Calblog

What GOP Criticism of the President Says About the Republican Party

Democracy is alive and well in the Party of Abraham Lincoln. But we risk cannibalizing our power if we take this criticism too far

We hear some of the most scurrilous attacks against Conservatives and other ridiculous claims by Democrats every day. Almost never do we hear of other prominent Democrats criticizing those that make these attacks. The GOP gets called everything from Nazis to (as when Charlie Rangel recently compared Bush to Bull Connor who hosed blacks during a Martin Luther King March) a racist without a word from moderates in the Democrat Party rebuking them.

This is not the case in the GOP. Republicans rarely hesitate to criticize other Republicans when the need is called for. The criticism against the President for a myriad of disagreeable policies of his White House is something we never saw in the Clinton White House. Even when Clinton was wrecking the party with his extramarital behavior, his fellow Democrats did nothing but defend him. Bush is being lambasted (rightly or not) by his own party for having opinions that differ from theirs.

Now I am not in a position to judge whether or not GOP critics of the President are right or wrong to attack him so harshly. Nor can I really blame regular folks, who have supported this President through 2 contentious elections, for blasting President Bush on his ridiculous immigration ideas. The “Guest Worker” program is a thinly veiled plan to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. The only saving grace with this policy is that it is a policy. Democrats have fallen far short of that goal on many of today’s most pressing issues.

But my question today to those that chose to demand that the President withdraw his Supreme Court nomination is, are you serving the needs of the party and the nation or your own desire for Bush to pick someone you would chose? Certainly there were many other well qualified choices that Bush could have made. He went with the candidate that he knew best, someone from his own administration. You’ve got to admit that in the sense of putting his own mark on the Court, Bush has certainly done that in choosing Miers.

I believe that as Conservatives we have a mandate to criticize everyone we feel is not acting in the best interest of America. It has always been the way of the Republican to do so, and I know for a fact that a good many of the Democrats that voted to reelect the President in 2004 did so because they identified that Republicans were about identifying AND solving problems rather than blaming the other guys as Democrats seem to do. But perhaps we have crossed the line with the current heat many in the party are putting g on a President that seems destined to experience and thus deal with every possible form of natural and unnatural disaster possible.

On one hand our ability to criticize our own makes us a better party. On the other hand, there comes a point when the criticism turns into cannibalism. Just remember these words when Republicans are thrown from power in 2006 and 2008. Those that went too far will have themselves to blame. And you can bet pundits like me will be there to rub their noses in it.

Still, I caution against becoming the party of "yes sir". Many Republicans are Republicans because they know their party is the party of consequence. What a horrible situation this puts us in.

BTW Fri, 10/07/05 08:32 - Those that are still keeping an open mind on Harriet Miers should read this article by BeldarBlog.

Posted by SoCalPundit at October 9, 2005 05:45 PM | TrackBack