DENNIS DURBAND

Republican Party will Benefit from Ongoing Ethic Cleansing

Sept. 8, 2007

With the pending resignations of senators Larry Craig and Chuck Hagel, the Republican Party is continuing well down the path of ethic cleansing. Many of those congressmen who have disappointed party faithful in one way or another are either departed from office or on their way out.

Gone are Mark Foley, Jim Kolbe and Tom DeLay and on the way out is Rick Renzi, among others with problems of ethics. Accusations and investigations sent some wayward Republicans packing; voters canned some of the Republicans In Name Only, such as Lincoln Chafee, last fall. Sen. John Warner and pro-choice RINO Deborah Pryce (Ohio), like Hagel, are also retiring next year.

When this process is complete, the party may have fewer seats in the U.S. Senate and House, but the party will be rid of the dead wood, controversy and scandal that has dragged down the GOP. Many of those bending party principle in regard to the size of government and the sanctity life, among other issues, either have or soon will have moved on. The investigations and scandals will be put aside, and the party can re-build on the strength in its remaining ethical timber.

As any doctor will tell you, a patient can’t get well before the malady is diagnosed. Base Republicans have clearly seen the problems in recent years, and now they see some whom they considered wayward Republicans leaving the party to the more disciplined of its members.

The ethic cleansing process is not yet complete. Neither is the RINO removal process done, with Olympia Snowe, Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, Kay Bailey Hutchison, John McCain and others still occupying seats in Congress.

In the long run, the party has the potential to grow stronger from the great 2006-2007 purge of mushy and disgraced Republicans loaded down with so much baggage.

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