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Friday, November 17, 2006
Lorie Byrd :: Townhall.com Columnist
From moderate to moonbat in less than a week
by Lorie Byrd
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In just one week’s time, I have witnessed the transformation of the Congress won by Democrat moderates to the Congress run by Democrat moonbats.

When the Democrats won back control of the House and Senate last week, they did so not in a massive blowout devastating every opponent they faced, but as Hugh Hewitt put it, as a result of “a long series of bitter fights most of which were lost by very thin margins.”

The recipe for success consisted of recruiting a slate of moderate to conservative Democrats to run for open and vulnerable seats. In some cases those Democrats actually ran to the right of their Republican opponents. Another element of their strategy was to hide their liberal leaders. In the final days of the campaign the only place speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi could be found was on a Photoshopped milk carton on a few dozen conservative blogs.

Having won a majority of House seats and an even slimmer majority of Senate seats, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Democrat leadership would play their hand in victory. I was a bit surprised to see how quickly the success of the fresh new moderate Democrats turned into the power play of the ultra-liberal, business-as-usual Democrat congressmen and women in the leadership. Within a week of their winning election, Democrats shed their moderate masks.

It remains to be seen how the American public will react to the quick change. We do know how some outside America viewed the results of the election though.

Just days after the election, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei referred to the GOP losses in the congressional elections a “victory for Iran."

Officials from Iran and Syria (Jerusalem(CNSNews.com) said that a Democrat-controlled Congress could help relieve pressure that had been put on them by the current administration.

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, leader of Iraq’s al Qaeda wing (DUBAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) said the Democrat victory was a step in the right direction. Then he said, "I swear by God we shall not rest from jihad until we ... blow up the filthiest house known as the White House." I guess the prospect of possible impeachment just wasn’t quite sufficient.

Maybe the al Qaeda leader didn’t hear the tough on national security rhetoric from some of the moderate Democrats that won last week. Or maybe he somehow knew what was just around the bend. Incoming House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers has vowed to his Muslim constituents that he will work to dismantle the Patriot Act and it has been reported that Senator Patrick Leahy, incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was drafting a bill to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants.

The American electorate based their votes on issues other than just the war on terror though.

The “culture of corruption” theme helped Democrats by raising voter discontent with Congress (even though quite a few of those corrupt were Democrats) and Nancy Pelosi is still talking the corruption-busting talk. The walk, however, is another story. Continued...

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About The Author

Lorie Byrd is a Townhall.com columnist and blogs at Wizbang and at LorieByrd.com.

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Howdy
The ONLY reason the Dems won what they did was the simple lack of the Reps to do what they promised. The formed a contract and broke it. They proved the fact that was stated by one person who resigned his post years ago because he could not get anything done and he would rather be at home with his family than fighting a loosing battle.
The House and Senate should be held to accountability in more concrete ways.
They are duly elected and are there to serve the US public, so they should be legally held responsible for their work. If they could not profit from serving,,then they would have to serve for the service itself.

If most of us in the public arena did our jobs the way they do,,we wouldn't have one.
I despise any politician that states they are a 'Christian' and yet everything they do proves they are not. At least be honest..
Honesty in politics should be a legal requirement..Absolute honesty..If anyone in public service is found to be lying, they should immediately be removed from office and have to serve major jail time and be fined a years wages. That would stop some of the corruption.

San Fran Nan Is Scary
...and I want to take this opportunitely to shamelessly plug my newest post on my blog called "Lefties Use Babies as Political Footballs…Again."

It is all about Lefties Gone Wild.

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