I don’t at all get this attitude among
many on the right that our sworn duty is to back anything President Bush and
the GOP choose to do. We are conservatives before we are Republicans, are we
not? Facts are better than dreams, and the fact is, the president is acting
like the second coming of Lyndon B. Johnson with his spending proposals on
Katrina thing, and it is past time for the grassroots to have hit the wall
on the spendthrift Republican president and the spendthrift Republican
Congress. What is the point of electing Republicans if they’re going to
spend worse than Democrats? Moreover, I’m absolutely with Michelle Malkin on this outrageous Bush
cronyism regarding the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief over at
the Department of Homeland Security. I find it impossible to believe that
this administration or their GOP Congressional enablers care about enforcing
the immigration laws of this country. And I find it impossible to believe
that this doesn’t matter. A lot.
At some point, we conservatives have got to ask ourselves if we stand for
principles, or merely maintaining power. We have got to ask ourselves just
which conservative goals are being served by the Republican governing status
quo. We have got to ask ourselves if our conservatism stands for much more
than The Democrats Must Lose. I was having a beer with a fellow religious
and social conservative that first Friday after Katrina, and we were both
just livid about the administration’s response. We both agreed that we’d
vote in a heartbeat in 2008 for a social liberal like Rudy Giuliani, who
inspires confidence in his competence and judgment, over the present crowd
that we both helped vote into power. I hope next year brings forth a raft of
primary challengers to GOP Congressional incumbents. If we go on like this
for much longer, it will be a long time before the American people trust the
government to our side again. The Democrats aren’t going to remain more
hapless than the Republicans forever, and the denial in which too many
Republicans wish to live in right now does the cause of conservatism no
good.