Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust
Dec. 11, 2006 -- Might the “G” in Oregon Republican Senator Smith’s monogram stand for “Goldwater”? After Gordon Smith’s cry-uncle confessional in the Senate, as the 109th Congress wrapped it up last week, I was standing at attention. This was a significant moment. Smith clearly and thoughtfully admitted that after trying for years to be a “good soldier” for the president on the subject of Iraq, he just couldn’t take it anymore. He’d seen and heard the verdict of the Iraq Study Group. He’d reached the critical mass point of bad news from the front, hand-wringing from the generals, and growing outrage from the voters who’d just taken out their frustrations over the war, republi-CON corruption and lack of accountability by throwing a lot of them out. Smith said he could no longer support the war, its carnage and chaos, or it’s increasingly unavoidable status as a dead end. It was more than just a speech. WAY more. Indeed, it may be the opening notes of a New American Century “Goldwater Moment.”
What I did indeed expect, and what we’re all seeing in small, tentative steps, is evidence of what I hoped would be the biggest benefit from the November midterm elections. Once Democrats secured control of the House AND the Senate, the weather changed in Washington. Suddenly, the GOP had the wind knocked out of it. Their behavior indicates that they truly were NOT expecting this. Perhaps they thought the fix was in again, and that their majorities would be protected. After all, wasn’t Karl Rove talking about how everybody else might have their math, but he had “THE math” that would accurately forecast another republi-CON windfall? When Karl’s golden predictions did not come true, it gave a lot of them some serious pause. The party’s OVER. Time to decide if you’re on the bus or off the bus, as Ken Kesey would have told his Merry Pranksters. Suddenly more of the survivors are voicing interest in accountability, in canceling all further White House free passes, in asking some pointed questions and trying to get some realistic answers. It’s starting to appear as though the bus is going to be getting more crowded. And that makes it more likely that George W. Bush will eventually be thrown under it.
Let’s call it “The Goldwater Moment.” Named for the late Senator and Republican firebrand Barry Goldwater, who embodied the conservative political philosophy in the 1960’s, only to get shellacked by LBJ in the 1964 presidential election. That victory set the party back, but hardly marked the end of Goldwater’s impact on his fellow believers. In fact, his most lasting mark was made in the leadership he showed a decade later.
It was in August, 1974 that the Arizona Republican led a small contingent of GOP legislators from Capitol Hill over to the White House to talk some sense into Richard Nixon. Nixon was drowning in the roiling swells of Watergate, yet he remained stubborn against the mounting odds and continued to stonewall even while many of those walls were closing in on him. Enter Barry Goldwater, by then an esteemed party elder, one of the lone GOP voices speaking without the taint of scandal and ruthless criminality. He pressed the case personally with Nixon, telling the beleaguered president that his time was up. The mounting evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors from the Watergate mess had led directly to the Oval Office. There was no getting around it anymore, and nobody wanting to keep trying to do so. It was Goldwater who delivered the news to Nixon – you’re going down. There’s no more support available to you. Everybody’s bailed. You’re facing imminent impeachment unless you resign. Your only option now is to jump before they push you, for the good of the party. Very shortly thereafter, that’s exactly what Nixon announced he would do.
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