Fallout and First Responders

I left a fairly large footprint on the Margolis sites today....

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Back to work?

This is not the time to get angry nor is it the time to despair. It is time, for the present, to work around The Seven while laying our plans to increase the GOP majority in the Senate in 2006 in order that The Seven shall be rendered powerless to engage in folly.

Sorry, Mark, but whizzing into the wind twice as hard just gets you twice as wet.

To quote myself from seven hours ago:

What this clinches for me is the pointlessness of supporting and voting for the GOP. Matt Margolis [or you, Mark] can prattle on to the point of asphyxiation about "giving till it hurts" and "the answer to this is to elect even more Republicans," and he'll still miss (or deliberately ignore) this core reality: There's no such thing as electing "enough" Republicans because there will always be just enough RINOs to negate the remainder. Look at the seven Pachyderms who conspired in ripping GDub's [manhood clean offin' his carcass] (McCain, DeWine, Snowe, Warner, Graham, Collins, Chafee) - only three of them (Snowe, Collins, Chafee) are generally considered "conventional" RINOs, and of the remainder only McCain is an established "maverick." Yet to their number we now have to add Mike DeWine and Lindsey Graham, both fairly new additions to the GOP Senate caucus. And that doesn't include other RINOs of recent vintage like Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich, and "iconoclasts" like "Snarlin' Arlen" Specter.

You could conceivably get a hundred Republicans elected to the Senate, and you'd still have fifty-one go native and keep pulling stunts like this. It just isn't arguable anymore.

You have to remember your target audience, Mark. We've been told for the past two election cycles that if we just elect more Republicans, the President can finally get his judges through. And the base responded in unprecedented levels of volunteerism and contributions and voter turnout. We re-elected Bush and gave him double-digit-margin majorities to back him up.
And what do we have to show for it? This "deal."

Think of it this way (because you know Liddy Dole will have to): we've picked up six senate seats the past two elections, and got sold down the river by seven RINOs, one of whom (Lindsey Graham) was elected just two and a half years ago.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

This is as bad as "read my lips," Mark. For a lot of conservatives, there isn't going to be a third time.

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I understand the anger.

No, I don't think you do.

and I'm ready to write checks for primary challengers to The Seven.

What would be the point? The problem, as I've pointed out, goes much deeper than that.

but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face...the GOP is the Party of conservatism, and I'm not going to abandon it.

Even after it's abandoned you?

Again, sorry Mark, but even a Lamborghini isn't worth very much if it breaks down six blocks from the dealership.

We have to work around these RINO's...

How are "we" going to do that absent the very sort of hardball tactics that the leadership is so loathe to employ? Will Frist publicly call out McCain and the others? Use his clout to make sure that they get no more pork until they knuckle under? Goodness, how stupid was it to finish the highway bill first?

No, Mark, the only way to have held the Gang of Seven in line was to threaten them, and this Fristy would not do. How much less will he belatedly try to punish them after the fact, when they're already in the catbird seat from which they evicted him?

So, lets say we've got 45 conservatives in the Senate...

You can say it; doesn't make it so. And I'd argue that the ideological attrition rate of the upper chamber will overwhelm our ability to elect more right-wingers.

...this is an improvement over 20 years ago when we had about 25 conservatives.

You're really reaching with that one, Mark.

You do realize, don't you, that that makes this latest sell-out all the more appalling?

Remember, also, that the Democratic Seven indicate that some Donk's are
under threat as well.

Um, no, they're not.

what this did, for Democrats, was get Red State Democrats up for re-election in 2006 off the hook for a bit...but we can and will get them back on the hook.

LOL! Who's gonna do that, Mark? Fristman and his League of Comitous Gentlemen? Good Lord, they're not even in Harry Reid's league. Haven't you figured this out yet?

Round one went to McCain and his fellow dimwits.

If they're "dimwits," what does that say about Bill Frist (and Jon Kyl, and Mitch McConnell, and George Allen, and every other Pachyderm that never saw this coming)?

Round two fast approaches with an upcoming Supreme Court nomination or two
(or even three).

Round two is already over with the unconditional pledge to vote against the Byrd Option for the remainder of this Congress, Mark. The seven "dimwits" have a vested interest in keeping that pledge. And they obviously don't give a frog's fat leg what we in the grassroots think, because we've been barraging their offices with phone calls, email, and snailmail about it for the past two or three months.

The President is not about to let McCain and his cohorts dictate whom he nominates for the SC.

The President will have no say in the matter. He doesn't make those choices anymore - the Democrat-RINO majority does.

Take a look at Bush's comments today. Does that sound like a man who's going to pour what political capital he has left into kamikaze runs?

but not all Democrats will be able to sustain a filibuster of a Bush SC nominee...and neither will all seven GOPers in this deal.

It only takes forty-one, Mark. The New Majority has fifty-two votes. You do the math.

Be angry, but direct your anger at The Seven and the Democratic Party.

Why be angry at the Dems? I expect extremist outrages from them. And while anger at the Gang of Seven is well-earned, I, for one, have come to expect their treachery as well.

It's the roaring fecklessness of a leadership that doesn't know how to lead that makes debacles like this possible. And the only way to send a message to that leadership is by withdrawing any and all support until they start fulfilling the responsibilities with which they were entrusted six months ago.

A Senate of 48 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 7 RINOs is functionally indistinguishable from a Senate of 52 Democrats and 48 Republicans. If the status quo can't do any better than this, it might as well be made official.

I may be bailing out water on the Titanic, but the lifeboats only lead to the SS Hillary.

That ship is coming regardless, and we had nobody to stop it even before last night.

I'm sticking with the 45 in the Senate and the 220+ in the House who do the good, conservative things.

You're not thinking beyond the end of your nose, Mark. This was a betrayal, just like "read my lips" was fifteen years ago. You can sit there and mouth all the platitudes you want about why we shouldn't look at it that way, we shouldn't take it out on the party, we should set it aside, we shouldn't overreact, etc., but it doesn't change the fact that that is how the base, by and large, is going to react.

After 2006, maybe those numbers drop to 40 conservatives in the Senate and 200 in the House. What do you do then? Start blaming those of us who expect accountability from those we elect? Down that road is found the same mindset that the McCain Mutineers embraced twenty-four hours ago. Is that where you want to go? No, thanks.

Actions have consequences, Mark. You can't wish them away because they're unpleasant, any more than King Kanute could deny the sea.

It is only kicked down the road...

Where it'll yield the exact same result. If the majority was going to put an end to this nonsense, this was its best shot; thanks to the Gang of Seven, we won't get another one anywhere close to it.

these Seven are not a monolithic group who will never back down...backing down is what they do for a living.

TO THE DEMOCRATS, yes. That's the whole point. Haven't you been paying attention?

We'll get them, at least one, to back down in future.

Bull. They fear the Democrats far more than they ever will their own leadership. And with good reason.

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Reactions To Last Night's "Compromise"

[W]hat you have to remember, Scar, is that this "deal" involves nobody but the fourteen senators who signed onto it. Cornyn or Grassley or Hutchinson don't have to "buy" it because they've been rendered irrelevant to the process, along with the other 44 Republican non-signatories and their thumb-up-his-ass doofus of a leader. The only ones who now are relevant are the 45-member minority caucus plus the Gang of Seven - aka "The New Majority."

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More Thoughts On The "Compromise"


Why are you so zeroed in on the "social conservative evangelical base," Mad? Especially if they're only "twelve percent" of the population?

How about thinking about this from their point of view: the GOP actively, slavishly courts them, begs for their votes, and they supply them two election cycles running, and this is what they get for it.

Not exactly the ideal way to hold a coalition together.

Threatening to "sit it out"... then why should your demands be considered anymore?

Because the GOP can't win without them, which is why they were pursued in the first place.

I think you can count on a lot of the base staying home eighteen months from now. Something supposed "leaders" like Bill Frist should have kept in mind before letting his "mavericks" freelance away his election mandate for three magic beans.

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I won't stay home come Election Day, but my money and support will go to true GOP Candidates only, not the RNC, NRSC, NRCC, or any other Feingold/McCain
enabled 527.

How can you know which is a "true" GOP candidate, BE? Isn't that what we thought of Lindsey Graham? Mike DeWine? Didn't Chuck Hagel and even John McCain fit that description once upon a time?

That's why I say that continuing to invest one's hopes in the Republican Party is a fool's errand. However big we can grow this majority, always contained within will be the seeds of its own fall.

And after what happened yesterday, it sure as hell isn't gonna be getting any bigger any time soon.

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Why can't you prioritize all the good work the President and the military have done towards insuring that there is not another 9/11?

What has that to do with what happened in the Senate yesterday?

I am a pro-life Catholic who is a military dependent and I think perhaps there should be a draft juust to get WASP Republicans to appreciate the military subset.

Now you sound like Charlie Rangel.

If you are in a life boat that is kind of flimsy and you are dropping blood in the water to stir the sharks into a frenzy and with your last bit of strength you are promising to become dead weight then why shouldn't the Republicans throw you overboard because the sharks [Democrats] are only encouraged to frenzy all the more.

I think you are vastly misidentifying which individuals constitute "dead weight."

Republicans could tack to the center to get the traditionally more liberal vote on social issues of the growing Catholic vote.

And lose the traditionally more conservative vote on social issues in the process, without realizing the gains you claim such a move would generate. Which is what always happens when the "Nixon strategy" is employed.

Besides, the President got a majority of Catholic votes last year without following this long-discredited advice.

But I am willing to give up some of my conservative social values in order to elect the party that is pro-military.

That's a false choice, Mad.

If Social Conservatives with their not one more dime campaign can so cavalierly toss the good things that Republicans have done toward the war effort and withdraw their support over something that is relatively minor than I almost think that is worse than what the anti-war Democrats have done.

Reclaiming the judiciary for constitutionalism is not "relatively minor," it is crucial if we are to remain even the quasi-republic we are today. It has also been the leading domestic issue and selling point to the GOP base the last two election cycles. If electing all these Pachyderms yields us fratricidal swindles like the one yesterday, what makes you think those same Pachyderms will be any more trustworthy on backing the military?

C'mon, Mad, "moderates" are poll-watchers extraordinare; if the public at large can be turned against the GWOT, what makes you think RINOs won't head for the peacenik tallgrass as fast as their fat, little legs can carry them?

A conservative crack up is far more dangerous to the continuing war effort than anything the Democrats could do-unless conservatives give them that power.

The Gang of Seven already "handed them that power." And that, I fear, is just the beginning of the outrages to come.

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How exactly did Frist "let" these showboating RINOs stab him in the back, HS?

Eric Ueland, [Bill Frist's] chief of staff, said the leader “has not made this a test of party loyalty,” nor has he offered legislative or campaign favors to keep wavering Republicans in line. “There are times and places where those tools might be appropriate,” Ueland said. “But on an issue that so directly goes to the core responsibilities of the United States Senate, none of those tools are appropriately applicable.”….

Warner, Collins and Specter said they have not been threatened, and Ueland said of the idea, “Not only has it not happened, it’s a completely silly idea hatched by the same conspiracists” who believe in UFOs.

On such a crucial vote, would Tom Daschle have let his caucus scatter like dandelion seeds on the wind? Would George Mitchell? Lyndon Johnson? Mark Mansfield? Any of the strong Dem majority leaders of the past?

Republicans have never had a strong majority leader. Not Howard Baker, not Bob Dole, not Trent Lott, and not Bill Frist. And that's a large dollop of why Senate Republicans, despite spending fifteen of the past twenty-five years in the majority, still do not control that chamber.

Fristy spent weeks telling the public that this was about the principle of every nominee getting and up-or-down vote. Apparently, he really believed that virtue would be its own reward, and didn't back up that carrot with some serious sticks to deter the freelancing that did him in.

Because he left so much to chance, he was also left holding the bag, trying to put a good face on the total evisceration of that lofty principle by the hardball politics he squeamishly eschewed.

If there's a bright side, I suppose it's that there's little chance that Frist could secretly have been in on this "deal," because it's inconceivable that any public figure would go so far out of his own way to make himself look that foolish.

The dark cloud is that that means he really is that foolish. His only saving grace for keeping his leadership post is that none of his non-RINO colleagues appear to be any less hapless.

And that's definitely not a good thing.

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So you think because he didn't demand that they do it/threaten them or grease palms, he is a piss poor leader?

The result speaks for itself, VE.

I actually admire his leadership on the matter. He took a stand on principle. Proposed a fair and logical compromise in the face of unprecedented circumstances. And allowed the chips to fall where they may.

He got his head handed to him. Something that need not have happened had he exercised the "leadership" you imagine him to somehow possess.

Part of leadership is knowing when to crack the whip, VE. Frist is so weak not even his own caucus respects him.

He's a total failure. If that's something that you can admire, then that's one fewer thing that you and I have in common.

This only places the responsibility even further on the 7 traitors.

They were the Democrats' sword. Frist didn't have to stand there and let himself - and the President - get impaled.

This is the political equivalent of gang warfare, VE. Until we get leaders who understand that and are willing to fight accordingly, we won't stand a chance.

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Bush Pleased With Compromise?

I still dont know why everyone is having a pink-panty meltdown over this. We are going to start getting our judges in and when the dems start blocking them again- our 7 morons will see that they have been duped.

Why would the scales fall off of their eyes then when the past four and a half years of obstructionism didn't make a dent in them?

The McCain Mutineers didn't cut this "deal" to get any of Bush's judges through; they did it to please the Democrats by unilaterally foreswearing the Byrd Option and send a message to Bill Frist and George Bush that THEY now hold all the cards. Why else would the President have sounded so obsequious today? He knows they have him by the shorthairs.

Moreover, the only way that the Gang of Seven can continue to wield this usurped power is by allying themselves with the Democrats. Consequently, when the Dems resume their filibustering, do you really think that the RINOs are suddenly going to see the light? Indeed, if some or all of them (other than McCain, of course) have been "duped," that would argue for them continuing to side with the Dems to save face.

These "morons" seized their influence by turning against their own party. Generally speaking, history shows that penitant turncoats don't usually enjoy life very much thereafter.

If they dont change their minds after obviously being suckered, kick them out of the party.

Good luck. It would be easier to rehabilitate them.

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The Names of the Traitors

The operative word in this whole mess is "accountability."

Democrats have lost the last two election cycles (three if you count Bush winning in 2000). Elections are about accountability to the electorate, where sovereignty is supposed to reside. The losers are supposed to respect the results and try to bounce back in the next cycle.

But since 2000 Dems have refused to do that. They have done everything in their power to escape accountablity for their repeated defeats. That has placed an added responsibility upon that Republican majority to enforce the accountability by exercising the power with which the voters entrusted them.

Last night seven Senate Republicans, on forcible behalf of the other forty-eight, shirked this responsibility. As a result they made themselves accessories to a usurpation that should be seen for what it is: a constitutional crisis. Something similar was what was at stake in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson back in 1868. Johnson - and the Constitution - escaped by a single vote.

This time the Constitution and the Executive Branch weren't so lucky. The appointment power that the Constitution clearly gives to the Executive has been ripped away and reallocated to the Senate, which will now dictate to the president (when s/he is a Republican) who s/he will select to the federal bench and his/her own administration.

And there wasn't even a vote - just a corrupt, back-room deal that undermined the rest of their caucus, their leadership, their president, and the expressed will of the majority of the American electorate.

And Robert Byrd had the untrammeled audacity to crow that "the Republic has been saved."

Without accountability, "rule by consent of the governed" cannot function. This "deal" has hammered one more nail in its coffin.