Losers
So being a partisan hack and actually begging people to hold their nose and vote Republican, I should be expected to nod and admit I lost. Not that I was running for office or anything but being a cheerleader it would be bad taste to just shut down the blog and go home, at least without a mea culpa.
Daniel Ortega, a world famous leftist, and the Democratic Party- favorite American party of world famous leftists, have carried the day with a decisive margin. Not only that, but they've taken the scalp of one of the best (IMAO) Secretaries of Defense in history. It's the only move he could have made, as James Taranto notes:
"We rather admire Rumsfeld and think he's gotten a bum rap. But he had to go. Had he stayed, he would have been target No. 1 for Democratic witch hunts. He would have spent so much time responding to congressional subpoenas, there would be no time left to defend the country."
Am I happy? Nah. And the Dems are going to subpoena him anyway. But we will see a new direction, the old domestic one of which was becoming stagnant under the Republican leadership, and "diplomacy" (or in my estimation "appeasement") will be the new order. We'll 'dialog' with Iran and North Korea and start making plans for 'strategic redeployment.' We get the government we deserve.
Nancy Pelosi will be attempting to run things and we'll get a real taste for what it may be like to have a woman in charge. It's not likely to be what we expected. Did Republicans deserve to lose? I think so. I think they lost their way and fell too much in love with being in power. Apparently most voters felt the same.
Where I am in disagreement with the voters is in which party is going to see the war through to the end with the least possible damage to both the United States and the regions most vulnerable to extensive violence. My take is that though we have been taking damage politically on the international front, and there is plenty of violence to go around in the Middle East, the current course is still the best way forward.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. As the phrase goes, 'sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.' When the first crisis hits, and it will soon, we'll see what happens. Will Bush act decisively, or will he wait for consensus; and if he acts first will the congress come down hard, or play nice bipartisan games?
