Revival of Republicans dangerous, foolish

I've been to Washington, D.C. on a number of occasions. It's always been hot—hot beyond belief. Either that, or it's rained like the Deluge. Either way, the recent snowstorm that brought 18 inches to our nation's capital took me by surprise. However, unlike many in the media and the public sphere, my reaction was "That's a lot of snow!," not "Al Gore is a liar and global warming is clearly not real!"

That's because one snowstorm doesn't mean this is the end of global warming. If you haven't seen Rachel Maddow's or Jon Stewart's takedown of the Republican talking point that this one storm negates all scientific proof on global warming, I encourage you to go on YouTube or Hulu and check it out. If you're not surprised by the idiocy of these Republican climate change deniers, you'll at least be entertained by the circles Stewart and Maddow run around them.

But I want to point out something that this recent "snowpocalypse" reveals about today's conservative polity. Let's remove our focus on the global warming deniers for just one second and turn to the right wing in general. As Stewart and Maddow pointed out on their shows, it seems as though the Republicans have no ability to remember anything prior to yesterday, including their ousting from power.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Republican Party is now reborn. They have new leaders—Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck and Michael Steele—but their record still stands.

Republicans claim they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Did they forget they still created the $3 trillion dollar Iraq war, the $600 billion upper-class tax cuts, the $400 billion handout to the drug companies? Did they forget that they created the laissez-faire climate that led to the recession which is now just beginning to be solved by government intervention? Did they forget that it was the Clinton administration that had created a yearly budget surplus that was on track to erase our national debt by the present day? Did they forget that it was also the Republican Congresses that lifted the national debt ceiling time and time again?

Republicans claim to be the party of patriotism. Did they forget that during the Bush administration, they claimed the liberal opposition was unpatriotic and in fact helping the terrorists? Do they not know that bringing guns to Presidential rallies, claiming the President is an illegal alien and calling for secession from the Union is unpatriotic? Did they forget that dissent is what makes democracy work, and that opposing views and the right to hold them was one of the ideals that the Iraq War was supposed to be about?

Republicans claim to be the party that celebrates life. Did they forget that 4,500 Americans and nearly a million Iraqis have died as a result of the GOP's military adventure in Iraq? Did they forget that it is their obstructionism that sends 18,000 to 45,000 Americans a year to the grave because they have no health insurance? Did they forget it is their moral responsibility to protect the born, not just the unborn?

Republicans claim to be the "godly" party. Did they forget that it is their industrial, global-warming-denier policies that is putting this Earth—God's greatest gift to his children—in extreme peril? They allow "sinners" like Rep. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign and Sen. David Vitter to keep their jobs, but did they forget how fervently they fought for former President of the United States William Clinton's resignation during the Monica Lewinsky scandal?

Republicans claim to be the party of national security. Did they forget it was their foreign policies of "go-it-alone" and "smoke-them-out-of-their-caves" that created the anti-Americanism that allowed terrorism to thrive in the 2000s? Did they forget that it was that the worst terrorist attack in all of history occurred on their watch? Have they forgotten 9/11, as Rudy Giuliani did when he said, "We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama."

The Obama administration hasn't been perfect, and the Democratic Congress has found itself unable to get much of its agenda accomplished. I'm dissatisfied with Harry Reid, and I'm dissatisfied with the way the Democrats have handled their majority status. But the fact is, while the country may be in bad shape, let's remember how it got this way. President Obama had been in charge for little over a year now. The recession is ending, and economists in general agree that it was the stimulus package and the government intervention in the economy that is preventing this from becoming a depression.

But it's going to take more than a year and $1 trillion to recover from foolhardy Republican policies that took decades and trillions of dollars more to get us here in the first place. Let's avoid being like the Republicans here and remember how far in the hole we were, and how the climb out is going to be difficult. The worst thing we could do is lose hope and put the people who screwed us over back in charge.

—Steve Keller '11 is a political science major editorializing on American politics this semester.