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Redeeming Republican Sins Lowell Ponte Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) should resign. The reason is not Hastert's failure to rein in alleged sexual predator chicken hawk Mark Foley, who until his own resignation days ago was a Republican Congressman from Florida and head of the House caucus to protect children. Foley has not yet been proven guilty of anything by the House Ethics Committee or Federal Bureau of Investigation. House leader Hastert should resign to expiate many other Republican shortcomings and sins. These require that at least one fat head roll in expiation. Republicans can sacrifice Mr. Hastert now or wait for disgusted voters to remove all Republicans from their majority positions of power in the House and Senate this November. What Republicans sins require such atonement? This column is far too short to list them all. But to recount a few: Republican congressional leaders were unable or unwilling to make all of President George W. Bush's tax cuts permanent. Republicans promised that an Arab-owned company, Dubai Ports World, would be replaced as manager of several of America's largest ports, but this has not happened. Days ago the Republican Congress removed from port security legislation a provision that would have prohibited felons with a criminal record of violence or worse from holding jobs at our ports. Key GOP lawmakers joined union-controlled Democrats in gutting this provision because it would have required the firing of union thugs and goons on America's waterfront. Has it occurred to these lawmakers that criminals who have already sold their souls to organized crime might find it easy to sell out their country to al-Qaida terrorists willing to pay millions to smuggle mega-weapons into America? The same lawmakers of both parties who last week sold out America's port security have also been selling to foreigners billion-dollar long-term leases on our nation's turnpikes and toll roads.
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Politicians had promised that when toll collections added up to the cost of building such roads, these toll roads would become freeways? New Jersey already reneged on such promises, arguing in the manner of Alice-in-Wonderland that tolls on the Jersey Turnpike would continue merely to protect the jobs of the toll takers. (Public roads are already supposed to be maintained by the crushing taxes we pay on each gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel.) Last week the Republican-controlled Congress also found time to outlaw Internet gambling, thereby protecting the monopolies of casino, racetrack, and state lottery interests. Our lawmakers are junkies addicted to tax revenues and campaign contributions of both the gaming industry and casino-owning Indian tribes. This computer gambling ban is one more huge confiscation of freedom from you, me and the Internet. But the final straw that broke this camel-columnist's back was a letter Hastert co-authored last week with retiring (and presidentially ambitious) congressional leader Senator Bill Frist (R.-Tennessee). Republicans now boast of passing a bill days ago to build 700 miles of fence along America's 2,000 mile southern border to slow the flood of illegal immigrants. But as the Washington Post quietly reported last Friday, the letter written by Hastert and Frist essentially guarantees that this fence "will never be built."
In their letter, wrote Post reporter Spencer S. Hsu, Hastert and Frist "pledged in writing that Native American tribes, members of Congress, governors and local leaders would get a say in ‘the exact placement' of any structure, and that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would have the flexibility to use alternatives ‘when fencing is ineffective or impractical.'" Translation: Speaker Hastert, after boasting of how tough the House of Representatives is on stopping illegal immigration, handed veto power over any future border fence construction to local, state and other political special interests and to President Bush, who opposes putting up any effective border fence. "The loopholes leave the Bush administration with authority to decide where, when and how long a fence will be built, except for small stretches east of San Diego and in western Arizona," wrote Hsu. "Homeland Security officials have proposed a fence half as long [as what Congress approved]." What do Native Americans have to do with this? Arizona's Tohono O'odham tribal reservation fronts directly on 75 miles of the Mexican border and opposes fencing this entire boundary. Other fence opponents describe such Native American tribes as "sovereign nations." If Native American tribes have enough sovereignty to prevent the Federal Government from fencing the U.S. side of the Mexican border, then why are these separate nations' tribal members permitted to vote in American elections or to buy American lawmakers with campaign contributions? Some Republican Members of Congress who took the "Secure Fence Act" seriously now feel furious and betrayed. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado has hinted that any reneging on this law, passed to win votes for Republican politicians this November, could spell doom for the Republican Party. "These people in the bureaucracy need to be reminded that this is a mandate" by Congress, Rep. Duncan Hunter of San Diego told reporters last Friday. "It's fine if the Secretary of Homeland Security defines where that 700 miles is built, but it must be 700 miles." Translation: Chertoff's preferred $2 billion "virtual" border fence of sensors (to be built by Boeing, whose first Homeland Security contract was announced in September) cannot replace the real 700 mile physical barrier fence mandated by Congress. American voters used to have a real choice, however unappetizing, between "the Stupid Party" and "the Evil Party." Alas, during 12 years in power, the Republican Party has learned how to be evil, two-faced and hypocritical. Out-of-power Democrats (too brain-dead to offer any fresh ideas) now marinate their traditional evil – socialist class warfare, dishonesty and greed for power – in stupidity. Voters now have only one choice: the two-headed Evil-Stupid Party, ESP. Mr. Hastert should resign as Speaker, third in line of succession to be President of the United States. He should retract the duplicitous border fence letter he co-authored with Senator Frist. He should offer himself as a willing scapegoat to redeem the Republican Party.
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