Friday, November 10, 2006

My Name is Ralph.....

And I am a recovering Republican enabler.

I have read many commentators following the Democrat’s takeover of congress, but Rush comes closest to expressing my feelings. He said that he feels liberated.

Now I'm liberated from having to constantly come in here every day and try to buck up a bunch of people who don't deserve it, to try to carry the water and make excuses for people who don't deserve it. I did not want to sit here and participate, willingly, in the victory of the libs, in the victory of the Democrat Party by sabotaging my own. But now with what has happened yesterday and today, it is an entirely liberating thing.


I can relate. How many times in the past year alone have I been furious with the failure of my party to rule. It is criminal that a Republican senate could not approve more conservative judges. I don’t claim to understand Bill Frist but he clearly had no interest in disciplining his troops and pushing the Republican agenda. The fact that he could imagine a future as a Presidential candidate is further evidence that the world looks different inside the beltway. I felt bad about hating Frist, helpless about doing anything to change him, and demeaned about giving an impression of confidence and support for his leadership when I am frustrated and angry.

I seethed with every email from Senator Dole asking for money to shore up floundering RINO Lincoln Chaffee in his battle to win the primary against a real republican and then, to add further insult, the RNSC threw even more money down a rat hole trying to get him re-elected.

I bit my tongue when the President never vetoed any of the over-the-top spending bills or even attempted to draw a line in the sand over anything. Then he established a huge new entitlement which didn’t even earn him anyone’s respect and wanted to give away citizenship to invaders.

The house frittered away their majority on non-essentials and only the threat of voter revolt stirred them to action on illegal immigration before they abandoned their posts to seek re-election. The speaker was more motivated to protect a corrupt Democrat than to eliminating pork. Unfortunately, he survived the massacre. But at least he has withdrawn from consideration.

Now all I have left to defend is the President. I never trusted his conservatism and so it is difficult to maintain that he disappointed me. I have, however, always trusted his leadership on defense. Now, the only issue I expect him to fight the Democrats about is the war. I always feared that he was his father’s son. Bush1 got rolled on taxes. Will Bush2 get rolled on the war?

For years I have carried the burden of justifying the Republican quislings in Congress. I am known to my friends as a Republican and therefore the traitors are mine. I am forced to somehow rationalize their betrayal of the voters that elected them as behavior which, in the long run, will accomplish the Republican mission. This rationalization is tiring and demoralizing and now, with the Democrat triumph, I have a whole new perspective. The Republicans I trusted to support my conservative principles abandoned me. They still claim the Republican Party and claim to represent the principles which I thought I shared with them. If they are the Republican party then I am not a Republican.

After their betrayal, they can no longer count on my automatic support. I demand accomplishment first. I don’t know how they can manage this as minority party but it’s no longer my problem. I am not claiming them until I see something worth claiming.

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