Giving Obama a chance

I am shaken by the thought of radical leftie control of the entire federal government, and hopeful that Obama will govern toward the center.

And where does the blame reasonably lie? The Republican Party, of course, but let's drill down a bit: Karl Rove. Rove was the mastermind (in a manner of speaking) behind the single worst administration of my adult life. Far from establishing a permanent GOP majority, Rove may have rendered the GOP little more than a husk of itself by crafting a strategy that relied on abandoned principles and power-grabbing opportunism. Who but a demented genius could destroy the GOP by digging up the least of the Bush sons to lead the party into an eight-year tailspin?

I am not a Republican, but I am very much an old-line conservative who believes in individual freedom, the blessings of free enterprise, and citizenship, all under the limits the Constitution proscribes. I honestly believe I'm part of a dying breed; the modern conservative doesn't even know the difference between real conservatism and, well, anything else, including the neoconservative bastardization of right-leaning principles. Eight years, to undo the good done by previous Republican administrations (on occasion, at least), to completely dismantle the Reagan revolution -- something not even Bill Clinton could manage.

So, fellow conservatives of the antiwar, pro-enterprise, traditional morality bent -- we've got to find our way out of this miasma. Perhaps the liberal landslide will help focus that effort. We'll see.

In the meantime, I pray that God's will be done, and I look forward with hope to a better day ahead. Perhaps Obama will lead us there, in spite of my suspicions. I'm willing to allow for that, certainly, and I'd love to be surprised on this count.