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The Patriot Post is one of those sites I visit with some regularity, helps me get a feel for what the far-right is touting. This morning's post was one of the better articles they've published in some time - worth a look for anyone interested. Check the full story here, below is a slice:
I think there is one positive trend that began in last month's election and will hopefully carry over into the '08 run. And that is the emergence of candidates on both sides of the aisle who are moving away from the far ends of their party and finding a place somewhere in the middle. Politics in this country has been so outrageously partisan the last few years that the public is dying for some voice in the middle, and I think/hope both parties are beginning to recognize that.
Could just be wishful thinking though.
“I sit here all day,” said President Harry S Truman, “trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them... That’s all the powers of the President amount to.” Such can be the frustrations of the Oval Office—an office in which one is blamed for most everything, yet unable to accomplish much of anything.
Later, in the summer of 1952, when the prospect of an Eisenhower presidency appeared inevitable, Truman was even more to the point: “He’ll sit here,” he said, tapping away on his Oval Office desk, “and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”
Apparently, Truman was right on the money. Commenting on the early days of Ike’s administration, Eisenhower aide Robert Donovan wrote, “In the face of continuing dissidence and disunity, the President sometimes simply explodes with exasperation. What was the use, he demanded to know, of his trying to lead the Republican Party...” Notably, this was the sentiment of one of the most popular presidents in modern history, and one around whom the nation united in the face of the Cold War and an enemy committed to the destruction of our way of life.
By now, the parallels to contemporary times should be abundantly evident. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, George W. Bush joined the ranks of the most popular presidents. Once again, Americans faced an enemy bent on our destruction. Nevertheless, apart from his admirable efforts as commander in chief, President Bush has accomplished very little. In the words of renowned Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt, like Eisenhower and Truman before him, Mr. Bush’s presidential “’powers’ are no guarantee of power; clerkship is no guarantee of leadership.”
What Neustadt meant when he wrote those words (almost 50 years ago) was that use of the presidency’s constitutional powers does not an effective president make. For a president to be effective in office, he must draw upon the qualities of leadership and steer his party’s legislative members in the direction he sees they must go.
Yet it is just such an effective leadership—both in the presidency and in the Republican majorities in Congress—that have been sorely lacking over the past six years. Unlike the young lions who stormed Capitol Hill during the Republican Revolution of 1994, today’s GOP leaders have lost their ideological bearings. No longer do they practice the constitutional constructionism and social and fiscal conservatism that brought the GOP to power after 30 years in the congressional wilderness. Our current crop of Republicans have instead embraced populism and big government, not to mention all the corruption and incompetence that invariably accompany these things. Now, they carry this creed back into the minority.
More troubling than the November elections themselves, however, is that many Republicans don’t seem to understand why the people sent them packing.
Those still in denial now dismiss the Democrats’ victory as insignificant, and they’re quick to put a positive spin on things: The Democrats’ gains were at or below the usual trend for the incumbent party’s sixth year; Mark Foley's “October surprise” stalled the Republicans’ momentum; many of the newly elected Democrats couldn’t have won without embracing conservative positions; and on, and on.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor Karl Rove, who predicted that the GOP would hold both houses of Congress, affixed the blame on “mitigating circumstances” such as these. “The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I’d expected,” Rove said. “Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass.”
“The Republican philosophy,” concluded Rove, “is alive and well and likely to re-emerge in the majority in 2008.” That’s a bit more to the point, but when exactly did the “Republican philosophy” emerge in the first place?
Later, in the summer of 1952, when the prospect of an Eisenhower presidency appeared inevitable, Truman was even more to the point: “He’ll sit here,” he said, tapping away on his Oval Office desk, “and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”
Apparently, Truman was right on the money. Commenting on the early days of Ike’s administration, Eisenhower aide Robert Donovan wrote, “In the face of continuing dissidence and disunity, the President sometimes simply explodes with exasperation. What was the use, he demanded to know, of his trying to lead the Republican Party...” Notably, this was the sentiment of one of the most popular presidents in modern history, and one around whom the nation united in the face of the Cold War and an enemy committed to the destruction of our way of life.
By now, the parallels to contemporary times should be abundantly evident. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, George W. Bush joined the ranks of the most popular presidents. Once again, Americans faced an enemy bent on our destruction. Nevertheless, apart from his admirable efforts as commander in chief, President Bush has accomplished very little. In the words of renowned Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt, like Eisenhower and Truman before him, Mr. Bush’s presidential “’powers’ are no guarantee of power; clerkship is no guarantee of leadership.”
What Neustadt meant when he wrote those words (almost 50 years ago) was that use of the presidency’s constitutional powers does not an effective president make. For a president to be effective in office, he must draw upon the qualities of leadership and steer his party’s legislative members in the direction he sees they must go.
Yet it is just such an effective leadership—both in the presidency and in the Republican majorities in Congress—that have been sorely lacking over the past six years. Unlike the young lions who stormed Capitol Hill during the Republican Revolution of 1994, today’s GOP leaders have lost their ideological bearings. No longer do they practice the constitutional constructionism and social and fiscal conservatism that brought the GOP to power after 30 years in the congressional wilderness. Our current crop of Republicans have instead embraced populism and big government, not to mention all the corruption and incompetence that invariably accompany these things. Now, they carry this creed back into the minority.
More troubling than the November elections themselves, however, is that many Republicans don’t seem to understand why the people sent them packing.
Those still in denial now dismiss the Democrats’ victory as insignificant, and they’re quick to put a positive spin on things: The Democrats’ gains were at or below the usual trend for the incumbent party’s sixth year; Mark Foley's “October surprise” stalled the Republicans’ momentum; many of the newly elected Democrats couldn’t have won without embracing conservative positions; and on, and on.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor Karl Rove, who predicted that the GOP would hold both houses of Congress, affixed the blame on “mitigating circumstances” such as these. “The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I’d expected,” Rove said. “Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass.”
“The Republican philosophy,” concluded Rove, “is alive and well and likely to re-emerge in the majority in 2008.” That’s a bit more to the point, but when exactly did the “Republican philosophy” emerge in the first place?
Could just be wishful thinking though.
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