Is The Long Neo-Conservative Nightmare Really Over?

Glen Greenwald says the Republican noise machine, and their allies in the corporate press are no longer able to gain traction when they try to unfairly tar and feather Democrats. Trex echos Greenwald in a post called the "Incredible Shrinking Right." He points to the long overdue collapse of David Broder from "from Beltway Godhead to Bleating Dickhead in just a few short, easy steps" as an example of the rapid decline of conservatism. Kevin Drum points to an article by Michael Finnegan in the LA Times indicating that Republican regulars are too embarrassed by their party to answer poll questions. A commenter named Dave over at TMP (I can't find the comment right now) points to a significant decline in the number of comments at Redstate.com. It's true. You go to Redstate and they are posting, but nobody is commenting. You would think the site is a start-up like WTWC instead of a site that became valuable enough to be sold by the founders for real money.

What does it all mean? First, Americans are fed up with Iraq. They have been to the mall and have returned to discover the President has tied down our army occupying a country that doesn't want to be occupied. It is a country that only one American really wants to occupy. Sadly his name is George Bush. Second, Americans were appalled by Katrinia, and the lack of response shown by the administration to other Americans during their hour of need. It has dawned on many Americans that this administration puts the success of a small gang of cronies above all. Not many of us are in that small gang, which is really a subset of a subset of a subset. Third, the Alberto Gonzales hearings have demonstrated that for this crowd the department of justice is just another political tool. David Iglesias was on Bill Maher the other night. Maher gave the story perspective. At the end Iglesias was called a hero for putting his country ahead of his party. Maher's house Republicans sat on their hands looking embarrassed.

It sounds like our team is on a roll. We are finally winning. Well, during all of this I have been reading a series of books about the Civil War. You know, during the Civil War there were any number of battles where one side or the other thought it had won. Their soldiers stopped fighting. Sometimes they started looting. The other side rallied and ran the "victors" right off the battlefield.

Yes, Republicans are down right now, but they are down because of their own failures. Primarily they are down because they realize they have supported a maladministration that doesn't really share their core values. They are embarrassed because they have been hosed by the neo-cons. Folks, the Republican base will recover and will gain control of their party, maybe not in time for 2008, but recover they will.

The Democrats have yet to actually achieve anything. The war in Iraq continues unabated. We don't have universal health care. America's industrial base continues to decline. We still face a host of complicated social issues that have yet to be addressed. George Bush's maladministration is still in power. The justice department is still a wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC and is being run by Karl Rove.

Don't become complacent. Don't start bragging. The battle isn't won. If we let up they will rally and we could be run from the field. We need to make sure we remember that right now the Republican rank and file probably feels betrayed. I don't think they have abandoned their basic principles. We need to make sure we are inclusive and thoughtful when arriving at suggested solutions for Americas problems. Some of their basic principles are pretty much basic Democratic principles. Some aren't but there is room for compromise on many issues. This is a time for Democratic compassion.