The Headlines say it all “Boehner offers debt-ceiling increase in cliff compromise” or “Boehner Reported to Offer Millionaire Tax Rate Increase.”  Yet behind the headlines the meat of the stories shows House Speaker Boehner once again folding like a house of cards before President Obama and the Progressive juggernaut.

Concerning the debt ceiling, while Mr. Obama wants a blank check Mr. Boehner offers to push any debate over the federal debt limit off until 2014.  This is a concession effectively depriving Republicans of any leverage in the current budget battle over the looming fiscal cliff.  However it is said to be breathing new life into stalled talks with the triumphant Obama Outfit that has taken control of America.  Nothing like surrendering your best cards before the game is over unless it’s accepting the opponent’s major demand before serious negotiations really begin as in the case of the tax rate increase.

According to news reports Speaker Boehner has offered to let tax rates rise on higher incomes.  However, the trusty Republican negotiator isn’t offering that without demanding something in return.  He is demanding unspecified changes in the entitlement spending that is sinking the government in red ink.  Increasing tax rates now for promises of spending cuts later; how could that ever go wrong?  Except for every time it has ever been tried, besides being exactly what the Obama Organization offered, this same bait-and-switch scam tripped up President Reagan in 1982 and Bush the Elder in 1990.

Like Charley Brown trying to kick the football over and over again only to have Lucy pull it away; each time the Democrats keep running the same play and the Republicans keep falling for it.  This brings us to the question of the day, “Are Democrats smarter than Republicans?”

I was a fourth generation Republican who cut my teeth in Barry Goldwater’s failed Presidential bid and then in Nixon’s first presidential campaign back in 1960.  I worked for Goldwater, Reagan, and all the following Conservative flag wavers who tried to rally the country to a return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  That is I did until Trent Lott’s Republican Senate Majority gave us the impeachment debacle and the explosion of government growth and spending under Hastert, Lott, and Bush.  When the Republican Senate refused to impeach President Clinton for crimes he later admitted and when they and their House brethren became Democrat Lite as the party of power, I mailed my membership card to the party that was no longer the Grand Old Party of my great grandfather and became an Independent.

For most of my life I was a party man: accepting some things I didn’t agree with for the greater good of electing a party with a platform I could agree with.  However, once it became apparent that as far as the budget went we had elected the foxes to watch the hen house, that the conservative social agenda received a tip-of-the-hat during elections followed by no action, and that the only victims of the impeachment were those brave enough to bring the charges the scales fell from my eyes.  Once I saw that the Republicans had lost their moorings and were swilling at the public trough, I realized the platform we conservatives battle so hard for and hold so dear is merely a mirage held in front of social and fiscal conservatives to keep them loyal to a Party captured by the Progressives.

Back in the Dream Time, when my mind was still locked in the glow of Ronald Reagan and all his example and message meant to America, even then I wondered, “What’s wrong with these leaders of ours?  Why do the Democrats always seem to outsmart them at every turn?”

Even Reagan, the best of the best, was hoodwinked by Tip O’Neal in the amnesty bargain: we would grant amnesty and then seal the border. The problem is the illegal immigrants got the amnesty; however, America’s border was never sealed.  He also signed several tax deals with the Democratic majority.  We the People lost many deductions in exchange for lower rates.  The deductions never came back even though the rates started rising again as soon as the Gipper said good night and George the First forgot to read his own lips.

George Bush the Elder was out maneuvered by the Progressives so many times that 20% of his base ran to Perot opening the door for Clinton and the first attempt to ram national health care down America’s throat.  That time they overplayed their hand and the last great strategist among the Republicans, Newt Gingrich, was able to sell a Contract with America and bring the first Republican majority in Congress in 40 years.

Newt kept the promises and brought some fiscal sanity back to Washington.  Within a few short years the Republican led Congress ended welfare as we had known it for generations and balanced the budget.  Unfortunately the Party of Lincoln then nominated someone who campaigned as if he had voted for Lincoln.  The 1996 Republican campaign would have had to improve several thousand percent to make it to dull.  Suddenly, with an assist from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media it was Clinton, who had been dragged kicking and screaming to the benefit and spending cutting table, who was the author of everything positive Congress had accomplished.  The Republicans had been outmaneuvered and outsmarted again.

According to every one of the serial re-counts Bush the younger won Florida and legitimately the presidential race of 2000.  Yet, to this day people talk of him being selected not elected.  After the dastardly deeds of 9-11 the rhetorically-challenged George captured the hearts of America and the admiration of the Western world by taking a bullhorn and talking to a crowd at ground zero.  Yet by fighting and winning America’s first preemptive war and then losing the peace through the lack of planning he soon lost the PR campaign which led to the Pelosi-Reid Congress in 2006 and eventually to the absolute triumph of Progressivism in 2008.

Once their secular messiah was enthroned at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the Progressives with their filibuster proof majority took the reins of single-party rule and imposed their radical agenda to transform America into a Nanny-state based upon the re-distribution of wealth.  This wanton destruction of the traditional American society based on limited government and free enterprise sparked a vast rebellion of the silent majority resulting in the teanami of 2010 which brought a Republican majority back to the People’s House and an expanded minority to the Senate.

And what is the first thing these political savants do?  They reaffirm the same tired leadership and strike a deal that anyone who was paying attention could see was tailor made to save the discredited Obama presidency and set the stage for him to follow in Mr. Clinton’s footsteps taking credit for anything good the historic election might have made possible.  What were these so-called leaders thinking?  They turned the victory of the grassroots into capitulation.  Not only did they sign a deal that extended uncertainty and raised estate taxes, they gave the Administration cover for a stealth stimulus filled with pork designed to help re-elect the President.

Along comes 2012 and the Republican establishment and their friends in the Progressive Media engineer the nomination of the one man who couldn’t beat the worst president in American History with the worst economy since 1932.  They surrender the issue of a massively unpopular Obamacare by nominating the author of its prototype.  Mr. Romney spends the last debate agreeing with the President’s handling of foreign policy and ignoring the raging controversy over the debacle in Benghazi.  If he didn’t throw the election he tossed it away.

So, “Are Democrats smarter than Republicans?”  The answer is they aren’t.  It isn’t a matter of intelligence it’s a matter of people with dedication to something larger than themselves, as opposed to people with dedication to seeing themselves as something larger than they are.

The leadership of the Democrats is committed radical Progressives.  They have a long term agenda to transform America into a socialist welfare state with an unlimited government, and they never lose sight of that goal.  They’re willing to commit political suicide, or more accurately they’re willing to encourage their follow travelers who do not occupy safe seats to commit political suicide.  They never take their eyes off the ball.  They’re constantly pushing to move closer to the goal line even if it’s one inch at a time.

By comparison, the leadership of the Republicans is composed of professional politicians. They’re pragmatists who do whatever they have to do and say whatever they have to say to retain their seats, their power, and their perks.  They believe the inside the beltway press who tell them how visionary they are to compromise, losing sight of those back home in fly-over country who instead believed the campaign promises and expect their representatives to stand up for principles.

The Party of Lincoln over-and-over chooses to be on the receiving end of Pickett’s Charge instead of behind the spit-rail fence firing point blank as their enemy wastes itself in a senseless charge against an immovable barrier.  The Republicans still control the House.  They could be that immovable barrier holding back the advancing forces of bankruptcy and collapse.  Instead the Progressives of the right have once again embraced the Progressives of left in a bi-partisan campaign to continue the spending, increase the debt, and fool the public.

Paraphrasing the first Republican President, Historian Will Durant once wisely observed, “It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens