[BRIGADE] PJB: Wanted: A Fighting Party
Published: Tue, 05/12/09
By Patrick J. Buchanan
May 12, 2009
As was evident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, it is
deja vu, 1961, all over again. We have a young, cool, witty,
personable president -- and an adoring press corps.
"I am Barack Obama," the president introduced himself. "Most of you
covered me. All of you voted for me. (Laughter and applause.)
Apologies to the Fox table. (Laughter.)"
What is also evident is that, without its new superstar in the
lineup, the Democratic Party is a second-division ball club. Harry
Reid and Nancy Pelosi are not terribly formidable. Last fall, the
Congress they ran had an approval rating below Vice President Cheney.
Why then is the Republican Party agonizing publicly over what it is
supposed to do? If history is any guide, the pendulum will swing
back in 2010.
After all, in 1952, Eisenhower was elected in a more impressive
victory than Obama's, and ended the Korean War by June. And, in
1954, he lost both houses of Congress.
Lyndon Johnson crushed Goldwater by three times the margin of
Obama's victory. He got Medicare, Medicaid, voting rights, and a
host of Great Society programs. And, in 1966, he lost 47 House seats.
Ronald Reagan won a 44-state landslide in 1980, cut tax rates --
and proceeded to lose 26 sets in 1982.
Bill Clinton recaptured the presidency for his party in 1992 after
12 years of Republican rule. In 1994, he lost 52 seats and both
houses of Congress.
Though, demographically, the nation is tilting toward the Party of
Government, the GOP must remain the party of free enterprise, and
should follow the counsel of Australia's Robert Menzies, long ago:
"(T)he duty of an opposition ... is to oppose selectively. No
government is always wrong on everything. . The opposition must
choose the ground on which it is to attack. To attack
indiscriminately is to risk public opinion, which has a reserve of
fairness not always understood."
Rather than debating what the national party position should be on
foreign policy, health care, education, or social issues -- which
the party will decide when it chooses a nominee in 2012 -- the GOP
should focus now, and unite now, on what it will stand against.
Here the party has a good start. With the exception of Specter the
Defector and the ladies from Maine, it united against the $800
billion stimulus bill. And as it is impossible to shovel out an
added 6 percent of GDP in two years, without vast waste, fraud and
abuse, this stimulus package is going to come back and bite Obama
by 2010.
And, recall, in his address to Congress, Obama assigned Joe Biden
to see to it there was no waste, fraud or abuse in spending the $800
billion: "And that's why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a
tough, unprecedented oversight effort -- because nobody messes with
Joe."
Joe has been set up to take the fall.
The next place to take a stand is against "cap and trade."
More and more Americans are coming to conclude, after the record
cold temperatures in many cities this winter, that global warning
is a crock -- that there is no conclusive proof it is happening, no
conclusive proof man is the cause, no conclusive proof it would be
a calamity for us or the polar bears.
But cap and trade would mean a huge hike in the cost of energy for
all Americans, the shutdown of fuel-efficient U.S. factories, and
their replacement by dirtier and less fuel-efficient Chinese plants.
And we do know the agenda here is a vast transfer of wealth and
power from U.S. citizens to government bureaucrats, and from the U.S.
Government to global bureaucrats who will run the oversight and
enforcement machinery set up by the Kyoto II conclave in Copenhagen.
A third issue on which Republicans ought to stand and fight is
health care. For the end goal of Obamacare is the same end goal as
Hillarycare: nationalization, bureaucrats deciding what care each
of us shall receive, when we may receive it, and whether we even
ought to have it.
If the Republican Party remains the party of the individual and the
private sector, does it have any choice but to fight?
For if cap-and-trade passes, and Obamacare becomes law, the
government share of GDP rises to European socialist levels, and, as
we saw after the Great Society, there is no going back.
A party defines itself by what it stands for, and what it stands
against. After the Bush era, the Republican Party has been given
the opportunity to redeem and redefine itself -- in opposition to a
party and a president who are further left than any in American
history.
A true conservative party would relish such an opportunity.
After all, the Goldwater young did not lie down and die after a
defeat far more crushing than the one the party suffered last fall.
Is this Republican Party made of similar stuff?
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SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-wanted-a-fighting-party-1530