Post-Election Unity Is Being Called For,
But Loyal, Yet Active Opposition Is Needed

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.  It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt... If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." Thomas Jefferson*

Since the November 2^nd election, a remarkable editorial tack has been taken by a large part of the media. On various television news shows and the nearly interchangeable talk shows, and in newspaper stories and editorials everywhere, there has been a clarion call for a coming together, for a casting aside, or at least a putting aside, of partisan politics in favor of national unity.

This is not an unfamiliar cry after national elections, but this year it seems more self-serving than altruistic. The people who are calling for unity are the same people who, during the Clinton Presidency, showed a thorough contempt for even the idea of post-election unity and spent years trying to undermine and deconstruct Mr. Clinton’s duly elected authority. They did so because they have an ideological agenda, and now they are in a position to enact it and would like everyone to quietly let them get to work.

The almost entirely Republican owned media largely gave George W. Bush a free pass during the bulk of his presidency, particularly since 2001 and the tragedy of 9/11, and now the people who set the editorial policies want to put on a patriotic face and call everything okay, let’s let bygones be bygones and get behind the newly elected president.

Not surprisingly, this year the cry for post-election unity is both more emphatic and more urgent, but it should be flatly ignored.

Everyone who did not vote for George Bush needs to remain loyal to the nation and its Constitution, and opposed to this president and his radical GOP policies. Such loyal opposition is vital if the radical "conservative" agenda of Mr. Bush and his GOP supporters in Congress, the media and the courts are to be slowed down and possibly thwarted in their designs.

And their designs are blatantly obvious.

William (Bill) Frist, the GOP’s majority leader in the Senate, is now calling for an end to the time-honored tradition of the filibuster. Why? Because Bill Frist and the GOP, driven by Pres. Bush, want to pack the Supreme Court with justices that will guarantee that Roe Versus Wade is overturned, and they are afraid that the Democrats will slow or stop the process by using the filibuster.

The filibuster was a wonderful tool when the GOP needed it in years past, often to delay or frustrate legislation supporting individual or civil rights, but now that they are in a majority in both the Senate and House, it’s a tool available to the Democrats and therefore an obstacle to the radical GOP agenda.

But now, after the presidential election of 2004, it’s not just in Congress and the Supreme Court where radical GOP attention is being focused.

It doesn’t take a great deal of perspicacity to understand that there is a "radical conservative" takeover underway at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Porter J. Goss, Pres. Bush’s handpicked choice for the new CIA director, is a former Republican congressman from Florida, and while it is not unusual to have some staff shakeups with a new agency head, what is happening now is indeed unusual.

The deputy director of the CIA, John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year CIA veteran who served as acting director until Goss took over, resigned this month and issued a warning. McLaughlin broke with tradition and spoke publicly about how Goss’s top aide, former Capitol Hill committee staff member Patrick Murray, seems to be bent on forcing top officials at the agency out the door.

Murray, who is now functioning as CIA Director Goss’s chief of staff, is so effective in the role of ideological hatchet man that Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of operations, and Kappes’ deputy, Michael Sulick, resigned during a staff meeting this week. All of these men have had distinguished careers within the clandestine services arm of the CIA; that is, the super-secret operational directorate.

This is not just an administrative shakeup. This is a calculated move to push out CIA officials who have a deep understanding of current world history. These are men in their fifties who are capable of a great deal of additional service, but they aren’t wanted or needed any longer; why is that?

The answer seems simple: They will be replaced by ideologues that will press forward the "radical conservative" agenda through the intelligence agency.

These are but two of the reasons why it is not possible after this election for anyone who believes in American democracy to put aside partisan differences. The radical GOP must be opposed as it seeks to impose its agenda.

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive," Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the U.S.