The Foreign Minister is a bit despondent over the outcome of the November elections. I tried to buck him up a bit over the phone, but will expand on those initial thoughts in this post.
Why the midterm defeat is good for the Republicans
The “Republican” majority of 2006 had become unmoored from their original principles, particularly the principle of fiscally responsible limited government. The Republicans in power were spending money like a Kennedy in a liquor shop. Kool-aid drinking apologists liked to argue that things would have been worse under Democrats. Even if that was true, it certainly is faint praise. I’d argue that it isn’t true because the Republican attempt to buy a permanent majority through pork-barrel spending was unprecedented. Democrats might like to emulate that model (though for less Machiavellian reasons - many liberals actually believe government spending can ameliorate all of society’s ills), but the simple fact is that Democratic incompetence partially vaccinates society from their spendthrift ways. The electoral debacle will hopefully convince Republican leaders that pork isn’t the Holy Grail. Even if they don’t really believe in fiscal responsibility, the thumpin’ might make them fiscally responsible out of self-preservation. I’m not sure if the right is interpreting the election in this matter, but one has to hope that the election returns will make it easier for deficit hawks to navigate party primaries.
The election may also serve as check on the Christian Right’s overreach. The Maximum Leader linked to a silly little political poll a few days ago. One of the questions was about whether the Christian Right was a threat to democracy. I answered that it wasn’t - which artificially burnished my “conservative” score, but actually reflected my faith that the electorate has and will reject the more dangerous theocon ideology. While many Americans are disquieted about abortion, some on the Christian Right (an odd term - as if it was a monolithic movement) have wrongly interpreted this as support for a broader “culture of life agenda.” We saw this rampant, arrogant idiocy in full panoply over Terri Schiavo - and most Americans realized that the theocon agenda could affect their own personal end-of-life decisions. When the theocons made their torturously illogical case against stem-cell research*, Americans realized that the agenda could affect Dad’s diabetes treatment. Many Americans have a family member who has Alzheimer’s. If the Republican party continued down that restrictive road, they would be heading for a cliff. The Foreign Minister should be happy for a chance to stop his party for a map consultation.
The American public’s attention span is short and its memory is shorter. In 2006, Americans looked around at governmental profligacy and incompetence and said, “Throw the bums out.” By 2008, many Americans will be ready to throw Pelosi’s bums out. Much better to loose a midterm and keep the Presidency than to postpone the reckoning to a quadrennial election cycle.
Speaking of Pelosi, she’s a godsend to the Republican Party. Not only is she easily caricatured; she is shaping up to be a weak party leader. The Alcee Hastings and Jack Murtha fiascos aren’t just illustrative of willful stupidity. They are illustrative of a woman who isn’t fully in control. I liked George Will’s mortally incisive question: “Can you imagine Tip O’Neil whining that he couldn‚Äö?Ñ?Â¥t be an effective leader if the caucus didn’t accede to the appointment of his favored lieutenant?” Can you imagine Tip O’Neil losing a vote in his own caucus? Pelosi is going to be a train wreck for the Democrats. The Kos kids can delude themselves about a long-term power shift all they want. The pendulum could easily swing back to a chastened Republican party made wise by its time in the wilderness.
Finally, and most importantly, the shift to the Democrats will spread the blame for the Republican-led Iraqi catastrophe.
Let me be clear. I supported the war. I think the war was just. I think the world is a better place with Saddam in the ground.
But the delusional mismanagement, failure to build long-term support, willful refusal to take military advice, partisan appointments of reconstruction officials, planning failures, and bone-headed stubbornness of the Bush administration have doomed the venture to CATASTROPHE (note the bold all-caps). A good outcome in Iraq is no longer a possibility. We are now in 1970-contain-the-damage mode, and this damage will be much harder to contain than the Vietnam blowback.
But! Think about how America perceives Vietnam. A good proportion of the American public truly believes that we lost Vietnam because of that dad gum lib’ral press.
In 2006, the majority of Americans understand that Bush is responsible for the Pottery Barn mess. By 2008, their short-term memory will leave them open to the idea that things were going swimmingly. If only those dad gum lib’ral mainstream media types and Nancy Pelosi had just listened to George Bush and stayed the course, Iraq would be a utopia! I, as the say, gay-run-tee that 2008 will see ads accusing the Dems of losing the war. This can only be good for the Republicans. Cries of “cut and run” can be easily used to shift the blame. Heck, if I was a Carvillesque partisan hack, I would have told my fellow Dems to take a knee in this election and let the Republicans marinate in their own Iraqi juice.
Finally, a true conservative ought to applaud deadlock. Hopefully Bush will oppose the Democrats and the Democrats will block Bush‚Äö?Ñ?¥s proposals ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ and fewer laws will get passed.
Hallelujah.
* I refer to the tortuously illogical case that the use of stem cells destined for incineration constituted murder while at the same time failing to condemn the fertility treatments that create fertilized ova/fetuses, many of whom (or which if you are of the no life at conception persuasion) will never be implanted. Of those that are implanted, the vast majority will not take. A dozen fertilized eggs are typically used to get one viable pregnancy, causing eleven deaths for one life (insert quotation marks around ‚Äö?Ñ??deaths‚Äö?Ñ?? if you are of the fetuses-are-just-tumors-without-moral-claims persuasion). I have seen some anti-fertility Catholic commentary and explicitly exempt those folks from the torturously illogical charge. But for all of those folks who stayed mum on the process that created fetuses destined to be discarded and then piously condemned researchers who wanted to save lives through medical research, I say: Bah!
