Respect the New President.

How some see the new Congress. Cartoon by Chuck Asay.

The froth and bubble has all been blown, sanity or what passes for it seems to be slowly settling in. The sky hasn’t fallen yet, although the stock market has taken a pounding as investors start to consider the possibility that Obama might just mean what he said about unrestrained free enterprise.

Hope is held by some that some of those new Democrats are blue dogs and will restrain some of the excesses promised in the campaign, but the last lot to get in were supposed to be blue dog too, and they settled into the Dem camp quite nicely and haven’t rippled the water since. This lot if any of them are moderates will soon learn the art of big government tax and spend, as well as the philosophy that nothing exists until a regulation is passed, a commission is formed to investigate its desirability and the strength of the regulation needed on it, and a large inspectorate is brought into being to control it.

Probably we were lucky to get away with the result we did, it could have been a damn site worse. McCain wanted to run a positive campaign, which in itself is an admirable goal although too many of us tended to allow ourselves to slip into negative territory. I think we should have spent more time accentuating the positives of Republicanism, rather than the negatives of Obama. These would have been seen in starker view this way.

What is important though is that we accept the Presidency of Obama, for better or for worse. All America will suffer for it if the office of the Presidency is not respected, there is a great tradition that while you might not like the man, the Presidency is treated with respect. I have noticed this trait among you in the past and have admired it.

Anne Coulter has come out with a bitter diatribe about McCain and perceived weaknesses in the campaign, some of them valid but her conclusion is a shocker: -

“For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.”

Criticisms of the actions of the head of state are valid. Where a President makes a mistake he is liable to suffer criticism and deserves it. There is nothing wrong with that and it is a healthy part of the democratic process. The sort of action that Coulter is advocating however is the ridiculing of the President, just like was done to Bush. Valid attacks on the actions of the President are fine but to drag the position through the mud damages the image of the nation as a whole.

Such actions would have a serious impact on the party as well as most Republicans value the style of government America has, and would rather stay at home than vote for that kind of politics.

I have noticed that the predictable night of the long knives has started with the candidates being attacked, and everybody looking for someone to blame. McCain is copping it, and some are starting in on Palin. The party sat back and allowed the Bush administration to spend like drunken sailors, and increase the size and authority of government to a degree that would give the average Democrat wet dreams, the exact opposite of what we stand for. McCain was the most fiscally conservative of the candidates who were left standing after the initial round of polling.

Romney was a popular figure, and his business acumen has impressed me, the Olympics thing he did was great, but had he stayed in his Mormonism would have been seen in the same light as McCains ‘not being conservative enough’. Mike Hucabee seems likeable enough when not standing for the Presidency, and to his credit did a great deal to help the campaign, unlike many of those who spat the dummy because McCain was not the one they wanted. Huck from my stand point has acted with complete honour, but is divisive as a Presidential candidate.

Palin was probably the most positive aspect to the campaign. In the limited time she had she did wonders, and has energised a whole new element of women whose activism will be of tremendous value in the future. Palin is a big part of the future of the party, if anyone hasn’t noticed, she is a real republican, who pursues real Republican policies, she is a reformer who is willing to dig out those who bring us into disrepute, is fiscally conservative, and against the politics of “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Way to go.