Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The Elephant's Fall

Bull Moose comments on the moral collapse of the GOP:

The Moose witnessed the Republican Revolution of '94. He remembers the fervent calls for reform and renewal. Now, the House GOP is rightly staring into the abyss. The Foley revelation is the latest representation of the perversion of power.

It took the Republicans a little more than a decade to achieve what forty years of Democratic rule accomplished - the institutionalization of corruption. The major difference is that the elephant masqueraded as a reformist, moral revolutionary. Hypocrisy is truly the tribute vice pays to virtue. These guys give Elmer Gantry a bad name.

How can fiscal conservatives continue to endorse Republican rule? How can social conservatives embrace a House leadership that neglected to expel a child predator from their ranks? How can reformists applaud the Abramoff Congress?

Indeed. I for one, see this as the coda in a long series of Republican outrages. Not that the Dems are pure, but as far as the last ten years are concerned, the GOP has been worse. They've fashioned themselves as the party of small government, family values, ethics, and have failed on every point. Nobody likes a pile on, but I must say that the GOP has earned this harvest.

The Dems should use this as an opportunity, but not to gloat, or try to coast in on GOP screw-ups. I've said elsewhere that beating the GOP this year is like beating a one armed blind man at football. We need an alternative and coherent vision. The American people deserve it. They deserve better than the GOP. They deserve real leadership.

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