Sweet, sweet justice

[whometense]

If TIME says so, maybe it's really happening?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1543874,00.html

Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left. The epitaph for the movement that started when Newt Gingrich and his forces rose from the back bench of the House chamber in 1994 may well have been written last week in the same medium that incubated it: talk radio. On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's show, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his leadership and the failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages. "If I fold up my tent and leave," Dennis Hastert told her, "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."

That quiet admission may have been the most damning one yet in the unfolding scandal surrounding Florida Congressman Mark Foley: holding on to power has become not just the means but also the end for the onetime reformers who in 1994 unseated a calcified and corrupted Democratic majority. Washington scandals, it seems, have been following a Moore's law of their own, coming at a faster clip every time there is a shift in control. It took 40 years for the House Democrats to exhaust their goodwill. It may take only 12 years for the Republicans to get there...

..."The Republican Party of 2006 is a tired, cranky shell of the aggressive, reformist movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change," Frank Luntz, one of the strategists of the G.O.P. takeover, wrote this week in a column for Time.com. "I worked for them. They were friends of mine. These Republicans are not those Republicans." (NOTE TO LUNTZ - oh, yes, they are.)

On policy matters, Hastert's leadership approach has been to act as though the Democrats—and sometimes the Senate—simply do not exist. He squeezes hard-edged partisan bills through the House to please the G.O.P. base, even though they have no chance of ever getting through the Senate and reaching the President's desk. "There have been numerous occasions when bipartisan approaches, which would have benefited our conference more than Democrats, have been rebuffed by the Speaker," complains a senior Republican aide, who says he likes and respects the Speaker. "His strategy seems to be, 'Well, don't worry about it. We'll blame Pelosi.' That might work in isolated circumstances, but when your party's numbers start to tank, and people want to see that you can govern, that approach is not a solid one."

[beachmom]

1. What's sad is that those in the Republican base will blame

this all on the "liberal media", never realizing that the whole thing was a self inflicted wound. I don't feel like a hypocrite for saying this -- when the Clinton scandal hit (and it's not the same, but it still was bad), I certainly didn't blame the media. It was Bill's lack of self discipline that did him in. But I'm happy to see that the Democrats are just letting this happen and not acting like the idiot Republicans who moved to impeach Bill. (If you recall, they lost seats in '98) Andrew Sullivan mentioned how sad it was that all the other stuff the Republicans pulled -- out of control spending, a botched war, trampling on the Constitution, etc. -- didn't do them in. Instead, it was a sex scandal. Alas, we have to take the cards that are dealt to us, but it is bizarre how this story just came out of nowhere and seem to be the final nail in the coffin. We just have to make sure we 100% capitalize on this, GOTV, and do really well in this election.

[babylonsister]

2. And did you see the cover?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2344846

That article gives me hope!