Four Years Wasted

John Derbyshire at the Corner calls himself a sore loser, and maybe he is, but I tend to agree with a lot of what he wrote following the win by Obama:

Just watched Wonder Boy's speech. Hmph. "Callused hands"? When did he ever have callused hands?

All right, I'm sour. The most liberal member of the U.S. Senate! And that shakedown-artist of a wife, with the permanent frown! And Joe Biden! …

I'm sour about the GOP too. What did it all get us, those 8 years of pandering and spending? If GWB had turned his face against from new entitlements, closed the borders, deported the illegals, held the line on calls to loosen mortgage-lending standards, starved the Department of Education, and declined those invitations to mosque functions, would the GOP be in any worse shape now?

What won this election was the packaging skills of David Axelrod, the swooning complicity of the media, the ruthless opportunism of Barack Obama, and the unprincipled thuggishness of his supporters.

What lost this election was the cloth-eared cluelessness of George W. Bush, the timid squeamishness of John McCain, and the deep lack of interest in conservative principles among Republican primary voters.

Sour? You bet I'm sour. Where was conservatism in this election? Where was restraint in government? Where was national sovereignty? Where was liberty? Where was self-support? And where are those things now? Where are they headed this next four years? Down the toilet, that's where. Pah!

George Bush, after winning in 2004, lost his way and instead of continuing the conservative policies that got him elected twice, went crazy with big government expansion and allowed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to fester until the surge finally restored some order over there. Although Bush tried to get Congress to act on the problems in the financial markets, he didn't aggressively make his case and the whole thing blew up, guaranteeing a GOP bloodbath in this election.

The last four years were badly mishandled and that's a shame. It will take a lot of effort, big mistakes by Democrats, and better candidates than we have now to gain back what's been lost in the last two elections.