Democrats Did Not Win, the GOP Lost (11/8/06)
by Dean Hartwell
The powers that be gave the voters a
microphone with which to air their grievances on
Tuesday, November 7. Most voters said they didn't like
the job Bush was doing, wanted the U.S. to start pulling
troops from Iraq and were willing to give the Democrats
a try.
Given a news story as interesting as the GOP win in
1994, the mainstream media played the message throughout
the night. Commentators and anchors understood, as did
the winning and losing candidates who got prime time
coverage for their speeches. Even some distraught
Republican Party hacks got it.
Too bad the White House didn't. Vice President Cheney,
just a few days before the election, said that whatever
happened, the Bush Administration was prepared to go
forward in Iraq "full speed ahead." President Bush
waited a day to congratulate presumptive Speaker-to-be
Nancy Pelosi. By contrast, former House Republican
leader Tom DeLay got it right when he said that the
Republicans got a "Texas whupping" and that "the
Republicans lost."
Instead of acknowledging the war in Iraq has turned out
poorly or that he got the message that he would need to
make changes to get the voters' trust back, Bush offered
up Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary. Officially,
Rumsfeld quit, but sources say that Bush talked to his
new nominee for the position, Robert Gates on Sunday.
Bad call! Gates allegedly knew plenty about the
Iran-Contra scandal, in which President Reagan sold arms
to hostage-takers in the hopes of getting release of
hostages. He had to withdraw Reagan's nomination for the
position of Director of Central Intelligence in 1987. He
struggled to gain confirmation for the same post four
years later.
We are not getting out of Iraq any time soon, with or
without Rumsfeld. We cannot win because we have no
strategy and our allies no longer want this war.
President Bush has decided to send troops to build an
image of dominance over the rest of the world instead of
facing the reality that few nations respect us.
If we were to see victory in the 2006 midterm elections,
we would see a symbol. The symbol is a collective sigh
of relief across the nation at the most controversial
policies of this Administration. There is no real
victory for anyone, only a stinging defeat of a party
that has stayed out in the sunshine for too long.
Bush never has belonged in office to begin with. All of
the voters who picked Bush over Gore in 2000 should take
a hard look at their voting judgment. If they are the
same people complaining now about President Bush and his
policies, why did they reject the candidate who had more
experience and whose views paralleled the public's more
closely than Bush's? They were misled by lies about Gore
and about the myth that Bush should win because of the
"personality factor." Look which one of them has more
credibility with the public now.
Despite the changes on the surface in the new Congress,
life will move on for the President.