How Many Ways Can the Deck Chairs Be Rearranged?...

More and more, I am seeing signs of a new Republican--a reinvented Republican, someone who is either jumping ship or even switching sides claiming that they never bought into all of the right wing stuff. And didn't we understand that?

Meanwhile, the name most bandied about in Republican circles, is McCane--who once criticized the extreme right but is now moving towards an accommodation.

What does all of this tumult really mean. Is there now a Republican moderate camp? Has the liberal wing been created for cross-over candidates? What should we make of such breast beating and cathartic overtones? Is it sincere? Is it self-serving? A case of any port in a storm; or evidence of a real transformation?

My immediate thought is that these guys who made their beds with the "enemy" are now seeing themselves drowning in a sea of scorn. Even the members of their own party can't stand them or their legislation that has really slashed conservative theory in so many ways that it is no longer even recognizable.

....I am reminded of the Weimar's "finest" Blitzkrieging officers recognizing that it is over...and desparate in the knowledge they not only are in danger of getting lost in the shuffle, they stand to lose everything they thought they believed in.

It is really how amazingly resilient the "opposition" can be and how creative at reinventing themselves especially when there are such high stakes being battered about.

What will this morph into? Will the old Republicans become the new democrats? Will the Republicans "out=democrat" the democrats? And if they do represent themselves as new democrats, will we ever believe them?

This may be decided shortly in Maryland where the seat of Sarbanes, the democrat, is up for grabs. In the contest is a Republican who switched camps just recently explaining that he was always a democrat in heart and spirit. However, it seems that he just could not find himself, we guess, until the latest polls started leaking out showing that the party is doing less well than at any time in memory. So much for loyalties.

Where do we go from here?.

But predictably, the democrats stand on the sidelines wearing holes in the pavement with their noncommital postures.

Les Aaron.