Republicans...same old mistakes at the worst possible time.

Ya know American Politics never gets old, I admit after long campaign or election cycles like the 2004 election I was tired and didn’t watch or read political news for about two weeks but other than that watching what our elected…ahem…officials (I dare not call most of them leaders) can be and often is a tragic expression of ignorance, strife and human comedy.

I find the current Dubai “portgate” situation the Bush Administration has found itself in particularly interesting. Robert Novak wrote in an article on the 4^th talked about how the Republicans are attempting to distance themselves from Bush apparently they believe this issue is important enough to forsake the President. Of course I'm sure Bush’s weak approval rating as of late and the fact that a congressional election is only 8 months away is a huge motivation for this.

My problem is that the Republicans are choosing the wrong issue to press the President on; this ports deal in the end is going to blow over way before the election. What the Republicans need to do is repair their base while maintaining the image of being tough on terror that can only be done by focusing on the borders. The bottom line is that the borders are infinitely more important to the country than whether a Dubai company controls a port terminal or not. By focusing on the border issue the Republican Party will attend to their base and look tough on terror and not be locking arms with the opportunistic liberals of Washington who are attempting to create a new image of strength over an issue which has little traction. The Republicans really need to reframe the issue because right now all it looks like all their doing is following the party who is out of power The Republican Party is making the same mistakes it's made since they regained power in 2000.

In the end the Republican Party is distancing itself from the Administration and their doing it to maintain control of Congress. After the election Bush will still have two years to enact policies and hopefully a friendly congress will be there to help him but until then it’s everyman for himself and right now Bush is a liability not a help at least to Congressional Republicans. Hopefully Americans will come to their senses and realize Bush really is doing a great job but I doubt it. My fear is that the Republicans are letting the Democrats determine the issues and in an election year that can only mean losing elections!