One of the things conservatives worried about when the government partially shut down was that the Republican Party, which had suddenly found some backbone and was standing up to Obama's threats and doomsday predictions, would lose their nerve and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which they are so successful at doing. They were well founded fears. Just when they had Obama by the short hairs they gave up.
Obama has been in free fall for several months. The IRS scandal had broken and on top of Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the AP phone record scandal, domestic spying, and all the other corruption surrounding the White House he was finding it hard to hide. Syria destroyed him as an international leader, and his refusal to negotiate with Republicans, all the while spewing the lie that he was willing to discuss anything with his political opposition, had even Chris "my legs tingle when he speaks" Matthews moaning that Ronald Reagan, whom he has no love for, was a better president than Obama. Obama's popularity in the polls dropped to 37%.
The shutdown began when the Republicans finally decided it was time to reel in deficit spending, and the place they sought to do it was Obamacare, which 80% of their constituents, and 51% of the country wanted defunded or delayed. Harry "the rat" Reid in the Senate wouldn't even let the Senate vote on the House bill. Over the last weekend in September the Republicans offered at least five compromises, which step-by-step moved away from Obamacare to just cutting spending, but Reid wouldn't even call the Senators in to work. A partial shutdown followed which only closed 17% of the government, but it was basically Obama's choice as to who went home and what stayed open.
Obama chose to punish the American people by closing national parks, including the mall in Washington, D.C., which cost more money to close than to leave open, by refusing to help cancer patients by closing the National Institutes of Health, and by withholding death benefits from the families of soldiers slain in Afghanistan. (Anybody who doesn't believe Obama was behind that is daft.) It was nothing more than the tyrant having a tantrum.
The House began passing bills to refund national parks, the NIH, and other departments they felt should be open, but Obama refused them all. At the same time the million man Muslim march in Washington drew exactly 25, while a million motorcyclists from all across the country paraded around the city waving the American flag. Then World War 2 veterans were blocked from the World War 2 memorial while Obama opened a part of the mall for illegal aliens to demand amnesty. He couldn't have looked more petty and childish, or more condescending to non-Americans over U.S. citizens. The Republicans had Obama on the ropes.
And then they surrendered. To be sure the Obama media blamed it all on the Republicans, and the non discerning public believed them. One thing Democrats are is masters of spin, and one thing Republicans have never learned is how to counter it. Like standing on principle, and continuing to stand regardless of the opposition until you prevail. In the end, Obama got everything he wanted, and more than he was asking for before the shutdown. The Republican stand accomplished absolutely nothing, except to make them look as weak as Obama looked a month before. And now emboldened, Obama is demanding a new look at immigration reform which he has failed to push through in five years. The question is whether Speaker of the House John Boehner will, in full retreat, lead the Republican Party to another defeat.
Rush Limbaugh stated that the Republican Party has become irrelevant. He is right. Until the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) can be replaced and a strong leadership be found to stand up for the Constitution and against the growing tyranny on the other side of the isle, the Republicans are as big a joke on domestic affairs as Obama is on foreign ones.
There is hope, however, small as it may be. The Democrats, their media allies, and the RINOs continually complain that a small minority of rightwing extremists, the Tea Party representatives, are holding the entire Republican Party hostage. In fact, 144 Republicans in the House, 62% of their delegation, voted against the Senate bill to reopen the government. That is much more than a small minority and if they can replace Boehner with a conservative as the next Speaker of the House, there is still a chance they can be relevant and keep Obama in check.
The only good thing to come out of this, and it's not a good thing really, is that Obamacare is up and stumbling. People are already coming face-to-face with the reality of the "Affordable Care Act," which may go down in history as the greatest misnomer ever. But now it's no longer Bush's fault, neither is it the Tea Party's fault. The Republicans have been defeated on the issue. This is Obama's baby. Let him wallow in it. Midterm elections are only thirteen months away.
