I disagree
Written by Benaiah on March 28th, 2007The editors over at NRO are calling for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gozales.
What little credibility Gonzales had is gone. All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats. It is an overblown fear.
It is not an overblown fear. Every small victory emboldens the Left to go after anyone and everyone. They do it because we let them. We give them victory after victory on this kind of nonsense. Our virtue is used against us and I am tired of it. I am tired of cutting our losses. Our Republican leaders fail to defend themselves and other Republicans because they are frightened by what the media will say about them.
The time has come for a bold conservative statesman to emerge from the right. I am almost convinced that it won’t happen anytime soon. The Republican Party must first hit rock bottom before change will occur, and the way of the moderate and the RINO will be set aside. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.
I am going to say it. Republicans and conservatives will be better off in the long run when the Democrats win back the White House next year. Nothing will galvanize the base and party more leading to a victory for conservatives in the 2010 mid-term election.
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I think there are some of those bold spokesmen from the Right running for president — Hunter, Paul, Tancredo and even though I disagree with him on immigration, I count Brownback in this group. I highly doubt the movement will champion any of them. They’ll grumble and whine, but then give us another George W. Bush and tell us “we have to stop Hillary/Obama/Edwards/Whoever.”
The Right always eats its own. We have always had this obsession with purging the conservative ranks in order to appear respectable to our left wing enemies. National Review is especially good at this — removing Peter Brimelow and Joe Sobran and muzzling John O’ Sullivan in the early 90’s and replacing them with the grade schoolers who are running the show there now. The result is that the conservative movement constantly drifts away from the Right, even as the Left presses their advantage on cultural issues or the growth of government. Would Richard Weaver, or Russell Kirk, or even James Burnham be allowed to write for National Review today, or would they be too “extreme” and “embarassing for the movement?”
I have no love for Alberto Gonzalez. Despite this, I agree with this post. What is to be gained by sacrificing him? It will demoralize our people and encourage the Left. However, if you have a problem with these tactics, realize that this flaw goes back to the earliest days of the postwar conservative movement, National Review, and Bill Buckley himself.
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Duncan Hunter is a protectionist who has not a lick of knowledge about how global trade and economics work. Strike him.
Ron Paul is right on many issues, and is a staunch believer in strictly following the Constitution. But he takes it too far with his isolationist rhetoric, and basically wants to pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist and isn’t going to affect our little paradise. Strike him.
Tancredo takes the anti-illegal immigration thing too far, and has actually been anti-legal immigration and wants to shrink it. This is a stupid position and he is going nowhere. Not to mention he seems to be a bit of a whiner. Strike him.
Brownback has a pretty good economic record, as the Club For Growth’s white paper on him shows. But he is wrong on illegal immigration. I am not saying that a plan to round up millions of illegals and ship them back would be feasible, but I am saying that the border needs to be completely secure before there is a thought of any amnesty deals and “paths to citizenship.” The McCain-Kennedy bill was a travesty.
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Oh, yeah, I forgot to add to the end of Brownback’s paragraph: Strike him.
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“Republicans and conservatives will be better off in the long run when the Democrats win back the White House next year.”
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I fail to see how President Clinton advances conservatism. Aside from that, this conventional wisdom that the White House is the Democrats to lose does not hold up in the polls. Depending on who the candidates are, the GOP absolutely can hold the WH next year. In fact, every poll shows Giuliani winning no matter who is opponent is and McCain tieing. A Rasmussen poll just showed Thompson beating Hillary by one point.
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Losing the White House in ‘08 would be one step back in order to take 2 forward.
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I think you are very mistaken. If you’re willing to hand over both chambers of Congress as well as the White House to the Democrats then don’t scream when they tear down and destroy our health care system. That is exactly what will happen if the Dems take the White House in 2008. Get ready for socialist Eurocare and once we have it, it’s never going away.
They can do a significant amount of damage in just two years and even if the GOP regains complete control, which it wouldn’t in just two years, you think they are going to undo any of that stuff? They have proven time and time again that they don’t have the balls to stand up to the welfare state, so the best solution is to keep it from expanding.
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You’re right the can do a hell of a lot of damage in a short period of time. But our welfare state is already expanding under Republicans.
Whats worse the slow bleed approach of incremental entitlements we deal with now or the rapid establishment of these programs? My argument is that let them have the power, let everyone see just how crazy they really are and then come back in and clean up the mess.
Democrats are the kings of incrementalism. They invented it and the Republicans have helped them. The reason entitlements never leave is because they are always established in increments making them more palatable to the masses. Let them install Eurocare and watch Americans revolt.
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I don’t feel that an Attorney General of the United States should be made to resign over the professional incompetence of eight people who he fired.
Perhaps the deputy could have been more diplomatic, but the fact is these guys weren’t doing their jobs. People need to stand behind Gonzalez.