So the Republican party was caught with its finger up its nose. What was the party reaching for? Evidently, it found what it did not expect, the obvious, a big boo-boo.
Why did it happen? Innumerable theories have been put forward. Every theory supports the ideology and best hopes of the propounder. In fact, most of the pundits are correct. Almost any positive action would have been better than the half-measures taken.
Although many in the media accused Republicans of gunning for the President, this was not true. In fact, the Republicans merely made a half-hearted attempt to use impeachment proceedings for political gains. They should have either left the subject alone completely or pursued it doggedly. The President has committed enough treasonous or heinous acts to support almost any accusation the Republicans could make. In the end the truth would have come to light and in spite of a liberally biased press the country would have turned away from a scandal ridden administration.
Instead the Gingrich lead Republicans rested on their laurels and assumed that history, which shows that the party out of power always gains seats in an off year election, would repeat itself. I admit to being one of the students of history who advocated this finger in the nose strategy. Honestly, I thought that if conservatives went easy for the last three months or so of the election cycle that we would pick up a number of seats and then would be able to scale back government and increase personal freedoms and pursue justice at our leisure.
The important thing here is not to cry about what happened, but to learn from our mistakes. The lesson we must take away from this election, is not that we should be more moderate, more conservative, or anything else. Conservatives must pluck our fingers from our nose, ball our fists and act on our convictions.
