While Wonker was absent earning a living, the dreaded political "October surprise" that Democrats long feared began to unfold. Except that this year's October surprise started unfolding in late summer, particularly in the September timeframe. And it was the Dems, not the Republicans, who were doing the surprising. In short order over the past few weeks, we have had Bob Woodward's latest Bush-trashing tome, amply highlighted and flakked in Woodward's home, the Washington Com-Post (hat tip to Mark Levin); we have the outting and ousting of Florida Representative Foley, with attendant negative PR and lots of finger-pointing at the House Republican leadership; Ohio Congressman Ney suddenly pleads guilty to a whole raft of malfeasance and exits stage left; a former White House staffer, David Kuo, publishes another trashery of anti-Bush malice, this time accusing the Administration of a cold half-heartedness when it comes to "faith-based initiatives"(note: Post links may require registration); the constant running down by the press of attractive Republican candidates in unfavorable environments (such as Maryland and Pennsylvania); wholesale slaughter in Iraq of almost unbelievable intensity; and, oh hell, what's the use? The hits just keep on coming. How long have the 'Rats been storing this stuff for later deployment? Don't answer.
Result: Repubs are on the ropes, with House and Senate seats formerly thought secure being up for grabs and with Republican majorities in both houses in considerable danger. Do we smell some complicity here in all the events listed above? Could be...
Comment: Wonk has never been a conspiracy theorist. The Dems, who long ago dropped reason in favor of the Marxist dialectic, would not be able to put together a concerted conspiracy if you paid them the big bucks. What does happen quite frequently, though, is that the Dems, by means of a kind of intense, unwavering groupthink reminiscent of high school cliques, manage to get themselves severally on the same political page, with numerous groups and individuals plaiting a vast net of dirty tricks that somehow gains harmonic convergence during the endgame of the election cycle.
And so it is here. Books, "outings" of reprehensible behavior by Repubs (of course, and let's give Harry Reid a pass since he didn't mean to do it), reverse racism, and even the intensity of Islamofascist attacks are increasingly tending to converge in the September timeframe of an election year with all participants united in an undying hatred of the United States, capitalism, Christianity, and the Boy Scouts. Boring in as hard as they can to upend traditional American values, their object is to eviscerate the President who is attempting to uphold them. Carefully calibrated and relentless push-polling enhances the effect, with questions keenly honed to draw the maximum negative response down on the hapless Repubs.
Meanwhile, the positive effects of waterfalling gasoline prices, an economy that is somehow getting better after 2-ish years of Fed tightening, a stock market that's threatening new records daily, a consistently fine series of low unemployment and high job creation figures—all these either go unnoticed or are buried way back somewhere in the A-section. Meanwhile, anything anti-Repub is plastered front and center, above the fold, and in living color on the front pages of most large metropolitan newspapers each and every day. Like I say, sure looks like a conspiracy. But it's put together instead not with meticulous advanced planning, but with a significant number of lefty political minds, assimilated by the Marxist Borg, working as one without the need for central planning. It's impressive, in a way. But wildly destructive and verging on the treasonous when it comes to the undermining of our troops in the Global War on Terror of which Iraq is merely the second major battle.
In a more sinister vein, the Islamofascists overseas do their best to help the Dems out, figuring, this year at least, that a Democratic takeover of the legislature will provide them with an instant replay of the post-Nixon cut-and-run strategy that led to our obvious triumph in Vietnam. And they are probably right, as Boomer Dems are looking for one last hurrah resembling their disgracing of the Trickster before they start dropping like flies due to coronary events and just plain senility. The Islamofascists form a mirror-Borg, offering their enemies two simple choices, assimilation or swift and bloody slaughter. The Dems love these guys, too, because they share with equal intensity the Bush Derangement Syndrome that drives both massive hives of adolescent minds.
As for the Democrats. This is indeed a party of fundamental unseriousness, enamored of an teenaged, feelings-based approach to nearly everything of importance that should instead be treated with respect and high-seriousness. But the Dems prefer sneering, ad hominem, dumpster diving, and, when all else fails, just plain baldfaced lying proclaimed so loudly and so well that it is soon perceived as the truth.
The Republicans have not exactly dazzled anyone with brilliance in the last term of Congress, inexplicably doing their best to out-Dem the Dems when it comes to unrestrained pork-barrel spending which aims at buying the maximum number of votes out of the taxpayer trough, thus evading the campaign spending limits currently in unconstitutional place. This, however, is the exclusive terrain of the Democratic Party which, with the complicity of the lefty press, keeps such Democratic malfeasance out of the newspapers almost entirely.
The Repubs simply seem incapable of learning that, unless they remain squeaky clean and true to their stated principals, their sins will be ruthlessly exposed to the public gaze and they will be forced to resign or sentenced to long jail terms. Or both. It is significant this week to hear the Democrats eulogize the despicable, and now quite dead, Massachusetts Dem Representative Gerry Studds (love the name), a gay Congressman censured for, er, inappropriate sexual behavior during one of his many terms. Studds of course, was never ousted from Congress. Nor was Massachusett's current gay favorite, Barney Frank, whose roommate several election cycles ago was caught running a house of ill repute out of the townhouse they both shared. Barney pled ignorance, and got the usual pass from the media. But Foley, the Republican, was out within a day of the well-timed release of his instant-messaging escapades. A similar thing happened to Republican Congressman Bob Baumann a political generation ago. (No good link to this at the moment.) And let's not forget Senator Bob Packwood's ass-grabbing, which quickly got him a swift kick out of the Senate. You'll never see that with a Democrat.
Fallout: The Republicans here are literally experiencing, should they choose to notice, a "come to Jesus moment." They need to reconnect with who and what got them the majority on the Hill that commenced with Newt Gingrich's startling takeover of the House in 1994, something once viewed as less likely to happen than the fall of the Soviet Union. Repubs need to boost defense, cut out the pork barrel spending, continue to slash taxes (no matter how the lefties scream), back their natural constituencies like the Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts of America, to name two, against the predations of the Trial Lawyers and the ACLU. And they also need to refocus on the continuing importance of granting as many Islamofascists as possible the sublime gratification of martyrdom. This is what got the Repubs elected and re-elected in the first place. A simple return by the party to its own stated values would be more than enough to rally the faithful and leave the 'Rats and their lying allies in the media and the professoriat holding the short end of the stick once again, as was done in 2000 and 2004.
My guess? Election night will turn out better than the lefty pundits would like to think. But even if the Repubs win in a close call, they'd better learn their lesson this time. Or the chattering, unserious magpies of the left will plant their banners on Capitol Hill and the White House at last in 2008. With disastrous consequences for what's left of Western Civilization.
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