Democratic Wave in Congress Further Erodes Moderation in GOP By Zachary A. Goldfarb, Special to The Washington Post

[T]he Democrats’ victory in the midterm election accelerates a three-decade-old pattern of declining moderate influence and rising conservative dominance in the Republican Party. By one measure, the GOP is more ideologically homogenous now than it has been in modern history. The waning moderate wing must find its place when the Democratic majority takes over in January.

“The irony of this election is that the public, in seeking change, has . . . weakened the center,” Leach said recently. “In a sense, what has occurred is the strengthening of the edges of the parties.”

Eight of the House’s 20 most moderate Republicans lost their seats: Rob Simmons and Nancy L. Johnson (Conn.); Jeb Bradley and Charles Bass (N.H.); Michael G. Fitzpatrick and Curt Weldon (Pa.); Sue W. Kelly (N.Y.); and Leach. Also, moderate GOP Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (N.Y.), is retiring, and he will be replaced by Democrat Michael A. Arcuri, the Oneida County district attorney.

On the Senate side, the defeat of Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.), a critic of the war who declined to vote for Bush’s reelection in 2004, underscored the same trend.

By one measure, the 110th Congress will have the fewest moderates since the 19th century. …

An important factor in the Democrats’ victory in the midterm election was that independent and moderate voters abandoned the GOP in droves. Since the 2002 midterms, support for the Republican Party has declined seven percentage points among moderates and nine percentage points among independents, according to exit polls.

Lott Rejoins Senate Leadership – washingtonpost.com
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A04

Four years after racially impolitic remarks cost him the Senate’s top post, Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.) rejoined Congress’s leadership ranks yesterday when his Republican colleagues turned to the veteran insider and skilled vote-counter to help them plot their return to majority status. …

Lott’s feat ranks among the more impressive political comebacks of recent times, just as his fall from grace in December 2002 was spectacular and painful. At a 100th-birthday party for then-Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), Lott said the nation “wouldn’t have had all these problems” if Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Thurmond had run on a segregationist platform as a Dixiecrat that year, and critics denounced the remarks as racist.

Lott said he was simply flattering an old man. But Bush administration supporters and other Republicans helped engineer his ouster just as he was about to become Senate majority leader again after the 2002 midterm elections, replacing him with Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). …

Referring to Lott’s Thurmond comments, [Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a Lott supporter,] said that Americans believe in redemption. “It’s one of those things that happened fairly long ago,” he said, “and people have moved on.”[mjh: 2002!?]

Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was less forgiving. “For many African Americans the sting of Trent Lott’s hurtful words are unlikely to expire anytime soon,” he said in a written statement. “However, his Republican colleagues have given him a second chance to address many of the glaring disparities that impact poor people, particularly African Americans, that he and his party have ignored for so long.”

Heather Wilson is still following the Republican playbook: appear confident when confidence isn’t warranted, declare victory when it is still in doubt and act outraged when anyone dares to disagree.

Read the insolence from a Wilson spokesperson:

“If there is an honest and open counting, Heather Wilson is going to be re-elected without any questions.”

That’s right, the outcome is certain and the data will fit the results. You will not question this! Notice the acid this throws on the process: if we don’t win, you cheated. Simple. Incendiary. Rovian.

Karl Rove’s still in power (and in the front row at the Bush’s press conference). Though Rove is the Architect of Victory in the same sense as Rumsfeld, Rove has not shared Rumsfeld’s fate.

As for Rummy, did you hear his parting assertion that Bush and his cadre are the few who really understand what’s going on in this, “the first war of the 21st century” (the assumptions of that phrase nauseate me). These guys never knew what is going on, just what they wanted to be going on. They are delusional.

CIA-ocracy

Can anyone tell me how many of the top people in Washington are former CIA directors? Seems like a disproportionate number, going all the way back to Duhbya’s daddy. Sure, CIA people are smart and well-informed. Never mind the secret prisons. mjh

GOP House of Horrors

Tallahassee Democrat By Eugene Robinson, WASHINGTON POST

George W. Bush used to claim he was ”a uniter, not a divider,” but that was a long time ago. These days, he’d probably try to deny the quote the same way he tried to disown ”stay the course.” The Karl Rove formula for political victory has been to draw a bright line between ”us” and ”them” and then paint those on the other side not as opponents but as monsters.

Thus Bush openly accused those who disagree with his policy in Iraq of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. ”The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,” he said the other day.