January 14, 2006 6:08 AM

Sow the wind....

Right wing starts to reap the whirlwind

I should begin by admitting that I admire great people with great ideological convictions. Having said that, however, there is a huge difference between that and the I-got-mine-you-get-yours, kill-the-poor, America-uber-Alles ethos that seems to fuel the dominant strain of Republican ideology. It would be simplistic, as well as horribly inaccurate, to characterize the Republican platform as a program for restoring America’s greatness. At it’s most basic, the Republican platform is a recipe for enriching the well-connected and for protecting Big Business from it’s responsibilities to it’s employees and customers.

Certainly, the Democratic party has it’s problems- an absence of vision, an inability to put forward charismatic, effective candidates, and an almost complete lack of a collective spine- but at least Democrats pretend to care- about people, the environment, the poor, the perception of America abroad, even education. Since coming to power in 1994, Republicans have treated Washington as their personal playground. They’ve used their power to enrich their friends, weaken protections for workers, tighten bankruptcy laws, and ensure that America is hated throughout the world. Nice work, eh?

Having overreached, bogged us down in war, and sown winds of division, the Republican right is starting to reap the whirlwind.

The welcome breeze may be temporary, but it is being felt from Washington to Washington to the Arctic.

Take what’s happened in the “other” Washington and its environs this week.

Republican-leaning Virginia elected a Democratic governor, despite an election-eve rally appearance in which President Bush attempted to boost the GOP ticket.

Winning Democrat Timothy Kaine emphasized the religious values of a social activist Catholic in the capital of the Confederacy. An attack TV spot on Kaine’s opposition to the death penalty — the type of GOP trick that worked in the past — blew up in their faces.

A day later, leaders in the House of Representatives were forced to strip from a pending budget bill the backdoor authorization of oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

About two-dozen moderate Republicans, including Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., remembered the conservationist legacy of their party and would not go along with putting drilling rigs and hauling roads in America’s greatest wilderness.

“This statement by the House clearly shows it is not a partisan issue. It is an issue for all Americans,” said Subhankar Banerjee. He is the young photographer and ex-Boeing worker whose book “Seasons of Life and Land” refuted lies told by Alaska’s congressional delegation….

Arms need to be bent. However, the radical right’s chief enforcer — Rep. Tom “The Hammer” DeLay of Texas — is under indictment and out of commission.

Rumblings in America go beyond the Beltway. A trio of recent polls put Bush’s approval rating below 40 percent.

California’s GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called a special statewide election…seeking to give himself sweeping new powers over the budget and to break the power of Democratic legislators and labor unions. “The Governator” lost all four of his ballot measures.

Yeah, karma can be a real bitch, eh? Finally, Republicans are finding out that what goes around really does come back around. Pardon me for the barely contained glee, but I’m frankly enjoying watching those who have done everything except what they were elected to do get their come-uppance. No, Democrats may not be perfect, but at least eight years of Bill Clinton left America in better shape than he found it in- not a claim Our Glorious Leader and his Republican cohorts can credibly make, eh?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 14, 2006 6:08 AM.

Won't you help stop the violence? was the previous entry in this blog.

Everyone wants to rule the world. Vince actually does. is the next entry in this blog.

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