Big Whoop

The MoJo Blog points us to this editorial, entitled "Time to Switch Teams," in which a Times Herald-Record business editor (Douglas Cunningham) gets all huffy about the current state of the Republican party, and scolds his fellow conservatives. Some excerpts (bolds mine):

I've had it. The Republican leadership in the House, beginning with Speaker Dennis Hastert, has got to go. As in now. I'm thinking we need to plow through four or five people right below Hastert, too. If the Republican members of the House had any guts, they'd have ousted these people last week. If the Republican leadership had any shame, they would have quit last week.

Apparently, not very many people these days have either, at least in Washington. Anyone who knew anything about the scandal, I want them gone. If the Republicans come to be known as the party that protects gay sexual predators, we're finished. I am not ready to abandon the party of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater to the likes of Mark Foley.

The Hastert storyline is one in which there's no percentage. The most degenerate gambler wouldn't place a bet on Hastert and the rest surviving. The Hastert line is this: I take responsibility, but I've done nothing wrong. This is no worse than Democratic sex scandals. We, personally, have done nothing wrong.

Well, to start with, you did nothing about Foley. Do we need to know more? The Republican sex scandals are suddenly pure and virginal? Foley, to the pier. Hastert, to the bench.

Some of you then trot out, Oh, sure, it's a sex scandal that gets you upset. Everything else was A-OK.

[...]

The reason Republicans are bent out of shape is that this Foley scandal is the proverbial last straw. We've had it. The out-of-control spending. The earmarks. The graft with the lobbyists. The arrogance. The abrogation of principles that Goldwater, Reagan and others worked decades to spread.

The Republicans will lose the House in November. Absent big changes, I have to say they deserve to. I will help them lose it, because in my own congressional district, Pennsylvania's 10th, I'm voting for Democrat Chris Carney. As the campaign literature for Carney slyly notes, he's been married for 18 years to his college sweetheart.

Why might he note that? Because his opponent, and the incumbent, Republican Don Sherwood, engaged in a five-year affair in Washington with a mistress some three decades his junior.

My father had choices. The Republicans offer me candidates who can't even keep their pants on. I've had it.

Well, whoopty-god-damn-de-doo.

We're actually starting to hear a lot of this lately. Republicans/"real" Conservatives are fed up with the out-of-control Bush administration, and they're ready to vote for the Dems, just to get them out of office. Well gee and gosh guys, that's all honorable and cool of you, but I just have one question for you. Where the hell were you guys during the last election?

This editorial, in particular, takes the cake. His finger wagging and scolding is just so much hot air, for the simple fact that the Bush Administration has been completely out of control since day one. Granted, things were jacked up tenfold after 9/11, but it is absolutely unforgiveable that it would take this long to realize that the Bush Administration is bad for America.

Before the 2004 election, everything that Cunningham mentions was already going on. The out-of-control spending. The earmarks. The arrogance. Not to mention everything else negative that Bush brought to the table. The Bush Administration has been rolling around in an orgy of unchecked power for the last six years, and suddenly now, a sex scandal is the straw that broke the camel's back?

Waiting for this election was simply not necessary. You could have stopped everything you're complaining about if you had been responsible and held your elected leaders accountable in the first place.

So, hey, thanks for the votes... we appreciate you finally taking some responsibility for the fanatics that you put in office and supported for the last six years. It's just a fucking shame for the rest of us that you couldn't set aside party loyalty for the love of your country before the last election. I'm going to be arrogant here and say for the rest of the planet, "Too little, too late." If you had any "guts" or "shame," you all would have stood up with the Progressives that have been shouting warnings since Bush started getting cocky, and stopped his massive power grab before we lost everything that America stands for. Instead, you scoffed and labeled those that would speak out against the Bush Administration as traitors. Now, suddenly, we're supposed to accept your change of heart?

I'm finding it pretty damn difficult to suddenly get excited about this "trend."

You should have "had it" in 2004. It was bad enough then. Thanks to you and your fellow silent apologists, we've got decades of cleanup ahead of us.

You helped this happen. Hell, you made this happen. Don't act as if you're suddenly a pillar of honesty and virtue. If one of you were to apologize to the Democrats and Progressives, rather than grump about how you've "had it," I think I'd have about twelve heart attacks in a row.

Bed. Made. Lie.

(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Crooks & Liars. Hey, where's the cross-post filling?)