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Jim Geraghty: "Don't Panic!"
National Review. EFL'd a touch, boldface emphasis added.I see that George Conway, another NRO blogger, appears to have come to the end of his rope regarding the current Republican Party leadership . . . First, get that man a good sandwich or other comfort food and a Guinness. Save some room for dessert. Let's get the blood sugar up. Second, there are two things that conservatives can do right now. They can push for the ideas that they believe strongly in, and take their message to the people. . . . Or conservatives can throw up their hands and say, "I'm through with this, I'm leaving the party, all of this is pointless." With option one, conservatives may win, or they may lose. On option two, they will definitely lose. Third, let's not recall previous administrations through rose colored glasses. Thinking back to the Clinton administration, do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" in the way they handled the growing al-Qaeda threat? The cruise missiles fired, once, at the training camps and empty tents? Those decisive, responses to the first World Trade Center bombing, Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, the U.S.S. Cole? Do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" in the way they handled Iraq? The collapse of the U.N. inspections, periodic cruise missile attacks that had little impact, the leaky sanctions that hurt the Iraqis more than the regime and that the world was ready to repeal? Do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" with, say, their approach to China? Loral? Madeline Albright's champagne toast in North Korea to "friendship between our peoples" with Kim Jong Il? If you're upset with the current Bush administration's stance on illegal immigration, how did you like the Clinton administration's "Citizenship USA" program, unveiled in August 1995, designed to deal with an INS backload that ended up naturalizing 1.1 million immigrants in time for Election Day 1996? We are righteously outraged with Abramoff and Duke Cunningham, and ought to be. But let's not forget Henry Cisnero's guilty plea about lying to the FBI, Hazel O'Leary's apology to Congress for her travel expenses, John Huang, James Riady, and Maria Hsia, the Marc Rich pardon, the grant of clemency to FALN bombers in 1999... I'm not even getting into that scandal, or Jocelyn Elders' "hands-on" proposal for sex education. In Congress, the opposition party had Jim Wright, Dan Rostenkowski, the post office scandal, the Keating Five (with McCain), Tony Coehlo's resignation. By the way, it's not like the post-1994 Republicans had avoided any perception of scandal until recent years. We've had Gingrich's book deal, Bob Livingston's resignation, Rep. Nick Smith's claim that someone offered a bribe on the Medicare bill, the guilty plea of a New Hampshire GOP official and a consultant to using the phones to "jam" the lines of the New Hampshire State Democratic Party's phone bank on Election Day 2002. Let's go beyond Clinton, and think back to the first Bush administration. Perhaps we were happy at the time with the decision to leave Saddam in power in Iraq, but it certainly left a festering problem. The military deployment to Somalia represented a major commitment of U.S. armed forces to a part of the world where we had no compelling national interest; the subsequent withdrawal (on Clinton's watch) is cited by jihadis as a major victory. Do we look back fondly on Bush's economic policies, the retraction of "read my lips, no new taxes," the "Chicken Kiev" speech, the well-oiled communications machine that was the 1992 campaign? How about Justice David Souter? Regarding the Reagan administration, many of us have fond memories because the Gipper, God bless him, got so many big things right. But do we think back on Iran-Contra, or the quiet-at-best reactions to the bombing of the embassy in Lebanon and the Marine barracks months later? The handling of Robert Bork's nomination, the 35 percent approval rating in January 1983, the revelation of the astrologer? And if you don't like our current immigration policy, what do you think of Reagan's 1986 mass amnesty for illegal aliens? Any administration is going to have its mistakes, and sometimes, they're going to be big ones. Let's be honest about where the current president and cabinet have botched things, but let's not fool ourselves into nostalgia for some golden age of political and substantive skill. I like the attitude described by Tony Robbins (cant find his quote online, so Im paraphrasing). If youre a gardener, and youre worried about weeds, the answer is not to panic because you know the weeds will crop up and grow and take over your garden. The answer is also not to be excessively positive, and declare, there are no weeds, there are no weeds. The answer is to say, I know there are going to be weeds, and Im not going to panic when I see them, because if I see them, I can do something about it. Yes, the Republicans have problems right now. But its better that they see them and can do something about it. Posted by: Mike 2006-04-11 |
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