I believe the answer is that the Right's fault in this catastrophe lies in their inaction. That's right, the Republicans (and I am guilty of this as well) so believed that the American People would not fall for the lies of liberalism, that they arrogantly failed to go on the offensive. The mainstream media capitalized on the Right's inaction by creating an anti-Republican mood. The fine people of this nation did not vote the Democrats into power. They voted the Republicans out of power. The average voter dislikes the liberal left as much as the next person, but the media had everyone in such a frenzy about the war and many of the moral issues on the ballot, that people voted for the left simply because they truly thought (after being hammered by the MSM-main stream media) that it was time for a change because the GOP can no longer be trusted. It must be true. CNN and MSNBC said so!
This situation is just like when Clinton originally got elected. He was the media's golden boy. The MSM loved him so much, and he had such a great smile (or so they say), and the people believed it - hook, line, and sinker. It didn't matter that the Reagan era was one of the most prosperous times in American history (after a liberal by the name of Jimmy Carter threw us into a massive recession, and allowed Iranian terrorists to hold over 50 Americans hostage in Tehran - how quickly the voters forget), and that he was credited with ending the Cold War. The news people loved this dude from Arkansas, and his feminist wife, so he must be A-okay.
We know that the left fights dirty. From the very beginning, even before 9/11, Nancy Pelosi admits that the Democratic Party's strategy was to reject everything Bush put on the table, and to commit an all out attack against him. That's how the left works. Their interests have nothing to do with the best interests of the nation. It's all about power. It's all about the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, and all of us Republicans (okay, maybe not all) underestimated what the DNC was capable of. Now, as a result of this, Bush's tax and entitlement reform proposals, and the extension of his tax cuts will be dead on arrival. His every move will be scrutinized and challenged. His ability to establish a functional relationship with the Democratic Congress is doomed. Suddenly, the veto is a very important weapon.
According to the press, the issue of the war in Iraq played prominently in several of the Democrat's gains in the House. In fact, it was probably a factor in every race across the country, dragging down the Republican hopes of maintaining control, making many of the races close when they should never have been competitive in the first place. Why? Okay, we all agree that war is hell, but it is ludicrous to imagine anybody believing that if we just leave terrorism alone it will simply go away. But that is really what they think!
This is why Rumsfeld stepped down. Maybe it was a good thing, but it is idiotic to say that he mismanaged the war effort. If he was guilty of anything, it is the fact that he sometimes did not fully consider the advice of the generals over there, and his inability to at least consider alternative courses of action. Most of all, his fault, and Bush's too, lies in the fact that they have not made the people understand that this is a war, and we should be over there fighting to win it, not just keep the peace.
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