Wimps and Pansies

Looking more like a weathered toad than ever, Newt Gingrich keeps popping up on the Tube to speak for the Republican Party. Why Newt is the networks’ go-to Conservative is beyond me. Newt had his chance to fashion the GOP in his own bloated image and bombed. To be fair to old Newt however, I don’t understand why James Carville turns up regularly on Good Morning America, since Carville hasn’t been associated with a winning political campaign in years. I guess when it comes to filling Tube time, name recognition and availability count more than recent accomplishments.

The Republican Party is sucking the tailpipe of political failure. Senator Arlen Specter saw the writing on the levy wall and leapt to the other side, and ever since his former colleagues have cried “foul” and “danger” and “socialism is here.” The Republicans are writhing about like a headless gopher snake, fresh out of ideas, reduced to whining about “one-party” rule and the “expansion” of government. Unable to grasp the grim reality wrought by their own excesses, the Republicans sing their discredited hymn about small government and low taxes to a dwindling audience of true believers.

It wasn’t that long ago that Karl Rove was hailed as a genius, and why not? Back in 2000, the Conservative wing of the Republican Party had eclipsed every moderate influence in the GOP and controlled the White House, Congress, and key positions in the Judiciary. Dick Cheney ridiculed Democrats as pansies and appeasers; Tom DeLay ate Democrats for breakfast; even a weenie like Dennis Hastert gave Democrats the bum’s rush. As frightening as the possibility was, Rove’s vision of a permanent Republican majority appeared plausible.

The funny thing is that I don’t remember many Republicans warning about the dangers of one-party rule when their solitary hand held the tiller. And there’s the rub. Now that the leather loafer is on the other foot, the Republicans are beside themselves with worry about the future of our dear Republic. The fact that the Democrats might have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate to go with their majority in the House has Rush Limbaugh jonesing for Oxycontin, Sean Hannity dreaming of the Apocalypse, and Glenn Beck pissing down his own leg.

All the Big Three of the Wacky Right can do is make wild claims about the imminent socialist takeover led by President Obama (reality: Obama is no socialist); the imminent loss of the sacred right to bear automatic weapons; and the imminent collapse of America as a Christian nation (reality: We’re not all that Christian). According to the fear mongers from Fox News, Obama is going to do all that, and much more.

The Republicans talk about strength and power and self-reliance and the sanctity of individual liberty, but when it comes right down to it most Republicans are wimps. The GOP is out of intellectual and moral fuel and Republicans know it. All the GOP can do is hope the Democrats OD on hubris-flavored KoolAid and screw up as monumentally as the Republicans did when they had a monopoly on political power.