Kristol: Specter Defection Another Big Win for GOP!!

I adore Bill Kristol, from his floppy, over-sized shoes all the way to that shiny red nose -- in fact, the only thing I like better than Bill Kristol is ten Bill Kristols piling out of a Volkswagen...

Good News for Republicans!

On May 24, 2001, I wrote an op-ed for The Post in the wake of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords’s party switch. I argued that the switch, which cost Republicans control of the Senate, could well turn out to be good for President Bush.

Not entirely for the reasons I speculated on in the op-ed I turned out to be right.

Translation: 'as usual, it turned out I was full of shit, but let's pretend the opposite is true.'

Bush was still able to get enough cooperation to govern over the next year and a half, and he was also able to run successfully against the Democratic Senate in the fall of 2002. The GOP regained control that November.

Forget 9/11; forget that Bush didn't run against Congress in 2002, the GOP ran with Americans' fears. Let's also ignore the fact that Paul Wellstone died two weeks before the election, and that Jean Carnahan had never won her seat (she'd been appointed after the death of her husband, Mel, in 2000, and was defeated by Jim Talent in 2002) -- it was Jeffords switching parties that produced that two-seat GOP pick-up in '02, proving once again that Kristol was right!

And definitely forget that the Republicans controlled all the organs of government when Bill made that prediction seven years ago and are now a rump, regional party of the deep south -- it was a victory, I tell ya!