NOTE: This site occasionally runs a Guest Voice post written by a reader who has submitted one or, more often, a reader who has sent a thoughtful email.
In one of our posts we asked about the GOP “Is the conservative faction running the party?” This sparked a private email from Edward Royce, who has posted on Red State. His comments were so well laid out that we offered to run it as a Guest Voice. He agreed. Like many conservatives he was highly disappointed by President George Bush naming Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court today — something that makes this column written before the selection more timely than ever.
By Edward Royce
Hmmmm.
“Is the conservative faction running the party?”
You must be joking!
The Republican Party has done nothing whatsoever for conservatives for at least 5+ years. If the Democrats hadn’t insisted on pushing totally unacceptable candidates they might have actually won the White House.
Here’s a thought experiment for you. List all of the primary issues that conservatives are interested in:
1. Illegal Immigration.
2. Reform of the Supreme Court.
3. Reform of the federal judiciary.
4. Reduce spending and decrease the size of the federal government.
5. Reduce the deficit.
6. Reduce taxes.
7. Stop the excising of Christianity from everyday life.
8. Combat terrorism.
There are plenty of others, but let’s use this subset for the moment. Now how has the GOP done on these conservative issues?
1. Illegal Immigration.
Don’t make me laugh.
2. Reform of the Supreme Court.
Nobody knows who Bush is going to appoint to replace O’Connor, and nobody knows whether or not Roberts is a conservative at all! It’s frankly amazing to me that there is not one single person who is willing to put their reputation on the line and guarantee me that Roberts is a conservative!
3. Reform of the federal judiciary.
How many of the 220+ federal judges appointed by Bush were solid conservatives? 10. And only 3-4 have been confirmed, the rest languish and very likely will never be confirmed. Frankly, were I a candidate, I would refuse because it’s pretty obvious the Republican party either doesn’t want to fight to have conservative judges, or it just doesn’t give a damn.
4. Reduce spending and decrease the size of the federal government.
Medicare Prescription Drug Plan: $1 trillion over 10 years. Iraq: $500 billion over 5 years. Katrina/Rita relief: $63+ billion and counting. Etc etc etc.
5. Reduce the deficit.
Yeah right. I won’t even bother with this one.
6. Reduce taxes.
Which have a sunset provision so it’s frankly a toss-up whether or not the tax cuts will remain in existence. Even then the tax cuts are pretty pathetic since the spending has increased so dramatically.
7. Stop the excising of Christianity from everyday life.
Well this certainly hasn’t happened. People like to point to Terri Schiavo as some sort of emblemetic figure buy the fact remains that she’s dead. If the Republican party really gave a damn, she might still be alive, so it’s clear that all that nonsense was just window-dressing.
A lot of conservatives are very angry with the Republican party so all that nonsense over Terri Schivao was Republicans looking to refresh their “cred”.
8. Combat terrorism.
Yeah that’s been real effective. Syria is still sending in terrorists to Iraq. Iran is building a nuke that it’ll share with anyone and Saudi Arabia has just been certified as an ally in the AGWOT(1) which makes it eligible for grants.
Are conservatives running the Republican party?
What is the color of the sky in your world?
I’m a fiscal conservative, have been one for years. Used to be a Democrat but converted when Reagan was in office, so that makes me a Reagan Democrat I guess. But I look at it this way. The Democrat party pisses on me because I’m a conservative. The Republican party s–s on me because I’m a conservative.
Not all that much of a difference there IMHO.
(1) AGWOT: The Almost Global War on Terror, except for that little bit between Texas and Mexico.
We can send teams of expert Special-Ops killers to some mountain nobody’s ever heard of in Afghanistan,but we can’t send a dozen cops and a bag of donuts to Laredo.
–Edward Royce
Linked with Outside The Beltway Traffic Jam
Linked to Stop The ACLU linkfest.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.