In 2004, after narrowly defeating John Kerry, President Bush boasted he had earned political capital and he intended to spend it.

What political capital, then, have Democrats just earned?

The dust has settled, most of the results are now in, and for Republicans, the results are not good. Democrats have taken solid control of the House, capturing 27 Republican-held seats and leading in two other races. They are on the verge of taking the Senate as well, with Democratic wins in Virginia and Montana likely, although not yet certain.

Ultimately, one can point to two things that cost Republicans this election: Mark Foley and Iraq. Exit polls indicated many voters were unhappy with Bush, with the war in Iraq, and with what they perceived to be corruption in Congress.

The jury is still out on the corruption—that issue will undoubtedly come up again and again in the not so distant future—but clearly Iraq is not going to go away anytime soon. To paraphrase an old saying: Republicans made their own bed on that one, and now they have to lie in it.

The “good” news for conservatives? We’ve essentially been operating with a Democratic-controlled Congress since Bush became president. Republicans technically controlled Congress, but the result was out of control government spending and big government policies. Maybe now that they’re no longer the party in power, Republicans will make some sort of attempt to return to their fiscally conservative roots.

Today President Bush signed legislation legalizing 700 miles of new fencing along the porous Mexican border to complement the meager 90 miles of fencing already present. The bill also authorizes an additional 1500 border patrol troops.

At the bill signing, the President urged Congress to find a solution for illegal aliens already in the country, namely by pushing his guestworker plan. “We must reduce pressure on our border by creating a temporary worker plan,” Bush remarked. “Willing workers ought to be matched with willing employers to do jobs Americans are not doing.”

Back home, citizens along the Texas border aren’t sure what to think yet. Large sections of the fencing will cut through residential and agricultural areas, cutting off access to the Rio Grande River, which farmers depend on. “It’s not going to work in Texas,” says ranch-owner Michael Vickers. “Who wants to close off the river to Mexico? The river is the lifeblood for a lot of cities.”

Cost estimates range from $2 billion to $9 billion over the next several years. The entire Homeland Security budget for this year was only $1.2 billion, which means Congress will have to appropriate more and more funds as the project progresses.

Only a day after Issue 2.15 was published, NCPA Chairman Pete Du Pont, J.D. ran yet another editorial in The Wall Street Journal’s online editorial page, www.opinionjournal.com. It followed the same raison d’être as my article about tax cuts.

Mr. Du Pont aptly denounces the left’s dogma that tax rate cuts cannot work, and even in the face of increasing revenues hold dear to the cry of tax cuts for the rich.

Opposing tax cuts has become the mantra of the liberal left. Sen. John Kerry wants to roll back Bush’s “unaffordable tax cuts.” Senator Mark Dayton (D., Minn.) called the cuts “dangerous and destructive and dishonorable.” Bill Clinton in 2003 said the cuts were “way too big to avoid serious harm.” And various New York Times editorials called them “economically unsound,” claimed that “they will increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars” and said they were unlikely “to stimulate the wallowing economy.” Earlier this month House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi promised that the election of a Democratic House in November would result in a “rollback of the tax cuts.”

He goes on to point out that incomes for families are up, and the portion of income held by the top 10% of Americans is going down.

As I said before, let’s take all the celebration with a grain of salt. GOP Leaders on Capital Hill and in the White House need some spine when it comes to reiging in spending. Suggestions left over from the Contract with America and maintained by the Republican Study Committee in the House, such as earmark reform and balanced budget amendment, still need to be instated. And we need to continue to work toward replacing income tax altogether with the Fair Tax, or even a Flat Tax. However, since government is, as Ronald Reagan said, “an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other,” progress is welcomed when it comes.

It’s being reported that President Bush will deliver a speech tonight in which he calls for the deployment of the National Guard along the southern U.S. border:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush had decided to propose the use of thousands of troops to support the Border Patrol while it builds up its resources to more effectively secure the 2,000-mile line between the U.S. and Mexico.

Snow said the effort would use “a very small percentage of the Guard,” which numbers about 400,000 members around the country. White House officials say it would involve fewer than 8,000 Guardsmen.

In a signal of the high stakes on the issue, Bush arranged to make the announcement at 8 p.m. EDT, in a rare prime-time speech from the Oval Office. He planned to follow up with a visit Thursday to the border, in Yuma, Ariz., to further press his case.

As long-time readers of Virtue Magazine probably know, I have not exactly been the most ardent supporter of the Bush administration—for very good reasons. This news report is a welcome change, however, and if this signals a shift in our president’s previously deplorable position on illegal immigration, I will be the first to praise him for it. Bush’s speech tonight will be especially commendable if it does not call for what Democratic leader Harry Reid calls for:

“He must publicly denounce” a House-passed bill that makes all illegal immigrants subject to prosecution as felons and calls for construction of a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border, Reid said on the Senate floor.

Bush’s speech will air at 8 p.m. eastern time tonight, and it sounds like a speech definitely worth listening in on.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

The filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also describes Cheney’s involvement in I. Lewis Libby’s communications with the press.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame’s CIA identity. But it points to Cheney as one of the originators of the idea that Plame could be used to discredit her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.

You can read the rest of the story here.

There’s an interesting new poll out that seems to indicate most people think Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2008, but not win.

According to the poll, two thirds of Americans believe Clinton will run for president, and two thirds of Americans think her campaign will end in defeat.

Interestingly enough, most people feel the same way about Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, although Rice has already indicated she’s not interesting in running.

Here’s the most intriguing part of the poll:

Twenty-seven percent of voters said they were not likely to vote for a woman candidate in 2008 no matter which party ticket she headed, according to the poll sponsored by WNBC-TV in New York City. Of that 27 percent, almost one-third said they wouldn’t back a female candidate because “women are not up to the job” while 10 percent said it was because the presidency is “a man’s job.”

I wonder if poll respondents gave those two reasons on their own, or if they had to pick from a set of answers and picked those two because they were the “best” ones.

For more info on the subject, see Theresa Moss’s informative article in a previous issue of Virtue Mag.

The following is a letter to the editor that appeared in my town’s newspaper today:

I am weary of hearing every Tom, Dick and Harry criticize the president of the United States and trying to convict him of lies and other dastardly deeds. Most of the Democrats ought to be convicted of lying or misrepresenting the laws and what the president is doing. They are traitors to our country and should be treated like traitors. How can the president conduct a war successfully if he has no authority to find out what the enemy is planning? All other presidents beginning with George Washington have had these powers by virtue of being commander-in-chief and president. The USA cannot take these constitutional rights away.

I think many or all people of our country should rise up and demand that the president should be allowed all the powers and privileges he needs to conduct the war, and all people in the media or Congress be convicted of treason if they try to take these powers away. All through our history eavesdropping and other devices were used. If our privacy is hamstrung, so be it.

During World War II people couldn’t say or write one word against the war without being punished or investigated. Let us go back to that.

Unbelievable. The sad thing is, I have a feeling a lot of war supporters would agree with this sentiment, even while they have the audacity to call themselves “conservatives.” I don’t think this woman deserves to live in America; she seems better suited to living in the Soviet Union—circa 1945.

A little fun with past State of the Union addresses:

“Let this be our national goal: At the end of this decade, in the year [fill in the blank!], the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving.”

“[Saddam Hussein’s] war machine is crushed. His ability to threaten mass destruction is itself destroyed.”

“We will defend our security wherever we are threatened, as we did this summer when we struck at Usama bin Ladin’s network of terror.”

(Thanks to Cultural Revolutions Online at the Chronicles Magazine website.)

Would you ever vote for a pro-choice candidate? That’s the question Spunky Jr. recently asked on her blog:

The next 2 years will be interesting ones. There are many other people who think that Rudy Guliani, John McCain, and a few others are going to run [for the Republicans]. Of course, on the Democrat ticket, Hillary Clinton is most likely going to run (of course I could wrong, but that seems most likely). I’m not sure what to make of all this.

What do you think about all this? If the Republicans put up a pro-choice candidate or someone who was for gay marriage, would you vote for them?

The question has sparked an interesting discussion. Answers have varied from Yes, if it’s the better of two bad choices, to No, never.

Other aspects of the same issue have also been discussed, including whether a person would ever vote for the Constitution Party, which is strongly pro-life and strongly conservative in every aspect, but as of now has virtually no chance of winning a national election. Some would never vote for the Constitution Party—even if the Republican candidate were pro-abortion—because they feel they would be “wasting” their vote. Others feel principle is more important and that their concience would not allow them to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, even if they would be wasting their vote.

Interestingly enough, some have said they have problems with the Constitution Party because it opposes the war in Iraq. But what if you had to choose between a pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage Republican candidate who supported the war and a pro-life, pro-traditional marriage Constitutional Party candidate who opposed the war? In order to make this interesting, let’s say the Constitutional Party candidate and the Republican candidate are running in a dead heat at the polls.

Whom do you vote for?

One other exceptionally interesting exchange happened on the thread, as Bryce wrote that his research “would suggest that Bush was a ‘pro-choice candidate’.”

One person responded back with:

With all due respect, Bryce, President Bush is not pro-choice. He has said multiple times that life begins at conception. I don’t know what else you want from him. It’s not exactly as if an amendment to the constitution would pass in the Senate.

The timing could not be better on this, as our next issue of Virtue Magazine (coming out in six days!) will be containing a lengthy, in depth look at precisely that question—is President Bush truly pro-life and how strong of a pro-life candidate is he? It will be an article that most people will probably be interested, and if I am not mistaken, it will generate quite a bit of feedback.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, today conceded that there would probably be no attempt to filibuster Samuel Alito.

Said Feinstein:

I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster. This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the court.

Wow! That is quite a concession from a Democrat like Feinstein! We disagree with him, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the court. Could it be that Feinstein and some other Democrats are finally softening up a little? Or is she merely engaging in damage control and trying to make herself look tolerant since she knows that stopping Alito’s nomination is pretty much a doomed cause already?

Either way, it’s nice to finally see someone actually point that out. As other pundits and commentators have pointed out numerous times, during the Clinton years the Republicans voted en masse for the confirmation of justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, who are both far-left. Democrats have seemed extremely reluctant to return the favor.