In Wake of Amnesty, Elites Get Mad, Plot to Get Even

Despite what you will hear from the mainstream media and the leadership of both parties, yesterday was a triumph. Ted Kennedy, John McCain, Harry Reid, AND George Bush’s immigration amnesty bill went down in flames Thursday when a crucial vote to cut off debate was defeated 53-46. Thursday represents a defeat for the Republican and Democrat party bosses and the elites they have sold their souls to in favor of this fatally-flawed legislation (big business, big labor, and big La Raza come to mind). It is a victory for everyone else (you know, the “loud folks”), and before we go any further, kudos are in high order for Senators- Republican and Democrat- who did the right thing and voted against their leadership and against cloture. Don’t expect the elites in the wake of this knock down to stay down, however.

This bill represents more than any other in recent memory the visible divide between the people’s elected representatives and the people who do the electing. Just take a look at the recent Gallup poll of Congress, which shows the lowest approval rating in the history of the Gallup poll itself. The bill failed principally thanks to an open rebellion among the American people, mostly- but not exclusively- on the right whose message was reverberated on the alternative media. Groups like the Heritage Foundation conducted cost studies placing enforcement (which begs the question that this bill could have been enforced) in the trillions of dollars. Bloggers like Michelle Malkin shed more light on the bill than many Senators would have liked and exposed it for the “come-and-get-it” amnesty it was. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham not only offered their views on the bill but aired their listeners’ concerns on the matter. Most importantly, ordinary citizens placed so many phone calls to their Senators that the phone system was overloaded and had to be shut down.

Their response was visible enough at first and will become even more so after their, umm, Cuatro de Julio trips back home. Many in support of the bill were shocked to find that their constituents did not share their enthusiasm for a porous if not absent border and a free pass for 20 million people. How did these public servants, these elected representatives react? By name-calling. Senator Graham’s “loud folks” was just the tip of the iceberg. Senators dropped terms like “racist,” “bigot,” and the slightly-dated “know-nothing” to describe their concerned constituents. Senator Feinstein declared that she had never before received such hate-filled mail from voters who didn’t want to live in a balkanized, bilingual state. Just yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid reported receiving a negative letter from a constituent which he promptly turned over to Capitol Police. I guess petitioning the government for a redress of grievances is grounds for a criminal investigation these days.

And what good is petitioning without a means to petition? Frustrated elitists on both sides of the aisle have now set their sights on the vehicle they see as most responsible for shutting down their amnesty bill: political talk radio. The left has been hinting since before they took power at bringing back the unconstitutional “Fairness Doctrine” to silence the voice of conservative opposition on the airwaves. Now it seems they’re not only serious about it, but they’ve got Republican support! Just ask Senator Foghorn Hairspray (R-Mississippi) who declared “talk [ah say, talk] radio is running this country and we’ve got to do something about it, [see?]” The “Fairness Doctrine” is gathering steam (or is that hot air?) with Senators Feinstein, Kerry, Durbin, Hillary, and others expressing their support. It was even reported that Democrats told wavering Republican Senators yesterday that by the time they returned from their angry constituents, they would have already “taken care” of talk radio.

It is now becoming apparent that hell hath no fury like an elite scorned, and it’s not hard to see why they’re reacting in this way. Congress and the President hold approval ratings which rival those of the Adams administration, and back then they countered the will of the people with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize President Adams and the Federalist Party’s government. Several members of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were thrown in jail for doing just that. The American people wouldn’t stand for such tyranny then and the Federalists were thrown out in 1800. Now, faced with bipartisan elitism, the end result is much less clear. The American public is quite clearly mad as hell at both parties, and the elites will more than likely try to silence opposing viewpoints in the media and re-impose the “Fairness Doctrine” to maintain their power. However, the two-party system in place in America ensures a result similar to the 1981 NBA Playoffs: somebody’s got to win, even if nobody’s paying attention.

With Dems in Left Field, Republicans Should Play to the Center

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s termination of what can best be described as a brief and politically-convenient fling with the Republican Party ought to surprise no one. After all, he had been hinting for quite some time at an independent run for the White House next year. While his status as a Republican allowed him to ride his predecessor’s coattails to become mayor of America’s largest city, he fit in about as well with most in the party as I do in a room full of drunk coeds. His exit from the Republican Party is important not for what it means to his future but to the future of the party’s rapidly shrinking center.

Whatever you may think of his real compatibility with the Republican Party, Mike Bloomberg represents a certain wing of the party that is struggling to maintain their place at the table. These are the descendants of Rockefeller, Scranton, Nixon, and Ford who are at odds for being moderate or even liberal on certain issues that have defined the party platform since the 1980’s. They are pro-choice, pro-green deficit hawks who often defy their more conservative members on stem cell research and gay marriage. The losers in the schism that doomed the party in the election of 1964, they are now the ones who, for better or worse, argue for “big tent” inclusion against right-wing extremism.

The election of 2006 didn’t help GOP moderates whose ranks were further depleted by retirement and defeat. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the House’s lone openly-gay Republican retired, Michigan’s Joe Schwarz was beaten in his primary, and Connecticut’s Nancy Johnson- a founding member of the Republican Main Street Partnership- was knocked off on election night. She, however, was not alone: six other moderate Republican Congressmen and Senator Lincoln Chafee joined Johnson’s involuntary return to the private sector. The fate of elected Republican moderates is not nearly as dire however as those who do the electing. This became apparent in the recent primary debate in Manchester, New Hampshire when a self-proclaimed moderate asked candidates what they would do to reach out to the party’s center. The recent midterms further illustrate how Karl Rove’s strategy of getting out the base on Election Day, while successful through three elections, has led to the party moderates being ignored or abandoned.

Perhaps the most intriguing question through all of this is: what should happen if this group of moderates resurfaces and is successful in nominating one of its own to the presidency? Rudy Giuliani is the current Republican favorite and possesses a pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-gun control record (though you wouldn’t know it now by asking him). Many on the right are cringing at the possibility of a Republican candidate who would uphold Roe v. Wade, or at the very least not go out of his way to try to overturn it. What then should happen if the two (or even three with Bloomberg) presidential candidates are all moderate or liberal on social issues? Would this lead to a Sam Brownback or a Pat Buchanan-like candidate bolting the GOP and running as an independent himself? It’s not nearly as far-fetched as it may at first seem: back in 2000 a Pat Robertson autodialer warned South Carolina Republicans not to vote for anybody if John McCain won the nomination.

As history (1912, 1964, and 1976) has shown, factional schism is poison to the Republican Party. It would seem in a race of such consequence that the Republicans have all hands on deck to beat whoever the Democrats come up with. I shouldn’t have to say again that the Democrats have a distinct advantage at this early point in the campaign. What’s more, 2006 proves the Republicans can’t simply rely on their conservative base alone to win, especially with that base becoming increasingly angry with the party itself. Furthermore, Republicans can no longer count on Democrats to beat themselves (or herself) and will have to win 2008 on their own merits with a candidate who is more than he is not. If Republicans hope to win with the right it needs first to reconcile with its center.

GOP Set to Party Like it’s 1993?

While I was in Canada I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to see Meech Lake, some 25 kilometers northwest of Ottawa. This was the site of the now infamous Meech Lake Accord, where Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to get Quebec to ratify the Canada Act in 1987. I told him that I wanted to see just where the Progressive Conservative Party ceased to exist as a national party, losing all but two of its 169 seats in the 1993 federal election. He then asked if I wanted to take a trip this summer to the Mexican border, where the Republican Party will cease to exist as a national party.

The more one looks at this ill-fated and even worse-conceived immigration bill the more it tends to resemble the Meech Lake Accord for the Republican Party. Both initially enjoyed the support of more than one party, both were hailed as compromises and the result of intense negotiations, both were geared at securing a certain group in an electoral coalition, and both (ironically) involved immigration in some form. Most importantly, however, both have severely alienated their party’s conservative base. In the case of Canada, this meant that more than half of the electorate switched parties in the 1993 elections. What’s more, the electoral coalition Mulroney built in his 1984 and 1988 landslides collapsed: Quebec nationalists voted for the new Bloc Quebecois while western conservatives chose Preston Manning’s Reform Party. Everyone else voted for the Liberals, who ended up winning big.

While there is as yet no third party or Manning-like figure to play Pac Man to the GOP’s traditional support, they do face a real threat from a rejuvenated Democratic Party. Today’s Democrats are proving what a difference two years can make with everything seemingly going their way. They have two rock star candidates for the presidency, the momentum of the 2006 midterm wave behind them, and a very unpopular lame duck president the Republicans have to stay away from to hope to win. Put simply, at this very early point in the campaign, the race is the Democrats’ to lose.

President Bush and a group of Senate RINOs aren’t making things any easier. To the contrary, they have taken to blaming “loud folks,” (you know, the ones who put them in power back in 2004) for their bill stalling in the Senate. They have taken to name-calling with “nativist” and “racist” being thrown around by Republicans to describe their most dedicated supporters less than three years ago. They have taken to praising Senate Democrats for their efforts in trying to push this bill forward against the efforts of its more conservative members. If the likes of Lindsey Graham think Democrats are so great for their efforts on this bill, then that’s exactly who his constituents might vote for in 2008.

There are even more immediate consequences for this bill, especially if your name is John McCain. While even being associated with the bill should hurt his campaign enough in the eyes of Republican primary voters, being a co-sponsor with Ted Kennedy could sink it. Even McCain admits it’s not a bill he would have written, which again seems curious when he’s a co-sponsor. If there are any beneficiaries on the right side of the aisle its Rudy and Romney for blasting the bill while proving they are more than single-issue candidates like Tom Tancredo.

While things aren’t nearly as dire for the Republicans now as they were for the Progressive Conservatives in 1993, there are some ominous signs on the horizon as well as some common mistakes in the past. President Bush’s second term can most-favorably be described as a series of unfortunate events. The nomination of Harriet Miers, the Charlie-Foxtrot surrounding Hurricane Katrina, and this current immigration bill stand out as some of the more devastating blows to his administration, to say nothing about the Iraq War. All we need now is a Goods and Services Tax to seal the Republicans’ fate.

By contrast, President Bush has no chosen successor as Prime Minister Mulroney did, and that’s probably a good thing. Mulroney’s heir apparent Kim Campbell was so inept a campaigner and her former boss was so unpopular that Liberal activists met her with chants of “Kim, Kim, you’re just like him!” wherever she went. Desperation time set in with the PC’s airing an ad for 24 hours showcasing Jean Chrétien’s Bell’s palsy. The gift of historical hindsight gives the Republicans roughly 18 months to change their fate for the better. The alternative is to be called upon to “bring out yer dead” on election night.

Tonight at the Reagan Derby

Historic Reagan Downs in Simi Valley, California will play host to the most tedious ninety minutes in politics, the first leg of the 55^th Run for the White House! Hello everybody, I’m Bob Costas proud to be with you today, mint julep in hand. The initial field is set today on a gorgeous day in California, and the track is running fast. However, many longtime followers of this race are not as enthusiastic about the field as they have been in races past. For more, let’s go down to Tom Hammond for a look at the lineup and the current odds.

Thanks, Bob. What some have called a weak field this season is due to take its first lap around the track where the great Ronaldus Magnus ended his final journey. Each candidate this year is almost certain to run or even look like Ronaldus Magnus and try to remind voters of him. Notable scratches this year include Ordering Law and Grich Blitz, both of whom could be late entries in other legs of the Run for the White House. The early frontrunner, out of New York, is Gracie Mansion in Lane One with 3-1 odds. Barbara Ann is in Lane Two with 7-2 odds. In Lane Three, a long shot facing 20-1 odds, is Tommy Boy. California’s own Armed Service is in Lane Four at 22-1. Salt Lake is in Lane Five at 4-1 odds. In Lane Six is Brownback Mountain at 15-1. At 9-1 in Lane Seven is Razorhuck, he’s from the same state as Slick Willie, who we all know won the Triple Crown in 1992 and 1996. Chairman More is in Lane Eight at 9-2 odds. Lane Nine hold’s the race’s dark horse, Doctor No, who is facing 50-1 odds. Finally, in Lane Ten is Gringo Star at 35-1. Now let’s go down to the track with Chris Matthews and the call to the post.

The candidates are entering the gates and the most tedious ninety minutes in politics is about to begin! There’s the call to post . . . and they’re off! Gracie Mansion is first out of the gate with a steady start on the Iraq War with a field of candidates behind him. Salt Lake running smoothly is catching up and Barbara Ann is covering his best ground at a furious pace! There’s a group of candidates behind the leader trying to catch up with Armed Service drawing attention to his experience, Brownback Mountain sidestepping, and Gringo Star tripping up every few steps. Far behind there’s Doctor No who seems to be running the other way! The candidates are turning the first corner now and jockeying for position on the War on Terror. Gracie Mansion is still in front with a slight lead over Salt Lake who is running smoothly and Barbara Ann who’s frustratingly trying to catch up. They’ve all got a comfortable lead on the rest of the pack who seem to be going nowhere.

We now head in to the straightaway on values with a down-the-line question on abortion. Brownback Mountain leads the charge of candidates to the right and picks up the pace. Barbara Ann runs softer but more dependably this time and Salt Lake tries shifting toward the middle of the track. Here’s Gracie Mansion still in the lead trying to shift from the left to the right and back again. And Gracie Mansion starts to stumble as he charges in a different direction from the pack! They continue on the values path and in to the corner on stem cell research. Brownback Mountain continues to surge to the right of the track, Barbara Ann running dependably in the middle, and Gracie Mansion trying to regain his early pace. Now it’s Salt Lake in the lead as his steady pace overtakes Gracie Mansion!

Down the stretch they come as bloggers from a left-wing website throw in obstacles to try and trip up the candidates! Salt Lake slows and turns to avoid a poorly-thrown question on hating America. Gracie Mansion leaps over a difficult road block on the difference between Sunnis and Shiites and regains his pace, but still trails Salt Lake! Here’s Doctor No returning to respectability with a boost on abolishing the IRS, but he’s still far behind. Salt Lake continues his smooth stride down the final straightaway and Salt Lake has won the Reagan Derby! It looks like Gracie Mansion will place and Barbara Ann will show. The first leg of the 55^th Run for the White House is over, with many, many more to go and the field certain to change with each event along the way. We thank those who attended tonight and the dozens of viewers who tuned in and watched at home! For Tom Hammond and Bob Costas, I’m Chris Matthews. Good night from Reagan Downs!

For Conservatives it’s Not Difficult Being Green

Once again, the Republican Party faces a time for choosing. These choices on important issues are becoming more numerous as the days tick down toward the 2008 presidential election and also more opportunistic as the party finds itself in the minority in both houses of Congress. We’re already seeing the impact of abortion on the presidential campaign some 18 months before the convention will chose a nominee who may or may not be pro-choice. The Democrats have been hammering home the issue of the environment and thus far have succeeded in defining the issue on their terms. So today, Republicans have a choice as to how to combat the left on the environment and global climate change: they can either continue to claim that global warming is a myth (as the pack of talk radio hosts does) and not offer any solutions of their own or they can offer a genuine alternative to what Czech President Vaclav Klaus has called the greatest threat to human freedom since communism (and he would know!).

If you follow what the Democrats have been saying since Al Gore was putting voters to sleep instead of moviegoers, the Earth is warming at an uncontrollable and unnatural rate because of yuppies driving SUV’s. Therefore, the only possible solution to keep the seas from drowning Florida (which may or may not be such a bad idea) is to drastically change our economy and transform human habits and human nature. Tomorrow’s May Day demonstrations should remind us all how similar left-wing experiments in social engineering turned out. Conservatives are right to denounce proposals like limiting ourselves to one square of toilet paper per trip as draconian and without any basis in reality (as it turned out, it was), but so far they haven’t been offering any alternatives. They have been on this issue as they criticized Democrats three years ago of being on every other issue. They have done nothing but oppose and attack while offering no ideas of their own. This has allowed liberals to characterize Republicans as against the environment which is making it easier for them to advance their radical agenda.

Instead, Republicans can offer a package of common sense policies which balance environmental stewardship with preserving human freedom. There are simple things every one of us can do that can both save the planet and save money that don’t require increasingly ridiculous regulation and bureaucracy. Simply encouraging wiser consumer choices would not only resonate better with the American people than would finger-wagging but would also promote a sound environmental policy without destroying the market economy. If consumers realized, for example, that compact fluorescent light bulbs last longer and use less energy than incandescent bulbs (and cost a lot less in the long run), a ban would not be necessary. Homeowners are already able to receive a tax incentive for replacing their old furnaces with more efficient models. Perhaps most importantly, Republicans need to champion an energy policy that weans Americans off oil instead of taking their cars away from them. Government can cooperate with energy companies instead of penalizing them and come up with alternative sources of fuel that allow Americans to keep the cars they love and depend on.

Conservatives have a real opportunity to redefine the entire debate on climate change itself. Instead of simply denying it exists and dismissing their claims as Chicken Little hysteria, conservatives can fight the intellectual dishonesty of the left and identify what really is at issue: who or what is causing global climate change and which common sense policies should be implemented to best deal with it. To be perfectly clear, the Kyoto Protocol is NOT in any way rooted in common sense. The United States Senate knew how ridiculous the treaty was in 1997 when they voted 95-0 to not merely reject it but to not even consider it. Other socialist schemes such as carbon trading simply do not work at reducing emissions but change who is emitting them. The ozone doesn’t care which smokestack the pollution comes from, but the global left doesn’t realize this either. Conservatives have a real shot in the next year and a half to take on the left on the environment and offer their own solutions. To do otherwise is to invite toilet paper rations.

Remember Gays, Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires!

There have been a lot of images, statements, and actions in the wake of last week’s massacre at Virginia Tech that ought to make your blood boil. Within hours of the horror, the far-left blame machine went in to full speed screaming that President Bush was responsible for the carnage because he refused to push for a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban some three years ago. Somehow it slipped their minds that Seung-Hui Cho used handguns to commit his slaughter, not AK-47’s. They cried out for tougher gun laws claiming gun control might have prevented the rampage. In a spectacular bit of irony, the Mayor of Hiroshima demonstrated how effective Japan’s strict gun laws worked when he was shot to death the day after the Virginia Tech massacre.

They furthered their amendment-per-week attack on the United States Constitution by braying for the repeal of the Second Amendment (by the way, Harry Reid intends to announce the quartering of American troops in red state small towns). The media did their part to infuriate their viewers by sensationalizing the brutal murder of 32 Virginia Tech students and teachers and by showing Cho’s videotaped vitriol. In so doing, they gave Cho a posthumous forum for his rage and provided inspiration to potential adolescent mass murderers across the country. Not to be outdone in making a terrible tragedy that much worse, the one and only Fred Phelps and his followers in the Westboro Baptist Church announced last week that they intended to protest the funerals of these 32 victims.

Phelps blames the slaughter on the university itself for its leniency toward homosexuals (i.e. treating them like human beings) and said those killed last week are in hell for not being “true Christians.” They claim Cho was sent by God on a mission to punish those he killed for their tolerance of homosexuals. Also, they claim Cho is with his victims in hell because he broke God’s commandment not to kill. In case that confused you, Shirley Phelps-Roper cleared it up in an interview with CBS: “he is in hell, but he was also fulfilling the word of God.” I’ll give you another moment to think about that one.

These actions and statements are as bigoted as they are idiotic, and are to be expected from a group made famous for its protest of military funerals and for its websites “GodHatesFags.com” and “GodHatesAmerica.com.” Phelps and his followers (mostly relatives through blood or marriage) believe each soldier’s death is God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of gays, and Phelps even made overtures to Saddam and paid tribute to his regime before the war. They also praise disasters around the world, both natural and artificial, and blame them on gays (AIDS, 9/11, the Asian Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina are just a few recent high-profile examples). They even go after other churches and denominations as well as the likes of Billy Graham for refusing to preach their hatred of homosexuals. They refer to Graham as a “hell-bound false prophet.” Last October they also planned protests for the funerals of those killed in a horrific Amish schoolhouse shooting, armed with signs calling the grade school girls “whores.”

Thankfully, this exercise in shame was narrowly averted by radio talk show host Mike Gallagher who offered the group his entire program this Tuesday in exchange for a canceling of their protests. He made the same invitation in order to stop the protests of the Amish funerals. While he could not disagree with the Wesboro Baptist Church more strongly, Gallagher believes as I do that giving them airtime is preferable for these grieving families as well as the Blacksburg community who can simply turn off their radios. Gallagher is a Catholic and thus a target of Phelps’ message of hate as I would assume I am for being an Episcopalian. The Episcopal Church as you recall recently began ordaining gay clergy.

I personally disagree with this and other policies within the church, but that hardly means that our gay priests and bishops (as well as those who elected and ordained them) are doomed to eternal damnation in hell. If anything, hell should be just as full of homosexuals as it would be liars, thieves, adulterers, idolaters, and the Godless. Even if homosexuality is a sin, Christians are taught to hate the sin but love the sinner. Phelps and his ilk do not follow this belief in forgiveness and I dare say they are the ones who are not “true Christians.” They are to Christianity what Al-Qaeda is to Islam and should be discredited and condemned by Christians and non-Christians alike.

Campus Left Reveals “Obsession” of Their Own

DISCLAIMER: This entry is about radical leftists, particularly those centered on college campuses. Most liberals are peaceful. They are reasonably committed to democracy and freedoms found in the First Amendment and a few like America. A couple of them even told me the United States ought to be able to defend itself when attacked. This entry is not about those two liberals.

Last week the South Campus Gateway Drexel theater played host to “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The movie was surprisingly well-attended and perhaps even more surprisingly co-sponsored by the College Democrats. The film portrayed the threat posed by radical Islam worldwide, often doing so through prominent use of Nazi imagery and comparisons with the warning of history repeating itself. However, the message was not as important in this case as how it was received by the audience Wednesday night. As could be expected on this and other campuses, the screening was attended not just by students interested in learning more about the threat posed by radical Islam or those seeking further discussion of the issue, but by agenda-peddling radicals who are at the very least sympathetic with and at the very worst supportive of these terrorists, their views, and their actions.

Several members of the crowd gathered in the back of the theater talked, snickered, and even laughed out loud as points were being raised during the screening that were not consistent with their worldview. Indeed, their true thoughts on the matter were brought out later during a moderated discussion. These radicals raised the same points and asked the same questions that we’ve frankly come to expect from them: “this wouldn’t be happening if George Bush wasn’t elected President/if America hadn’t invaded Iraq/if Israel didn’t exist!” You the reader should feel insulted that I should have to tell you that terrorist attacks committed by radicalized Muslims- and militant Islam itself- predate the current war in Iraq, the Presidency of George W. Bush, and the establishment of the State of Israel.

Keep in mind we’ve seen this group before. For anyone who did not stay on campus during the war in Lebanon, these agitators were gathered on 15th and High standing in solidarity with Hezbollah and protesting Israel’s “war crimes.” They go above and beyond the “Blame America First” crowd described by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick. They hate Israel just as much as America and shovel just as much blame for terrorism on the “Zionists” as they do on Americans. Mercifully, one troublemaker who was disrespecting the moderator and insulting the intelligence of the audience was kicked out of the theater. What’s more, criticism of the film and its central message was not limited to the left-wing fringe but was even levied by members of the co-sponsoring College Democrats.

“I felt the movie itself was propaganda, and the movie itself shows propaganda as fueling hatred, so it’s hypocritical,” Ingrid Babri, minority affairs director of the Ohio State College Democrats told The Lantern. This should tell you everything you need to know about her party’s stance on terrorism. Indeed, Michael Moore was shown during the film delivering perhaps a far more articulate view from the more mainstream left in this country: “there is no terrorist threat.” The more liberals on the blogs demand their Democrat servants in Congress press for a troop withdrawal tomorrow if not sooner, the more those Democrats continue to undermine the President’s prosecution of the War on Terror (even attempting to ban the use of the phrase), and the more assertive the left becomes in their explicit desire for America to fail in this war, the more apparent it becomes that liberals either don’t know about radical Islamic terrorism and the threat it faces to themselves, to America, and to all of western civilization or they flat out don’t care. In this case, the difference is irrelevant.

Returning to the film itself, “Obsession” describes through interviews from experts on the subject as well as first-hand video from the Arab world the threat Islamic terrorism poses to the world. Indeed, people like Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are quite clear in their goals to wipe out the infidels- the “kafirs” as they’re called- and impose an 11th century-style Islamic state on the world. There were men throughout history who thought as they did, who sought to impose a new way of life on the world and slaughter those who stood in their way. Adolph Hitler was one of them, and was featured prominently in the film. Stalin and Mao also killed millions in their attempts to remake society in their twisted image. Today’s terrorists and their state sponsors are evil men who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be talked to, and cannot be taken lightly. Unfortunately, the quest continues on college campuses like this one to make half the country realize this.

Gullible’s Travels

How many foreign policies does the United States have? I found myself asking that question as Queen Nancy led a delegation to suck up to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The current President of the United States (who traditionally is responsible for crafting American foreign policy) has said he won’t talk to Syria because they are a state sponsor of terrorism (including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad), they continue to dominate the politics of Lebanon, and they are as committed to the destruction of the State of Israel as they ever were. Oh, and they are also supporting and supplying the insurgency currently killing our soldiers in next-door Iraq. The recent trip by Her Majesty, and the show she put on for the benefit of the local media, demonstrates the left’s continuing commitment to the cause of appeasement. Then again, Neville Chamberlain never put on a pair of lederhosen when he met with Herr Hitler.

Since apparently one anti-Semitic terror-sponsoring Middle Eastern dictator wasn’t enough, the Queen’s entourage is now considering a trip to Iran. That’s right, they want to have “a dialogue” with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the same man who said he wants to wipe Israel off the map, the same man who called the Holocaust a myth (and even held a meeting of the world’s leading anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers on the subject), and the same man who is also responsible for supporting and supplying the insurgency currently killing our soldiers in next-door Iraq. Perhaps the most ironic part of this whole proposed business is that one of Queen Nancy’s fellow travelers Tom Lantos (D-CA), who said he would get on a plane and meet with Ahmadinejad today, is himself a Holocaust survivor! Was one Holocaust not enough, Congressman?

In the midst of these Democrats continuing to meet with our enemies (to be perfectly clear, if they’re killing our soldiers they’re our enemies), they still refuse to meet with President Bush so that the current funding crisis can be solved. Queen Nancy has repeatedly refused to meet with the president (of this country anyway) and Harry Reid refused to do so yesterday. So they’ll meet with Bashar al-Assad but they won’t meet with George W. Bush. They’ll go on Syrian television clad in headscarves but they won’t appear on Fox News to debate each other in the lead-up to their own primary. Is it just me or are Democrats treating conservatives the way they ought to be treating terrorists, and vice-versa?

This is the current state of the Democratic Party whose priorities are backwards. If there’s any indication the “Blame America First” crowd ever left the Democratic Party, this should be it. There’s no ass this party won’t kiss, especially if that ass belongs to an America-hating dictator. How many of them has Jimmy Carter sucked up to since he left office? Appeasement is an integral part of the liberal ideology and it’s on display right now with these visits. I can’t imagine anything productive that can emerge from meeting with an enemy committed to your country’s destruction, and I can’t imagine what Queen Nancy might say to Ahmadinejad (other than “what are your orders, sir?”). If they really support our troops and this country as they no longer say they do, they should be meeting and working with the president of this country on how to win the war and continue the fight against terrorism.

If they were serious in their desires for bipartisanship and cooperation with the administration, they wouldn’t be trying to go behind the president’s back trying to forge a competing foreign policy. They wouldn’t be trying to pull the rug from underneath our soldiers and doing so with spinach subsidies. They would instead be meeting with President Bush in order to resolve the current crisis they started over the funding of our troops. Queen Nancy’s visits with terrorist-supporting dictators that President Bush refused to meet because they are terrorist-supporting dictators are undermining this country. Perhaps more importantly, there can be no more destructive policy of an opposition party during wartime than telling your nation’s enemy to pay no attention to that man in the Oval Office.

Do Republicans Need a Bad Godesberg?

Looking at the current crop of Republican presidential candidates one has to wonder what Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino must be thinking. While coaching the Boston Celtics, Pitino gave a rather infamous press conference where he told fans that Celtic greats Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish were “not walking through that door,” and if they did “they’re going to be gray and old.” Much to the dismay of my fellow conservatives, Ronald Reagan is not walking through the door of the Republican National Convention in a year and a half, and Barry Goldwater isn’t walking through that door. In fact, if things continue as they are, it doesn’t look like Newt Gingrich is going to walk through that door either.

The fundamental question then is what kind of party we Republicans really want this election season. Indeed, the factionalism that many were warning about after the 2004 election consumed the party by the time the midterms rolled around last November. Today fiscal conservatives, traditional fundamentalists, moderates, libertarians, and conservatives of the “neo” and “paleo” variety all want something different from the Republican Party. This problem becomes all the more complex when you consider the current frontrunner for the 2008 nomination is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-gun control. On the opposite side of things, the one candidate whose unrelenting social conservatism no one doubts is himself failing to attract any attention at all.

Perhaps then it would be easier for Republicans to simply abandon the baggage of being an explicitly anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage party supposedly held hostage by the Christian Right. It is indeed possible to defend traditional American values without running on issues that might get 40% support on a good day. Requiring able-bodied welfare recipients to work, putting America’s interests before those of an international organization, and requiring all American citizens to learn English are just a few issues on which at least seven in ten Americans agree. I dare say most Americans are sick and tired of hearing about abortion and gay marriage. I know I am. In fact, I personally am calling upon my readers to give the first Republican candidate who mentions “defending traditional marriage” a swift kick to the gonads.

In 1959 at the Bad Godesberg Conference, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, plagued by a series of defeats at the ballot box, finally abandoned the explicitly Marxist elements of its platform that had scared and driven away potential voters for so many years. What resulted was a moderate party of the center-left that won four out of the next six German elections. In 1995, Tony Blair brought the Labour Party to the center kicking and screaming by re-writing Clause IV of the party constitution which had pledged to nationalize the means of production. The rest, as they say, is history, with Blair and "New Labour" in the middle of an unprecedented third term in office.

The lessons of these shifts in party policy show that by ditching divisive elements of the platform a party can still win elections and stay connected with key groups on more important issues. In 2006, the Republicans overemphasized abortion and gay marriage out of desperation since it had nowhere else to turn and nothing else on which to run. The result was clear enough with Karl Rove’s get-out-the-vote strategy falling short and moderate voters fleeing to the Democrats. Overemphasizing divisive social issues elected Bill Clinton twice (I still don’t know what we were thinking when Pat Robertson was made a keynote speaker at the ’92 Convention) and, of course, Queen Nancy. With that in mind, perhaps it would be best to forget about banging the abortion and gay marriage drums for a while and recommit the Republican Party to fiscal responsibility, a leaner federal government, a coherent and common sense immigration strategy, and a redoubling of our effort to win the war against radical Islam. Truly these are issues that can unite the party and carry us to victory.

Criminalizing Conservatism

We all knew this would happen. When Democrats took Congress, we knew they would begin relentlessly investigating prominent conservatives and Republicans on charges of . . . being prominent conservatives and Republicans! The most recent of these witch hunts involves high-ranking members of the Bush administration being compelled to testify before Congress (in what is tentatively being called the House Pro-American Activities Committee) so that Democrats can trick them in to committing perjury. Rumor even has it that Senator Chuck Schumer has a list of 57 Republicans in the Justice Department! If Democrats went after Al Qaeda as furiously as they are Republicans, there would be no terrorism anywhere in the world.

Their first target was Tom DeLay, who was officially charged in Texas for . . . well, that doesn’t matter, he’s Tom DeLay! The DNC couldn’t be more pleased with the district attorney if they chose him themselves. Ronnie Earle, a staunch Democrat with a history of persecuting Republicans who had dared win elections in Texas (like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison) actually attended a Democrat fundraiser promising to get DeLay. He made good on his promise by shopping for a grand jury that would bring an indictment against him (I guess the eighth time is a charm). In the meantime, rather than risk attracting negative attention to himself and his party, DeLay resigned his House seat, dropped out of the race for his own re-election, and moved to Virginia. In an unprecedented and ironic twist of American democracy, DeLay was actually forced by a federal judge to stay in the race and relegate the GOP’s replacement to write-in status, thus giving the seat to the Democrats on a silver platter.

Next on the Democrats’ hitlist was Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney. Since they couldn’t actually prove in a court of law his boss was Satan incarnate, Democrats charged Libby with perjury because he couldn’t remember who told him about the wife of a man with an overactive fantasy life. Even when it was revealed that Richard Armitage was the one who outed Valerie Plame, the investigation continued as zealous as ever. They even found a sympathetic jury to convict him. Perhaps “sympathetic” is the wrong word, as jury members made statements after the verdict wondering why Rove, Cheney, and Bush weren’t on trial instead.

Now, perhaps finally concluding their seven-year odyssey for “George Bush’s Watergate,” they’re going after the Department of Justice because the President fired a few federal prosecutors who serve at the pleasure of the President anyway. Never mind that President Clinton fired all 93 prosecutors so he could provide enough cover to dismiss a single prosecutor in Chicago who was investigating the Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee for corruption. Democrats already succeeded in springing their perjury trap on Libby, now they’re setting it for Rove, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales, and God- sorry, DARWIN- knows who else.

There is no merit behind whatever Democrats are alleging and they even admit no laws have been broken and that the President is within his power to remove federal officials (unless they want to bring the unconstitutional Tenure of Office Act out of mothballs). The sad and simple truth is all their actions are driven by nothing more than an unrelenting quest for vengeance. They’re desperate to get back at President Bush for Iraq, they haven’t forgotten what they imagine happened in Florida almost seven years ago, and they’ll never get over the impeachment of President Clinton. Yes, it seems that at long last, liberals have no sense of decency.