SALLY MORRIS: DEMOCRATS BURY AMERICA IN DEBT AND REPUBLICANS DIG THE HOLE
Well, folks, now you have it. The Republican Party has stepped up to the plate at long last and missed the ball. They didn’t bunt. They missed the ball. We’ve had all sorts of great explanations meant to get Speaker John Boehner off the hook he put himself on. “We don’t want to use our ‘leverage’ too soon! Let’s wait for the Paul Ryan budget That will be the REAL test! This is just a FAKE test, not a REAL one.” No less a figure than that darling of conservative talk radio and sometime Beacon author, Rob Port, says: “Let’s not allow the ‘perfect’ to become the enemy of the ‘good’.” Come on, Rob. You can do better than that. How’s this one, from this writer: “Let’s not tear defeat from the jaws of victory”? For did we not proclaim victory last November? Did that mean anything?
John Boehner seems to think not. He seems to still believe he’s a Minority Leader in the House. Wake up, John! It’s not a dream. Remember? Nancy Pelosi handed YOU the gavel. Now it’s up to you. You have a majority in the House of Representatives – where the appropriations are made, where all financial bills commence. It is your duty to lead. You have not led since that first tear of joy.
In all seriousness, last December, I commented that the Republican Party was “on probation”. The victory of last November was on trial here. People went dutifully to the polls and, many on the advice of tea party organizations and their endorsements, supported supposedly conservative candidates with their votes. If the tea party organizations are to remain at all effective and not lose their credibility, they must now take some kind of action to withdraw their support from those who have not merited that support.
We have a broad range of interesting potential candidates for the presidential ticket on the Republican side. I would say that the yardstick the tea party movement needs to use before endorsing anyone or even considering them as serious candidates, is to demand that they weigh in - personally – on this question of the budget. Many of us have admired the leadership and values of Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. If she is serious about a run for the presidency we should strongly urge her to denounce Boehner and actually lead a revolt. I had questioned in an earlier article, the fitness of Mr. Boehner to serve in the perilous times we are facing. My concerns are justified by his failure to lead. In the face of a challenge he was the first to blink. I believe that Democrats, including Obama, expected this. Personally, I believe that Bachmann would be a great choice, but she’d better not be caught bringing the guys their coffee and muffins. She needs to be presidential. Like Margaret Thatcher. Channel Thatcher, Michele! What would she do in this situation? I know you’ve got the stuffing.
It is no good for conservatives to sit back and look for the bright side in all of this. There is none, if we are not to deceive ourselves. We are being told by people such as Rob Port that this was just a “skirmish”. The battle is still coming. I don’t know about that. I have no reason to believe that you win a battle by losing a “skirmish”, or that you win a war by losing a battle. If we had fought the Revolution this way we would still be singing “God Save the Queen” and Washington would have hanged from a tall oak tree. No, Rob. This is no time to make excuses for these failed “leaders” in Congress. Let’s accept that we’ve been had and move on in another direction, rather than pretend otherwise. It serves no one to follow the wrong leader or no leader at all. Like the little boy in the story, it’s time to scream, at the top of our lungs, “John Boehner’s not wearing any clothes!” Trying to put a good face on this travesty and ballyhooing “spending cuts” which amount to fraud, really is putting lipstick on a pig. It will not save our country.
The Democrats, about to bury America in our own debt, pointed to the hard ground and nudged our Republican “leaders” and ordered them to dig. Our leaders should have said, “No. See if you can dig it yourself. The American people did not elect me to dig your hole!” After all, WE had the shovels THIS time. Where are the leaders we elected? This is not a rhetorical question, by the way. We need to find them before the next election campaign season. We cannot afford to back anymore RINOs.
Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government and the executive committee of the Valley Tea Party Conservative Coalition
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