J.R. Dunn at the American Thinker has an article that I think is flawed in several ways, but nonetheless offers good and smart advice. He thinks it's time for the GOP to clean house, and re-commit itself to certain standards:
"The simple answer is: expose, expose, and expose. Somebody -- possibly everybody -- knew what Foley, Cunningham, and Stevens were up to. Somebody should have spoken up. Forget the excuses. The numbers? We've seen how well that strategy works. Those seeking to protect corrupt "friends" need to find new ones. The 11th commandment [Reagan re: thou shalt not criticize fellow Republicans] must be repealed until further notice. Shining a spotlight on these people and running them out will pay dividends in the long run.... This is in no way a recommendation for a purge but a call for the restoration of the simple, honorable methods of dealing with such types that should have been practiced for the past twenty years and have not been. This is a role that conservatives must take on -- to become the watchdogs of the party and its representatives. While taking action may well mean the end of several "promising" careers, that will represent no loss in the long run.
All the other "urgent" questions -- who is a RINO and who is a true conservative (whatever that might be) and whether social conservatives or moderates would better be dropped from helicopters, are trivia compared to this one. The voters are not stupid. After four years watching the Democrat's nightmare combination of the Chicago and Clinton machines (and what a soap opera that is going to be!), they will be ready for something better. We must be ready to give it to them."
The problem, of course, is what do you do when the corrupt are the leadership? I suppose you embrace that saying about striking at the king, and "expose, expose, expose" really hard, knowing that if you don't take them down, your political life is at an end.
Mind, I agree that's what has to be done, I just think it's important to realize that this is not a strategy the party will adopt formally, it's something insurgents within the party would have to do to try to clean it up in the face of massive opposition from their own party's machinery.
Joe -
For anyone who has any modicum of honesty in their political views or awareness of the world as it is today to apply this ONLY to the GoP is just gobsmackingly dishonest. This needs to be applied to the DC establishment across the board as is now becoming quite obvious (re: Blago and The One not really speaking about the Senate seat). I guess it becomes an issue of what "I" means as in:
It is time for the citizens to realize that the entire political establishment is corrupt and act accordingly.
It is going to be an interesting 4 to 8 years.
I don’t find that article particularly useful or insightful. That the conservative movement and GOP would be better served by not having corrupt elected officials is rather obvious (and undoubtedly true for the leftist movement and Democrat Party as well). The idea that the solution is to “expose, expose, expose” is rather naïve. Does he honestly think that “everybody knew” that Duke Cunningham was taking bribes until it was revealed in 2005? Usually the people who actually know about corruption before it is made public are either the people investigating it or the ones implicated in it.
Also what does exposure have to do with earmarks (which are the majority of his complaint in the article)? Legislators try to get earmarks precisely because they’re popular with the people back home so rather than fear being “exposed,” you’d think they would want to take credit for bringing home funding for a popular project in their district or State. In some cases, they even use their taxpayer-funded franking privilege to directly notify voters of this fact.
I think it's more along the lines of stop rationalizing and defending anyone just because they call themselves "conservative" and start calling them out.
This stems from many high profile defections from National Review (which I think still has clout in the GOP) such as Chris Buckley and David Frum who were put off by the inception of Palin to the Mccain campaign. They are currently editorials criticizing Bush for even considering to bail out Detroit!
In other words, the article was one big straw man. Thank you for the clarification.
The GOP will continue going about its same old routines. They will continue to tax, regulate, spy on, interfere with, and otherwise disrupt the lives of the American people.
The GOP's way of hanging onto their votes is to saw away at the same old violin of compulsory voluntary prayer in schools, "the homos are out to get you", and flag burning. They play their base for suckers. Meanwhile, those of us who want a return to the Constitution, and to just be left alone, have nowhere to go.
The Democrats are no different. Their violin is "the GOP will take your social security away", and "vote for us and we'll give you things!" to the minorities.
Expose. Hah!
Both parties have been exposed as corrupt at the highest levels and the average person is still being fed and accepting bread and circus' to ignore it. It doesn't matter the issue, all though Republicans love to hide in the closet and troll for children until exposed then they run and hide. Until people are really willing to take responsibility for their lives nothing will change.