|
We Will Be Gracious By Nancy Greggs
I guess I can safely assume that you Republicans have seen the latest Pew survey results.
In 2002, the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats or Republicans was the same, with 43 percent of the population on each side. However, as of this writing, that has shifted to 50 percent for the Democrats as compared to 35 percent for the GOP – and as the Pew Research Center was quick to point out, that is the biggest lead either party has had since the question has been posed.
As a proud member of what is now the majority party, I just wanted to assure my friends in the minority that when we finish the job we started last November, and include the White House as part of our political landscape in 2008, we will be gracious in our victory.
When elected GOP representatives disagree with us, we will not question their patriotism, as they did ours. To do so would be divisive and detrimental to the well-being of our nation – and besides, we are already familiar with their brand of patriotism, so no questions need be asked.
We will, however, afford all of them an opportunity to change their ways, and start putting the country’s welfare above their own self-interests, their own careers, and their unwavering desire to be loyal Bushies as opposed to being loyal Americans. We will graciously chide them to put their rubber-stamps away, and exercise the oversight they have so woefully neglected for too many years.
We will, again very graciously, forget past transgressions and invite all Americans to enjoy a return to democracy, to justice, to honest government – to sanity.
The country can rest assured that when the Democratic president takes the oath of office in January 2009, they will do so without their fingers crossed behind their back. They will uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land, rather than finding ways to redefine its meaning for their own political purposes, or circumvent its boundaries.
The next Democratic president, no matter who he or she turns out to be, will not seek to distance themselves, or our country, from traditional allies, nor will they lie the country into war. They will not send our troops into harm’s way based on a manipulation of the facts, nor fabricate reasons to utilize our military for their own purposes.
They will not use the ‘liberation’ of a foreign nation as a pretense for liberating oil or other natural resources for the enrichment of their cronies, and they will certainly not send ill-equipped soldiers into battle in an attempt to funnel taxpayers’ dollars into the pockets of their family members and friends.
Under Democratic rule, no citizen need fear being abandoned in a time of natural disaster. Democrats do not appoint lackeys to positions that require life-or-death decision-making as a payoff for past political favors. There has never been a horse-show promoter named as the head of FEMA under a Democratic president, and there won’t be in future.
Unlike the present regime, Democrats take the stewardship of the environment, and the oversight of federal regulations, seriously. The FDA and the EPA will not continue to be henhouses that are watched over by the foxes – regardless of how many thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners the foxes have been willing to attend.
The next president will not continually embarrass the nation by acting the buffoon in public appearances, either at home or abroad. There will be no humiliated cringing as the leader of our nation speaks like an uneducated idiot, or displays his lack of knowledge about world affairs, or the customs of the country he is visiting at any given time.
There will be no more working vacations while American cities are lost, no more mindless punchlines about haves and have-nots while American jobs are lost, no more sermons about shared sacrifice while the rich are made richer, no more cutesy videos of a president searching for WMDs that never existed while US soldiers are dying as a result of that particular little 'joke'.
There will be an end to childish displays, like renaming Capitol Hill cafeteria items as Freedom Fries, in response to serious global issues. There will be no more brush-clearing in lieu of doing the country’s business; there will be no more play-acting on aircraft carriers in lieu of actual leadership.
Our wounded veterans will not be trotted out as convenient props in photo-ops, and then discarded as so much trash when the cameras are put away. Our children will be fully educated in mathematics and the sciences, instead of being taught merely how to ace the test.
In the new Democratic regime, the president and his or her administration will no longer be taking advice from people with their own un-American agenda, especially people who have been proven to be wrong time and time again.
There will be no more talk about cakewalks that turn into years of turmoil and thousands of casualties; there will be no more mindless lectures on spreading freedom and democracy as countries are destroyed, as innocent civilians are tortured, as more-than-innocent children die.
More importantly, the White House will no longer be in the clutches of religious fanatics whose own intolerance has injected itself into the governance of a nation founded upon the principles of freedom, the unalienable rights of the individual, and the separation of church and state.
There will be no more self-serving partisanship trotted out in the guise of patriotism; there will be an end to looking the other way as the government pries into the private lives of its citizens, defies the law, and declares itself unaccountable to its citizens and unbound by its mandate to uphold the Constitution.
It will be the end of an in-all-but-name dictatorship, that relies on fear to keep its constituents malleable, and on corruption to keep itself solvent enough to perpetuate its propaganda.
There will be no more terror alerts to distract public attention from wrongdoing, no more obfuscation of justice veiled as executive privilege, no more divergence from the law of the land hidden behind signing statements, or excuses for secrecy being hastily categorized under the heading of national security.
We will be more than merely gracious in victory; we will be downright American – something this country has not seen nor experienced in a very long time.
We graciously invite the remaining 35 percent of you to join us.
|