Cynical Nation

I'm as nostalgic for the 90's as anyone. Booming tech bubble and glib naiveté about the threat of Islamist terror. What's not to miss?

It's also the time that I shed my illusions about party politics. Within two years' time, I watched the party alignment of the entire government invert itself, in what was widely termed a "revolution" by both sides. I expected great things from this transition... or at least some things. What I found, however, was that for the most part, it was business as usual in D.C.

Why? Because at the end of the day, a politician is a politician. I'm more likely to agree with a Republican than a Democrat, but I harbor no illusions that either party has any inherent moral or ethical superiority over the other.

What we miss about the 90's depends on whom you ask. Some miss Clinton and others miss Gingrich. I miss them both. I think it's no coincidence that our record economic expansion coincided with a period of divided government.

I realize that makes me sounds like a traitor to my own party, but like I said, a politician is a politician. There's nothing left of the "Gingrich Revolution" save a few tattered shreds of a faded, forgotten poster. The forces that swept the GOP to power are now long forgotten, as the party focuses on nothing other than maintaining that power at all costs.

Today's Wall Street Journal touches on this theme. Tom DeLay, the WSJ, has begun to smell like ass "The Beltway." Actually, Mr. DeLay has smelled like Beltway for some time now. I'm just glad that someone besides Democrats are beginning to notice.

I'm confident that House Republicans can rally around DeLay and save his job if they choose to, but I'm honestly hoping they'll realize that doing so would not be in their long-term interest. Should the GOP continue along this road, they will set them up for certain defeat.

Let's face it, American didn't sweep Gingrich and his buddies into power because they wanted to de-fund PBS. They did so because they were disgusted with the entrenched corruption and arrogance of power on the part of Congressional Democrats.

Many Democrats then (like many Republicans today) probably thought they were immune. They had a pretty good scam going. As long as they couched everything in enough bullshit rhetoric about "helping the poor" and "defending the underclass," people would forgive them a certain amount of sleaze. It worked very well... up to a point.

But there's always a limit. I don't know exactly where the limit is for the GOP, but I know they're cruising towards it at about 90 mph. They're setting themselves of for a Jim Wright-style fall. Thanks to gerrymandering and voters' "hate Congress but love my congressman" attitude, it probably won't happen next year. It may not even happen in 2008. But if they continue on their present course, they will go down, and when they do, they're going down hard.

And you know what? They'll have no one to blame but themselves.