Logic Times

Giddy Liberals

Commentary by Aslan, 10/28/06, 11:55pm. Comments (0)

To retain Congress, the GOP needs the same conservative voters who carried the day in 2004 to hold their noses next month and pull the lever for Republicans one more time. The theory is that by holding their noses, stalwart conservatives can block out the stench of Republican weakness and duplicity, thereby avoiding a vastly fouler stench: the stink of Democrats in power, raising taxes, stopping judges, embracing terrorists and impeaching Bush.

Giddy liberals believe that enough conservatives will avoid the whole reeking mess on November 8th to relinquish control of Congress to the Democrats. Giddy liberals – secretly amazed in their inner heart of hearts that a booming economy, the hugely important sitting of Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court, plummeting gas prices, and effective domestic security are all meaningless – have been crowing in the media that it is all over but for the fat lady’s song. And, in a stroke of delicious irony, giddy liberals have ensured that the very real odor so distasteful to principled conservatives will go largely unnoticed on Election Day, allowing the Republicans to retain control of both houses of Congress.

The odor is indeed real. Certain principled (but naïve) conservatives, enraged by weak leadership on border security and federal spending and troubled by the restrictive rules of engagement in Iraq, had morphed into Betrayed Conservatives, ready to punish themselves right along with Republicans in a brave but shortsighted act of self-immolation.

If the visible face of team liberal – Democrat leaders, the media, Hollywood – had just stood to one side and let angry conservatives have their tantrum, they would have won Congress. Tantrums are never rational, and this irrationality – an unnatural state for a conservative – was the key to liberal victory. Only an irrational conservative would object to weak conservative policy in Washington by embracing hard-core liberals.

Tantrums come and go, and sometimes it takes a shock – a slap, an injury, something broken – to restore a sense of reality, to bring the tantrum to an abrupt end. Giddy liberals, unable to restrain themselves with the prospect of reacquiring government power in view, have slapped Betrayed Conservatives across the face with the cold, wet reality of liberal governance run amok in Washington. This has been accomplished by way of an ill-advised, summer-long celebration in the media featuring gloating talking heads interviewing gloating Democrat leaders, with giddy liberal pundits trumpeting biased polls. (In fact, conservatives should stand up and applaud what has become the most effective Republican “get-out-the-vote” campaign of the last decade: unscientific, biased political polling.)

The tantrum is over. Angry conservative after angry conservative can be heard murmuring in worried, low tones about the inevitable liberal takeover, fervently hoping that their vote for Republicans on November 7th will be enough to stem the tide. No where – at least not in significant numbers (and a moron like Michael Savage is not significant numbers) – can you find conservatives still thinking of sitting this one out or wasting their vote. Giddy liberals have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

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