The times they are a changin’

After 6 years of Evangelical Christians trying to change Foreign policy more along the lines of the Book of Revelations – those damned Republikans (strangely to the disappointment of some of the more wacky right wingers here on this site) look like they are about to get flushed in next months election (can we bring Bush’s impeachment any closer?).

Don’t take my word for it – try Time Magazine

The End of a revolution
Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when the only idea left is power.

The epitaph for the movement that started when Newt Gingrich and his forces rose from the back bench of the House chamber in 1994 may well have been written last week.

On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's show, the longest-serving Republican House speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages.

"If I fold up my tent and leave," Dennis Hastert told her, "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."

That may have been the most damning admission yet in the unfolding scandal surrounding Florida Congressman Mark Foley: Holding on to power has become not just the means but also the end for the onetime reformers who unseated the calcified Democratic majority that had ruled the House for 40 years.

But after controlling both houses of Congress for most of President Bush's six years in office, the GOP has a governing record that has dismayed those who fantasized about what Newt Gingrich and his band of rebels might accomplish.

To win votes back home, lawmakers in session have been spending like sailors on leave, producing the biggest budget deficits in history. The party's approach to national security has taken the country into a war that most Americans now believe was a mistake and that the government's own intelligence experts say has shaped "a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."

The current crisis arrived with a sex scandal that has muddied one of the GOP's few remaining patches of moral high ground -- their defense of family values and personal accountability.