Peggy Noonan today.

By The Armorer on May 16, 2008 | | Comments (14)

From the WSJ:

The Bush White House, faced with the series of losses from 2005 through '08, has long claimed the problem is Republicans on the Hill and running for office. They have scandals, bad personalities, don't stand for anything. That's why Republicans are losing: because they're losers.

All true enough!

But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. "Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is "an airplane flying right into a mountain." Analyses of its predicament reflect an "investment in the Bush presidency," but "the public has just moved so far past that." "Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis." Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: "He can't articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it." The party, said Mr. Davis, must admit its predicament, act independently of the White House, and force Democrats to define themselves. "They should have some ownership for what's going on. They control the budget. They pay no price. . . . Obama has all happy talk, but it's from 30,000 feet. Energy, immigration, what is he gonna do?"

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party's fortunes from the president's. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn't be left with a ruined "brand," as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

Heh. The President didn't squander the "hard-built paternity" of the last 40 years. The party just got complacent and lost their compass. They fell in love with the job, and failed to understand - it isn't *supposed* to be a job. It's a privilege, not an entitlement. Just as the Dems did when they got booted in the 90's. Just like Jim Ryun did when he got booted in 2006.

"We can't let them take our issues" (not quoting Peggy, just the person she's quoting) - well, *if* they'll vote the way we want on those issues, as Nancy Boyda has on many, but certainly not all, of mine - then, what's so bad about that? I thought getting the *issue* dealt with was the goal.

Silly me.

The Republicans have earned what they're about to receive.

But the reality is - it's about the judges. That's where the battles are lost and won, mostly, anymore - since the Congress has floundered from the intent of the Founders, meekly surrendering their authority to the Executive and the Judicial branches, in exchange for electoral butt-coverage to keep jobs that were never intended to be a living, and We, the People, let them get away with it... and the Progressives, seeing that they can't convince the great unwashed on the issues, but *can* seduce the Judiciary to advance their agenda... Mind you, I don't mind it when the Judges protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority - but I wish they'd be a lot less prescriptive at times, and just send the issues back to the legislatures for the answer - as I believe the Founders intended.

So, clothes-pin on my nose or not, especially since I think the Republicans are in serious danger of getting attrited in the Senate to the point of not being able to filibuster, it looks like the only place I can work to keep government checked is by voting for McCain.

Heh. The only thing more dangerous to liberty and prosperity than a veto/filibuster-proof Congress controlled by Republicans with a Republican President... is the Democrat-controlled equivalent.

But wait! When *Our Side* (whatever your side is) has total control, then we'll build Paradise!

No. Not true. What would happen is you would all be on the Bullet Train to Abilene.

And that is a recipe for disaster.

Governance, given it's power, should be hard, hard, work in infertile fields.

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14 Comments

By JimC on May 16, 2008 10:44 AM
Well said wise one.
 
By Cannoneer No. 4 on May 16, 2008 10:55 AM
Give up on the idea of political parties. Build Coalitions of the Like-minded instead. Become a non-hiearchical, entrepreneurial, distributed swarm of attacking Irregular Culture Warriors, making life miserable for Cultural Marxists, and multi-culti carbon dispensationalist tranzies while providing aid and comfort to American Exceptionalists, rugged individualists, Constitutionalists, and the rest of the bitter clingers who have turned their backs on the Republican party but yet cannot abide what the Democrat Party has become. Don’t vote for incumbents. Period.
 
By Cannoneer No. 4 on May 16, 2008 11:01 AM
Give up on the idea of political parties. Build Coalitions of the Like-minded instead. Become a non-hiearchical, entrepreneurial, distributed swarm of attacking Irregular Culture Warriors, making life miserable for Cultural Marxists, and multi-culti carbon dispensationalist tranzies while providing aid and comfort to American Exceptionalists, rugged individualists, Constitutionalists, and the rest of the bitter clingers who have turned their backs on the Republican party but yet cannot abide what the Democrat Party has become. Don’t vote for incumbents. Period.
 
By BillT on May 16, 2008 11:02 AM
But my very favorite incumbent is a rugged Constitutionalist! And she's *cute*... Wish she was running for Mayor instead of Town Council.
 
By Mike Lehnherr on May 16, 2008 11:03 AM
"and Jesus said, 'will you leave me also." Simon Peter said, 'Lord, where shall we go? You alone have words of life."
The Republican Party has lost its center. When given the opportunity to cling to words of life, we chose to leave, because it was too hard and too unpopular to stay and fight. We won't win another election in the next 20 years - Democrats will simply lose them. We have gone from victories being won on executable platforms to the nation growing tired of the incumbent and giving the other guys a turn. Not very encouraging. ML
 
By R Jewell on May 16, 2008 12:53 PM
Yesterday, the House passed new GI Bill legislation that was supported by virtually every Veterans organization in the country. Nancy Boyda, John's Rep (ACU rating 28.00), voted Yea Mike Pence, my Rep(ACU rating 99.43) voted Nay I wonder if Kansas would be interested in trading Rep Boyda for Rep Pence....and a Vice Presidential Candidate to be named later? What frosts me is that I sat across the breakfast table on 1 April when Rep Pence promised his support........and I paid for the freaking breakfast......oh well, so much for my career as a lobyist.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 16, 2008 2:56 PM
Well, if Nancy wins the district this time around (I don't see Ryun unseating her, thus far) with more than 1% of margin, we'll see if she holds true to her record thus far.
 
By KCSteve on May 16, 2008 3:09 PM
This is why I'd dearly love the following Constitutional Amendment: "No member of the Federal Government, except the President and Vice-President, shall serve two consequitive terms in the same office. This Amendment places no further restrictions on term of service." If someone's good enough they'll get the job back when the person who replaced them's term expires.
 
By fdcol63 on May 16, 2008 3:22 PM
" ... Give up on the idea of political parties. Build Coalitions of the Like-minded instead. ..."
Do you know what happens when you do this? You just get a bunch of smaller, single issue and special interest groups and their candidates - or really, just more and smaller parties narrowly focused on specific interests and issues. And with these multiple, smaller parties without the clout of larger national party organizations, you wind up with the need to build coalitions to gain majorities to pass or block legislation. These multiparty & coalition governments are inherently weak and unstable, especially where you have proportional representation electoral systems. We know this from watching multiparty, coalition governments in Europe like Italy, Belgium, Finald, France, and others. I think our system has proved to be much more stable. We may grumble from time to time when we don't feel that either of the 2 national parties is really representing our interests, but basically the political pendulum stays somewhere in the middle because of the greater numbers of people who are more "moderate" and "independent", and cross over to vote for the other national party in major elections whenever the other party pulls too far to one side. However, these people in the middle are usually less politically active than the more partisan ideologues on either side, usually fat and happy and not interested in being active in political issues. This is why, IMHO, the concept of a strong 3rd party composed of these voters is doomed from the start. We usually only see a strong 3rd party when we see a major realignment, as we did when the Whigs died out and was supplanted by the Republican Party. These are usually temporary, thank goodness. Why? Because as we see each time we have a strong 3rd party candidate, as in 1992 with Perot and with Nader in 2000, the vote of the electorate usually gets divided so much that no candidate gets a simple majority of the vote. Without this simple majority, there isn't a "national consensus", and these candidates usually wind up being very weak and ineffective. This may be okay in some instances, under the philosophy that a weak leader or government can't intrude too much, but at other times it can render a them too weak to do what's necessary when crises occur or when legislation and action is sorely needed. It may be time to have a realignment, but we are better with 2 strong national parties. In a country of 300 million with such a diverse and varied electorate, it's really the only way to aggregate, assimilate, and articulate the interests of this large polity. No single party or coalition is going to satisfy each of the interests and goals of an individual, and there will be times when we find ourselves in conflict with specific items in a party platform. But by and large, I think most of us find that we identify and associate ourselves with the core ideology of one party or the other. Oh sure, there are exceptions to every rule, and some people are more neutral than others. But I think most of us either believe in Big Governnment or Individual Responsibility; Capitalism or Socialism; American Exceptionalism or We're Just Another Country; American Sovereignty/Military Strength or Subjugation to the UN Now!; America is generally a force for good or America is the root of the world's problems; etc etc. Personally, I think this is because of "Right Brain vs Left Brain" dominance in thought processing, which I think heavily influences our core political beliefs, and the fact that these 2 national parties mirror and oppose each other on most of these major issues, although because of the need to compromise there's often very little daylight between the actual policies that are implemented. Overall, even though it's imperfect and there's always room for improvement, I think our system has served us well for more than 200 years.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 16, 2008 3:27 PM
Which is why I don't vote the 3rd Party candidate, despite the carp I get from my old buddy Kevin, the Libertarian.
 
By J.M. Heinrichs on May 16, 2008 4:16 PM
Bring back Bobby Walpole! Cheers
 
By Hunter on May 16, 2008 5:18 PM
"...bullet train to Abilene." John, I've been trying to explain the bus to people for years and have not been able to find those darn videos anywhere. Any suggestions? Hunter
 
By Cannoneer No. 4 on May 16, 2008 6:01 PM
Collectivism, Cultural Marxism, Transnational Progressivism, Post-Modernism, and Radical Environmentalism are welcomed much more warmly in one major party than in the other. The same could once be said for Patriotism, Constitutionalism, Federalism and Capitalism. One party has many members who believe that OUR country is a force for good in the world, and is worth defending, and honors our defenders. These members are kept on the plantation through fear of the party that has many members who believe that OUR country is the focus of evil in the modern world, that we deserve it when OUR cities are attacked and OUR countrymen are killed, and support our troops when they shoot their officers. Vote for whoever scares you least, or brings you the most bacon, or hands out free cigarettes, or drives you to the polls, or whatever your personal criteria is. Your vote is less important than your money, time and commitment, which I would encourage you to be very stingy with, unless they EARN it. I used to be a conservative. I consider myself Patriotic. I believe in American Exceptionalism. I think Political Correctness/Cultural Marxism and White Liberal Guilt and Postmodernism and Transnational Progressivism and Anthropomorphic Global Warming are all Bravo Sierra. That makes me an enemy of the Left. Conservatives fight political warfare like the Maginot Line fought panzers. Conservatives think they've succeeded when they slow the rate of descent in the downward spiral but they rarely climb. Somebody has to fight the Culture War and the Cold Civil War. Instead of being unenthusiastic, grudging, blackmailed supporters of lesser evils, why not work on becoming Strategic Citizens? What we are talking about is creating a movement in which people are inspired by the ideals and a vision of the American Experiment to take action on their own, independent of any centralized control and guided by their ideals and values. The specific kinds of non-violent action available to us are many and varied. Any type of media, technology, activism, rhetorical technique and organizational form is there in the tool box. What I would like to see is a proliferation of dozens perhaps hundreds of organizations all promoting pro-liberty, pro-American ideals and working to counter the postmodernist left and Islamic fundamentalism.
 
By Grim on May 17, 2008 5:07 PM
"They fell in love with the job, and failed to understand - it isn't *supposed* to be a job." A mission for a while, and then go home? That much Noonan was right about. They never go home. The fat is too thick. Almost never. Zell Miller did.