WE’RE NOT IN 2006 ANYMORE, TOTO

If you want to see a bunch of really happy folks who think Christmas has come early for them and can't wait for the coming new year, come to the Capitol Hill Club, the power watering hole for Republicans in Washington.

There, you'll see GOP Congressmen, Senators, and their top staffers all slapping each other on the back and saying, "We're not in 2006 anymore, Toto," or "2006 is like, so over."  Happy, happy guys n'gals.

And why shouldn't they be?  The President's got their back and they've got the hapless Dems by the short hairs.  It's fun to be in DC this December.

It will be even more fun in January when the Dems return from a month-long Christmas Vacation to find things are much worse for them than even now.

What the Dems have failed to do is pass appropriations bills that fund the federal governments' activities.  So they are piling all of them into a trillion-dollar dog's breakfast called an "Omnibus" bill.  It will include every single pork-barrel earmark desired by the Dem "Cardinals" who chair the Aprops committees.

It will include a welter of restrictions designed to prevent the on-going construction of the US-Mexico Border Fence.

It will overturn the "Mexico City Policy" and allow grants and subsidies for pro-abortion groups.

It will contain a number of restrictions designed to prevent development of US energy sources, such as increasing drilling permit fees, and prohibiting extraction of natural gas from the Naval Oil Shale Reserve in Colorado, which has enough natural gas to heat six million homes for 20 years.

Since Bush has announced he'll veto the whole meshugana if it contains such garbage, it most likely will not get out of the House or Senate alive.

He's also vowed the Dems' Anti-Energy Bill will go down in veto flames.

One thing the Reps are particularly gleeful about is exposure of the Dems' "PAYGO" fraud.  This was the heralded "fiscal discipline" to be imposed by Speaker Pelosi Galore and the new-majority Dems upon a federal budget so blown apart by drunkensailor-spending Republicans.

Any new spending or tax cuts must be paid for by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere in the budget:  That was the "pay-as-you-go" or PAYGO promise.  Turns out the Dems were only kidding.  What the policy really meant in practice was another excuse for raising taxes. 

So no "patch" to "fix" the AMT by raising taxes elsewhere (like on businesses).  What the budget needs is a "haircut," in the memorable words of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY). 

And funding for the troops in Iraq?  Mitch wants a clean $70 bil with no strings or tricks, and if the "Lost In Time" Dems don't pass it now, "I can assure you," he predicts, "they will within hours of the President's State of the Union Address in January."

Perhaps the most delightful aspect to all of this is that instead of House and Senate Dems uniting to jointly denounce an intransigent Bush and mean-spirited stingy Republicans, they've turned on each other –  "Dems Blaming  Each Other for Failures" reads the WaPo's wonderful headline.

What's that?  Do I hear you saying in a tone of cynicism, "Yes, Jack, but the Pubbies never know that when you've got your foe on the ropes, you put him down on the canvas.  As always, they'll let the Dems off the ropes rather than finishing them off."

There's a lot of history to justify such cynicism.  Arguing that it's different this time is like the definition of a second marriage:  the triumph of hope over experience.

Here's one main reason for hope:  There aren't enough Republican wimps to join the Dems and override Bush's vetoes.  There are a lot of them but not enough.

Another:  the Dem Blue Dogs, many of whom are freshmen in thin-win districts that normally vote GOP, don't dare to override either for fear of being one-termers.

Another:  that invigorating smell of Dem blood in the 2008 water. 

A year ago, DC was Disaster City, doom-and-gloom 24/7, lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking.  Now it's dawning that 2006 really is over, that there's such a growing optimism not just on Capitol Hill but in many Congressional Districts throughout the country that the GOP can retake the House next November.

That's a long, long time away – a couple of centuries in political time.  But right now, it's looking good for the good guys. 

"We are now who we are supposed to be."  That's a line to remember when a fellow in the top GOP Congressional leadership looks you right in the eye and says it with conviction.  If these folks can only stay who they are now and not go back to what they've been, 2008 is going to be night and day different from 2006.