Word: gop
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...Obama, there is no great plus in looking back and trying to make the Democrats' adversaries from the Bush years pay with an extra pound of flesh," says Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Independents, including those who drifted over from the GOP because of their unhappiness with the rightward turn of the party - and its incompetence - are not likely to resonate to attacks, and most voters want a focus on problem-solving, meaning looking to today and tomorrow, not yesterday...
...understand the perils of pursuing it too doggedly. There's a reason, after all, why the Democrats, upon winning back both chambers of Congress in 2006, didn't indulge in impeachment trials (though House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers would have liked nothing better): everyone remembers the price the GOP paid for its zealous pursuit of President Bill Clinton in the 1990's. And if Dems are going to overreach, they'd rather it be in the service of trying to achieve a policy goal like universal healthcare or energy reform. Still, the pressure is mounting from the left wing...
...Elected Democrats, though, are also mindful that the GOP, which has had a hard time scoring points against the popular President, would like nothing better than for the Dems to overreach in their pursuit of Bush staffers. "Now that the door's open, I say, bring it on, let's have a big national debate on this," William Kristol, a conservative pundit, said on Fox News Sunday. "Let's have Dick Cheney debate anyone the left wants to produce about whether we were responsible, about whether this was a dark chapter in our history, something that we should be ashamed...
Franklin D. Roosevelt's critics once tried to get at him through his dog, Fala, claiming the Navy had been dispatched, at great public expense, after Fala was supposedly left behind on a remote island. The attack backfired--the GOP hadn't factored in the popularity of a pooch with his own secretary to answer fan mail. America is canine-crazy, which is why a President's best friend can sometimes be the only one he needs...
...larger question for the GOP is whether in this and other matters it will risk a Faustian bargain with Beck, whose apocalyptic take on U.S. politics generates instant support from an angry, vocal minority but is unsettling to the mainstream. Embracing the populist wing of the party worked in the wake of 9/11, but contributed to the electoral disasters of 2006 and 2008. It may take more time for centrist Americans to sour on big government and higher spending than the GOP's activist right wing would like, but true conservatives are patient...