Ashamed
By KyleH Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I was too young when we lost Vietnam. I was too busy playing with toys to realize the implications of that tragedy. Only vaguely do I remember the helicopters lifting off the roofs as my Dad watched the evening news. Maybe it was good that I did not know what was happening. It would have been hard to carry that shame for this long.
For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be an American citizen. I don't see any good resulting from tonight. All I see is the abandonment of the Iraqi people. It hurts deep in my soul that we will be leaving these good people to the tender mercies of Iran, Syria, and Al Qeada. It is not just these people either. We are abandoning the entire Middle East.
Our soldiers did their jobs. It too bad the rest of us back home lost our nerve.
Look. I'm sick watching the dems celebrate but give them credit for running moderate to conservative democrats in a lot of areas. That in it self is a bit of a victory for us, it certainly doesnt bode well for the radical left that they had to run a bunch of moderates to eke out a majority. Every dog has it's day. We'll be back.
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us - Voltaire
What most people don't seem to realize is the tremendous advantage that incumbency gives.
As I'm writing this, Real Clear Politics has 21 House seats listed that have been picked up by the Democrats. Of those, 15 are defeats of Republican incumbents, and 6 are wins of open seats (formerly GOP). Let's use that number, even though it is going to end up being more than 21.
There are 435 seats in the House. That means that about 96.6% of all incumbents (Dem and GOP) were re-elected this year. Assume that we double the number of Republican incumbents who lose this year and make it 30 (something that isn't going to happen).
That still means that 93% of all incumbent Republicans and Democrats will win re-election.
To provide a little more perspective, in the 1994 "Republican Revolution", 34 incumbent Democrats (and no incumbent Republicans) were defeated. Republicans won an additional 20 open seats that had been held by retiring Democrats for the 54 seat swing in the House that year. However...
That means that even in 1994, 92% of incumbents won re-election.
Winning back the House is an always an uphill battle. That is one of the reasons why it was so important not to lose. The Democrats now call the shots on what gets introduced and voted on -- like amnesty for illegals.
I have a hunch the battle for the House is going to get even harder after that one goes through.
Yes, the vast majority of incumbents are safe. They were safe in 2004, safe in 2006, and will be safe in 2008. Those 15+ R seats the Dems are picking up are not safe seats, and they won't be safe in 2008. We will continue to fight over the same districts again and again every cycle until the next census. It's not that incumbents are unbeatable, it is just that 90% of the districts out there are not competitive.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
Did you elect these fools? Did you stay home?
Get a grip!
I'm not ashamed. I'm proud to be an American and I haven't lost my nerve. The donkeys may have won this round, but I will not give up on our country. It's timed to sharpen the knives and get ready for battle.
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The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas-a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideals to which we are dedicated.-Reagan
some (most?) have given up. but there are still many who have not. and those of us who stood up and fought must fight still.
We will win tomorrow because I don't believe the people are as dumb as I think they are.
I think he is ashamed because our voters went to the polls and proved Osama Bin Laden right.
All you have to do to defeat the US is keep chipping away, and the anti-American media will do the dirty work of only reporting the bad and not the good. This in turn wearies our gutless electorate who had nothing to be weary of and they collectively turn tail and run.
We just entered a VERY bad place, and it will get far worse before it gets better (if it can get better).
In 1996 I went to the polls and I voted for Bob Dole. I stayed up and watched the returns. After they came in, I felt ashamed. I lived in a country that elected Bill Clinton as president not once but twice!
And I feel dissapointed tonight as well, I was optimistic. I thought we'd lose a few seats in the House but manage to keep it and I thought the senate wouldn't change much. Boy was I wrong.
But you know I look back. Bush for all his faults his the second best president in my lifetime. (I'm sure you can guess whose first). We've got two good judges so far. We got John Bolton at least for now. And remember the Bush tax cuts were passed through a divided Senate. So there is room for optimism.
Regardless of any of this though. This is my country. I am an American and I am proud to be an American. (It is American not USian!!). I don't think there is anything that can take that inherent pride away from me.
So don't be ashamed, you're a citizen of the greatest country to have ever existed.
I love this country.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that we will have no choice but to wait for the terrorists to take the fight to us, something on which I'm sure they will happy to oblige. Let's just hope our fellow citizens don't grow tired of that battle as quickly as they've grown tired of this one, because if we choose to cut-and-redeploy from that fight, there is nowhere left to go.
We simply don't have the stomach to fight another WWII. We don't even have the stomach to fight another Korean War. I just hope our very survival doesn't depend on our doing so.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
You believed there was a GWOT, as did I and most Americans. Some in the political offices of this president thought it a wedge issue.
So after tonight, we will crawl across glass to get a Harriet Miers nominated to the USSC, to get more money to expand our intelligence gathering, and so forth. I will write more later when I am less bitter.
I agree with the warnings upthread about the power of incumbency and it seems to me that we have one cycle to get it right and mount a successful challenge in 2008. If we come up short, then it's Democratic ascendancy for many years to come.
What are the strategy and tactics of the next two years? I'm not competent to say. More importantly, where are the leadership and the moral fiber going to come from? We don't have many voices in strong positions, and I think the key questions we need to ask in the next several weeks are about how we plan for the next two years.
But your point concerned the GWOT, and here I am of a very different mind. Because in a media-driven age, strength is determined in great measure by perception. America's television viewers and newspaper readers are exhausted with Iraq, and they're ready for a new movie. I don't expect our strategy and tactics in Iraq to significantly change until 2009, since these are driven by the Administration. But I do expect Iraq to be replaced on the front page by a new set of stories as the media get used to the idea that people congenial to them are now back in power. This will have the effect of making many Americans feel like Iraq is going much better than they think it's going now. The Democrats will have given the people what they wanted all along.
Of far more lasting importance is what the American people have done tonight to change the perceptions of the rest of the world. Tonight's election results will signal to our friends and our opponents that America has taken herself out of the war on terror. And this immediately and permanently changes the game.
I don't expect a new wave of terror attacks anytime soon. I may be overrating our enemies, but they would be irrational to attack us again on our soil. Nothing else would be as effective at re-unifying America and re-igniting our resolve. The rest of the world (friends and enemies alike) are far more comfortable if America is not unified or strong. They are all feeling the pleasant warmth of Schadenfreude and easier sleep tonight.
Going forward, we will find it far more difficult to influence world events, much less act as a moral beacon or a champion of freedom and human rights. This is a sad and bitter reality, and our grandchildren's lives will be much the poorer for it. I expect that, apart from President Bush and a few other people in the Administration, America's leaders and her people are uncomfortable with global leadership, especially in its moral dimension, and will be only too happy to look (in vain) to the UN for leadership in the coming years and decades.
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, two extraordinarily astute if somewhat cynical geopoliticians, responded to America's diminished world position in the wake of Vietnam in a way that will soon become familiar to us: with the policy of detente, which is fundamentally a way of managing weakness to one's best advantage. It took the historically-serendipitous emergence of a man, both genius and fool, who had the ability to actually win, not just manage, the Cold War. In the wilderness we now find ourselves in, we may hope for a new Reagan, but must confront the reality of the diminished stature that America's voters have chosen to assume.
You've won your victory through the nonstop attacks and lies of the hate-filled media and Democrat party. You knew us to be weak, and you were right.