Lazy Gopher Pachyderm

The immigration debate this week provided a perfect encapsulation as to why Republican Senators have sown the seeds of their own defeat. Trent Lott’s speech prior to the second cloture vote is people’s exhibit ‘A.’

Columnist Mark Steyn conversed with Hugh Hewitt and encapsulated the GOP Senate political standing:

“…people like Trent Lott are in large part responsible for the debark last November, in that he embodies, both in his generally witless remarks, but also in the idea that he forms part of this permanent governing class, everything that the Republican base came to loathe about the Republican Congress….”

“…you have a situation where both parties in a two-party system are at odds with the vast majority of the American public. And if bipartisanship means that the two parties agree to gang up on the citizenry of this country, then I’d rather have none of it….”

“…I think if the Republican Party wants to reduce their base to undetectable levels, I think it would be a great idea to send Trent Lott on a nationwide tour of country Republican parties, because this is exactly what the Republican base doesn’t want to hear. It doesn’t want some puffed up grandee from the world’s greatest deliberative body, which by the way is a lot of nonsense by any reasonable measure, the Senate is a low-grade deliberative legislature….”

“…this is what they loathe about [Republican Senators], that they become clubby, process bores, and the process, their love of the process overrides everything else… The needs of the Senate club do not override the interests of the United States of America.”

Bingo!

# posted by Ricard : 4:26 PM