This is less a column and more of a symbolic funeral. It is a funeral for the failed right wing movement and their failed President. That is not to say that the right wing movement has not been successful. They have taken over the courts, the news media, dominated the White House and for the last twelve years they have held control of the Congress. All of these, though, are only political successes. At the same time they have, at every turn, proved themselves completely incapable of governing this country and especially running it's foreign policy.
The current Presidential approval rating of 36%, according to a recent American Research Group poll, when combined with an even lower national approval of Congress, shows that Americans now see just how far out of the mainstream the Republican leadership of this country is. They also see very clearly that they have been lied to repeatedly when it comes to the most crucial issues we face.
In 2008, Republicans will have run our federal government for twenty of the last twenty-eight years and twenty-eight of the last forty. They have stacked our courts with right wingers, cut taxes for the wealthiest while raising the burden for the rest of us, limited free speech, broken down the separation of church and state, built up mountains of deficit spending which we may never get out from under and run militaristic foreign policies which first support such enemies as Saddam Hussein and later used him as a scapegoat for further war.
Their 1980's Middle East policy was disgraceful. First they cut and ran when attacked in Lebanon. Then they played both sides of the fence illegally in the Iraq/Iran war. Meanwhile they literally created Osama Bin Ladin by funding his Pan-Islamic movement's war in Afghanistan. Bin Ladin proved to himself that he could bring a superpower to it's knees and now he wants to do it again, to America.
On the domestic front they have fared no better. While the economy performed well for a few years in the 80's, the real deficit spending also began. As the 80's turned into the 90's, the economy again suffered and the deficits spun out of control. When a Democrat entered the White House in 1993, he inherited a domestic mess so severe that most wondered if he could make any real difference. Eight years later, when he left office, our budgets were in surplus, our economy had grown more than in any modern period, small businesses were booming all over America, fewer people went without health care, a more comfortable middle class was growing for the first time in four decades, we were largely at peace throughout the world and more Americans were optimistic about the new century than ever before. In 2001, however, the movement right wing took complete control of the federal government for the first time.
This indeed marked the first time that the ideological right wing "movement" conservatives really held all the cards. Many prior Republican leaders had been of the older guard and less gung ho about the radical right wing. The GOP was now the party of DeLay, Brownback, Santorum, Frist and George W. Bush and they held all the power. Foreign policy would be in the hands of global military dominationists from the Project for The New American Century, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle and Bolton, who all came to their new jobs foaming at the mouth to re-invade Iraq. America would clearly not be at peace much longer.
The glaring ommision in the new national security/defense strategy? No priority given to global terrorism whatsoever. So when global terrorism found us on 9/11/01, it simply became time to blame the Democrat who had left office eight months earlier and whose administration had prevented several attacks on our shores during the late 90's AND first made Osama Bin Ladin a wanted man internationally.
9/11 also gave the failed movementeers an opportunity to justify the Iraqi invasion they had so desperately craved during those eight long years out of power. There were just two obstacles. The first was the clear evidence that Osama Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeda were responsible for 9/11 and that they were being sheltered by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Which meant that a half-hearted military operation in that country must supercede Iraqi invasion in order to maintain public credibility. The second and bigger obstacle was the truth. The truth was that although Saddam Hussein had been a terrible tyrant, he had been largely under our control since the first Gulf War (as both Condoleeza Rice and former Secretary of State Colin Powell had publicly stated in 2001), that there was only questionable evidence of Iraqi WMD programs at best and that Hussein's government had no links to Al-Qaeda.
The solution for the second obstacle was the biggest and most dishonest public relations campaign in American history. In September 2002, our failed movement President, his failed cabinet and the right wing media began an incredible PR push to link Iraq with 9/11 where there was no evidence, convince Americans that Saddam was resisting inspections and paint Iraq as a nation on the verge of selling nuclear and biological weapons to terrorists. At one point, one could actually watch the failed ideological movement President on TV saying that Saddam would not let inspectors do their job and split screen live footage of Saddam's Al-Samuud missiles being destroyed by those very inspectors. As they say, "The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it". The problem is that we wanted to believe it. Americans had hated Hussein for over a decade. It was an easy message to digest. It was also, unfortunately, a pack of lies. War based on lies is never "a noble cause".
The end results of the Iraqi invasion have acted as the smell of fresh brewed coffee and sound of sizzling bacon Americans needed to wake them from their dreamlike trance. We now see an Iraq on the verge of two outcomes, civil war, an Islamic state or both. Civil war would keep our military mired there in a hornet's nest worse than the one which already exists. A Shiite dominated Islamic state would naturally align itself with the Shiite dominated Iran and create a far more formidable enemy than Saddam Hussein ever was. An Islamic state in Iraq would also continue to be the kind of breeding and training ground for anti-American terrorists it has now become. All of these outcomes share one common idea, they couldn't be more beautiful to Osama Bin Ladin and the leaders of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
The failed movement President and his failed neocon ideological foreign policy team have handed Bin Ladin his greatest wish, another Islamic state in the Middle East and one that will soon align with other terrorist sponsors. America's enemy number one couldn't possibly be any more pleased. For this our sons and daughters have died in the desert. Unlike in the Vietnam era, however, the troops are not being held to blame or hated, even by the most vocal opponents of the Iraq war. That awful experience has shown Americans that our soldiers simply do the job which they are sent to do. They are surely not to blame. Instead it is the leaders who send them so eagerly who must answer for their actions. This is truly a failed President, a failed foreign policy team, a failure in the war against terrorism and a tragic blow to America's standing in the world. A failed right wing movement indeed.
On the domestic side the failed right wing movement again did what they always do, thay cut taxes on wealth while turning a blind eye toward the working poor, lower and middle classes. This did not work because it never works. Unless the American economy is broadening as it grows it will always be doomed to sluggish behavior at best. Unless more and more people are contributing to our economic growth the economy is not truly expanding, money is simply shifting upward to those who already have lots of it. This is exactly the kind of economy the failed movement right wingers want anyway. So they are perfectly happy with it. The rest of us must tread water in an economic riptide which will eventually pull us under.
Trillions in tax cuts for the wealthiest have had yet another bad effect for America. They have ripped a gaping hole in our once desirable budget situation. We have slid from a $250 Billion budget surplus back into the black hole of $500 Billion deficits in just a few years time. Our total debt now nears $9 Trillion. No, 9/11 and the Iraq war are not the chief causes, although they haven't helped any. Five million more Americans have no health insurance in the last few years. More abortions have been performed in this country every year under our failed movement President and failed Congress. Every year under the Democrat, the number declined. The failed movement President's education programs still remain unfunded which sends property taxes up. Meanwhile too many of our children are still not receiving the best education possible. The failed movement President's energy policy has offered Americans only unconstitutional secrecy, rolling blackouts, higher bills, tax cuts for already massively profitable corporations (more than 60% of which pay zero income taxes, driving our taxes higher) and $3.00 plus prices for a gallon of gas. Those gas prices now threaten to jolt our economy back into recession in the near future.
In 1994, Newt Gingrich told America that if we gave his party control of the Congress they would enact sweeping changes which would restore our government's openness and make us proud of the institution once again. Twelve years later, what we have instead is the most corrupt US House in modern history. It is a bizarre story with all the aspects of the allegorical "Animal Farm". Yes, the pigs have indeed become the men, only far, far worse.
K Street lobbyists pour in and out of Congress at an historic rate. Corporations pony up for legislation under failed and corrupt Majority Leader DeLay as though they were customers at a Deli counter. Ethics rules are a thing of the past as the movement leadership has tied up the Committee meant to oversee such matters. The voices of the Minority are regularly silenced as are any ammendments they offer. Voice votes which clearly favor a Minority position are ruled as being the opposite. Process is often used as a weapon to keep the Minority from influencing or even understanding the legislation which they are voting on.
Laws which are unconstitutional regularly pass this failed movement US House, in Bill form, until perhaps the courts finds them to be such a violation. Even worse, this failed movement Congress shows no desire to fill it's constitutional role as a check upon our failed movement President's administration. Meanwhile the failed movement Congress does everything it can to undermine the power of the judicial branch, which is not ideologically "movement" enough for them.
Our government is now the most secretive government in American history. The ordinary American no longer has any voice, not when an ideological movement is at work. The recent Terri Schiavo affair proved to this country that the failed movement Congress is only interested in pleasing their political base and advancing their narrow agenda, not in representing all of the people as our founders intended.
In a recent poll, just 19% of Americans said that this failed movement Congress shares their agenda and is pursuing the right path for this country. This number speaks volumes about the failure of the right wing movement. As does our failed movement President's 36% approval rating. Further proof of the death of the right wing movement comes from the right wing itself. When such a well-heeled and dedicated right winger as Pat Buchanan is writing books with titles like "How the Right Went Wrong" and moderate Republicans such as our former Governor and Bush EPA Head Christie Todd Whitman pen tomes entitled "It's My Party Too", you know there's trouble in the right wing ideological paradise. It literally stinks of failure. As elected Republicans around the country rapidly jump off the Social Security and Iraq war bandwagons, Democrats are showing signs of pulling together in order to offer the American people a real and lasting alternative to the movement right wing's ideological fanaticism.
The Democrats have a tremendous opportunity in 2006 and 2008. The failed right wing movement and it's failed President have indeed failed miserably to deliver on any promise or "contract" it has made with the American people. It is not just a political opportunity, however, but also a tremendous responsibility. Americans do not want an ideological left wing movement to replace the failed ideological right wing one. America needs instead to protect it's democracy, to expand and not retract civil rights, to protect it's homeland and make the world a safer place. We need all of this and more while growing our economy and making the American dream available to more Americans all the time. A Democrat, against heavy odds, acheived these lofty goals not too long ago. The failed right wing movement and our failed movement President have failed miserably on every single count. A failure as President and a failure of radical right wing ideology.
Real governance means allowing and not stifling opposition, not calling it treason. Real governance means open government that seeks to represent all Americans, not just a radical few. Real governance also means a President who will listen not only to those who agree with him but more importantly to those who don't, because they are Americans too. Real governance ultimately means that the President, Senators and Representatives all must answer to the people for the actions they take, especially in time of war and never just on Election Day. If Democrats can succeed not only politically but more importantly in governance itself, where the ideological right wing has so badly failed, then the new century may yet hold the shining future for which we all hope.
The Failed Ideological Right Wing Movement is Dead, Long Live America.
