U.S. Congressman James C. Greenwood (R-PA), Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air

by Wayne Lutz

The Headline in the Montgomery County Record on Thursday, December 21st was hardly original, but the voice of warning this time issued from a Republican"

"Greenwood: Bush must govern from center to succeed"

"Though some conservatives have called for George W. Bush to push an extreme right agenda after he becomes president in January," gushes staff writer Sarah Larson, "U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood said Wednesday the new president must embrace bipartisanship if his administration is to succeed".

"It's time for him to be presidential [emphasis added] and do what the Republican Party has always needed to do, which is tell the people on the fringes that their tail will not wag the dog", Greenwood is quoted as saying.

Having learned from eight years of Clintonian indoctrination that words are now defined in whatever way we need them to be in order to justify ourselves, we are not surprised then when told that to be "presidential" in this brave new century requires that Bush abandon his core beliefs, toss his campaign promises aside like so much unwanted parchment and flip the figurative bird to the party's base.

Greenwood is a four term congressman from the 8th district in Pennsylvania, Bucks County. He never has been known for staunch conservatism, to put it politely, but his nonetheless Republican voice is an unwelcome addition to the "Bush MUST govern from the center" choir.

Speaking to a gaggle of local reporters, Greenwood planted his feet firmly in mid-air and pontificated:

The need to "govern from the middle" is all the more urgent in light of the narrow Republican margin of control in the House and the 50-50 split in the Senate, he said. That will "force Bush and conservative Republican leaders such as House Majority Leader Dick Armey to craft laws that govern from the center".

It is interesting to this humble observer that Bush's platform, the one that won him the Presidency, is now characterized as an "extreme right agenda", one that he is somehow obligated to abandon. We expect this kind of rhetoric from the liberals, which makes it all the more distressing to find Republicans who lack the spine to stand resolutely behind the new president-elect.

Indeed, by declaring that "the new president must embrace bipartisanship if his administration is to succeed," Congressman Greenwood is laboring side by side with the liberal Democrats, frantically shoveling fuel into an already glowing furnace of resentment.

As George Will pointed out in his column "Beware The Bipartisanship" today, Republicans know that bipartisanship is usually a partisan tactic. The purpose of the calls to bipartisanship is to strip power from the party in power. It is to entice the winning Republicans to abandon their base, to abandon their principles, and to adopt the principles of the party they defeated.

President-elect Bush probably knows this. He has already given every indication that he intends to push forward with the issues on which he ran. But in order to succeed, he will require loyalty from the Republicans in congress.

What he does not need, what the Grand Old Party does not need, is Republicans like Jim Greenwood giving public aid and comfort the liberals.