After The Implosion - What Now?

By: Mike Bourne
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:25:29
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As I write, I am listening to the President announce the resignation of Don Rumsfeld. While I for one do not hold Rumsfeld solely responsible for the current situation in Iraq (there is plenty of responsibility to share) I do somehow wonder what would have been had the President started with a fairly clean slate of Secretaries and fresh eyes after the 2006 elections. It reminds me that the end effect of stasis is often disease.

The Democrat Party now holds the reigns of power in the House and probably the Senate. If we are smart, we will not fall into the trap that the Democrats fell into in 2000. Allen should concede and put this to rest. We can gain nothing here in fighting to overturn a result that appears solid enough to resist the challenge.

The Republican Party has fallen because it forgot who it was and became just another "Party In Power". Its' greed in managing the treasury of the people has been unequaled since the era of Johnson. The earmark mechanism corrupted every aspect of the process (only in favor of those powerful enough to lobby) and even had the proponents believing the rewards far outweighed the risks. You cannot expect the blatant greed made infamous by Ted Steven's outrageous greed in support of a very small portion of his constituency would not eventually fall on the enablers to pay the price. And he was not alone.

The arrogance of the party's approach to governing, diminished its ability to argue the morality of the important issues of the day. It also distracted them from fighting the fights that needed fighting. Consequently, they could point to no substantial accomplishments the last 2 years (other than a very dubious Medicare Prescription Drug Bill-one that hastens the bankruptcy of the system and further erodes any semblance of free-market governance over the health care economy).

Further, we had a party continuously assert leadership on the national security issue, selling it's soul to big business and to hispanic voters by allowing 2-3 million illegals to flow across the border every year arguing all the while that this flow is critical to the economy and comes at no net cost, with no security risk and no inherent unfairness in forgiving the breach of the law they engage in, including the felony of ID Theft.

Even those (few) of us who have not seen the very real tangible costs of the influx, knew intuitively this was not true and understand the very, very, very, real danger it poses to us. The next terrorist attacks will be facilitated by our inability or unwillingness to secure the borders. The next attacks may very well be nuclear and be sufficient to collapse our great Republic if Osama and his followers execute on his plan to detonate nuclear weapons in our 7 largest cities (it won't take 3 million illegals to walk those across, a few dedicated followers will find the necessary cover underneath the flood).

So, what do we do? For one, we need a clean sweep of the leadership in the Republican branches of the Congress, Hastert, Boehner and Blount must go in the house. Frist is already gone in the Senate, but maybe the automatic choice of McConnell should not be so automatic. This is part of the problem that got us here, we need to select leaders on the basis of their Integrity (do not get me wrong -McConnell is a man of integrity), I mean integrity to the principles of the party. Seniority cannot trump commitment to the principles of the party.

We need leaders ready, willing and able to fall on the sword in furtherance of freedom, less government, and national security. We need party leaders that will fight the fight with the same intensity that the Democrats showed over the last 6 years. We cannot sit back on traditions and decorum when our opponents will not do the same. I am not sure about you, but I do not for a moment, believe that the Democrats will afford us the same accommodations on power sharing that Trent Lott gave the Democrats in 2002.

We need to also now clarify in our hearts the purity of our ideals and assert the authority of our convictions to not just be led down a dead end. We must reassert the grassroots control of the party to reestablish the solidarity of the underpinnings. We must be ready. Two years hence, the love fest the Democrat Party currently is enjoying will have eroded severely because they will find their base eroded by the brilliant strategy that got them the win here (moving the critical races into the center ideology by selecting conservative candidates to run). Their left wing base will find it very difficult going if they think they have clear sailing to assert a far-left agenda.

The Democrat Party is not so short sighted and will be looking down the road as they move forward. The retreat from the extreme positions of the left will fracture the coalition. Sure they will throw some fresh red meat to the base, but I do not expect any moves to impeachment and despite what they have been declaring about solutions to the situation in Iraq, I think they will be hard pressed to hold the majority to effect a pullout. Despite the love between Harry Reid and KOS, this will cause great problems internally.

One last thing, Mr. President, I know that you were probably absent the week they discussedthe veto in Poli Sci class. You would do very well to study up and begin to understand the power and usefullness of the power embodied in this constitutional tool.

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