have multiplied, and nuclear bombs have spread into dangerous hands.
And that's just for starters. The conservative legacy to America is a government that is inefficient, inept, incompetent -- and broke.
...and whatnot.
None of these people are true conservatives. They put on the cloak of conservatism to hide their true nature, THEY ARE POWER HUNGRY. They believe in Davine Destiny and they are the implementers, and no one is to stand in their way. Barbarians at the gate, and they worship money.
They'll peek in your bedrooms; tell you what you can do, and not do, with your own body; DICTATE what moral beliefs you should practice and "burn you at the stake" if you don't; make laws to govern relationships between CONSENTING ADULTS.
You are "free" only to agree with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment