I guess I made a pretty good start with my post Removing The Plank From Our Own Eye since it made it to the top of the Recommend List, Thanks to all who put it there BTW…but it’s clear from many of the comments in the thread that as I am want to do, I covered too much ground and ended up obfuscating the message I was trying to convey by throwing in too many digs at RINOS, (more on them later), and by commenting about Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, etc, and generally being too long winded to make my point obvious.

So, without taking anything away from my original post since I meant every word, I want to try to boil it all down and make my main two points in a simpler, more concise manner.

My biggest gripe at this moment in politics is hearing the constant drone from everyone about how bad the Democrats are for this country, and everything they are doing wrong, and what monsters they are etc.

While I agree with all of that…when I hear it repeated it’s like hearing Charlie Brown’s Teacher berating him for one thing or another…I don’t hear it…and I don’t want to hear it! Worse, I can’t imagine how it sounds to people who are not political and ideological junkies such as me. The issue isn’t that it isn’t true! The issue is “it rings hollow after the last eight years!”

Bush has destroyed our credibility, along with Hastert, Delay, Boehner, Lott, Frist, and McConnell by spending like Democrats, expanding government like Democrats, allowing Democrats to block us on Judges, Tax Cuts, making the tax cuts they were able to get past permanent and on and on. They also allowed the Democrats to miss-define us by letting the Dems have the stage while doing nothing to refute their lies.

The other main point of the column was introspective. It’s looking deep down within myself and trying to get everyone here to do the same. It’s about asking ourselves, “what have we done that contributed to our current state of affairs?”

I’ve asked this question and the answer isn’t pleasing to me at all. It’s about my complacency. I’ve been involved and worked in small ways for 20 years sending money, talking to folks, spending time online debating and discussing policy, sharing data and info with friends and my contacts both in and out of the party and I hope my contributions have had some effect over all that time…but a funny thing happened on the way to Republican dominance of the American political process. Once we finally achieved the ultimate…”A Republican President supported by a Republican House and Senate”…I sat back…patted myself on the back…and ignored the nasty warts growing on the Republican brand over the last eight years! I didn’t pay attention and I shrugged off the betrayals of legislation passed by Republican Congresses or signed by a Republican President or both like McCain Fiengold, the prescription drug benefit, No child left behind, the refusal to drill in ANWR, TARP, and on and on.

So…here’s the nub of the issue and the reason I referred to Jesus’ admonition to take the plank out of our own eye so we can see better to take the speck out of our brothers eye…

we’ve become enablers to the Republican Party as they’ve tried to act like Democrats…instead of trying to explain why their actions aren’t as bad as what Obama is doing we need to tell the truth.

Nothing being said right now about what’s wrong with Democrats has any meaning because of the above. I believe the way forward for us is to admit we have a problem. We need to tell people that it was done in spite of us.

We need to tell the public that the last eight years of overspending, government expansion, and brand destroying policies of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress did not represent in any way who we really are.

We as movement conservatives need to commit ourselves to NEVER turning a blind eye to what Republicans in Congress are doing when they are betraying the conservative movement!

We can never again give our Republican elected leadership a free pass to do whatever they want, or to play to the MSM without protest and without making them pay an awful and terrible price for betraying the movement. We must acknowledge the mistakes. Kind of like a twelve step program for big government spending addicts. We can’t fix the addiction until we admit we have a problem. Worse, No one will believe us, help us, or put us in a position to prove we have whipped the issue till we humble ourselves admit where we’ve failed them and convince them that we will never do so again.

Finally, the attitude of “My party right or wrong, my party do or die” must end! We need to have the attitude that we’re conservatives first and the Republican Party is nothing more than a means to an end…if the Republican Party becomes destructive to that end, we can no longer afford to remain married to it and we must refuse to support it when it is treating us with contempt….No more shut up and get in line for me…I said I’d never do it again after 1996 and I allowed myself to be bullied into it again this year…NEVER AGAIN!!!

Once we have done all this…and convinced the public of the truth of it will we have the credibility to take on the Dems from a position of strength and moral clarity!

Let’s commit ourselves to removing these simple planks from our own eye shall we?”

I hope that clarifies things and focuses what I want to convey to everyone.