History in the Making

I was pretty sure I understood the meaning, but I looked it up just to be sure.

Pyrrhic
1885, from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who defeated Roman armies at Asculum, 280 B.C.E., but at such cost to his own troops that he was unable to follow up and attack Rome itself, and is said to have remarked, "one more such victory and we are lost."

Pyrrhic Victory? Right Diagnosis, Wrong Patient
By Randall Hoven

Assume the geniuses are right. In fact, assume the worst case: O'Donnell loses the general election and the Senate ends up 50-50, with the tie-breaking vote going to Joe Biden. If we wing-nuts hadn't screwed things up by electing O'Donnell in the primary, the Senate would be majority Republican in 2011-12. How much better would a majority-by-one outcome be?

We do not have to hypothesize such a situation. Exactly that happened in 2001. And this is what happened: Jim Jeffords, nominal Republican, left the Republican Party to caucus with the Democrats, putting them in majority control for the remainder of that Senate term.
[...]
When we really, really needed him, Jumpin' Jim jumped. To be clear, all of the good do-bee Republicans who supported our "moderate" Republicans from the Northeast still got screwed. They lost the money they sent him and lost the Senate anyway. Strike one.

Move to the next northeast state, Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey ran against Arlen Specter in the GOP primary in 2004. There was nothing wrong or "wing-nut" about Toomey. He had served in the House for the previous six years. He was a Harvard graduate for goodness sake. But, he wasn't the choice of the Republican Party geniuses. The geniuses knew their incumbent, Arlen. And Arlen proved, if nothing else, that he could win elections in Pennsylvania. So Arlen got the GOP money, the GOP backing and President Bush's endorsement.

Then, when we really, really needed it -- when it might have been possible to filibuster Obama's stimulus in 2009 if a mere 41 GOP senators could hang together -- three GOP senators, all from the Northeast, broke ranks: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. Strike two.

Then, when we really, really, really needed him, to defeat ObamaCare by filibuster, Arlen did Jumpin' Jim one better and became an out-and-out Democrat. He ended up voting for ObamaCare as a Democrat. He took GOP money when he ran in 2004, and then voted against the GOP when it counted most. Strike three. And I'm out.

Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party Era
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

There isn't a Tea Partier who doesn't understand the danger of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. Any Republican taking any title for granted, however, is a problem. Now, you've got to earn it. With this first federal election of the Tea Party era, the choice is no longer between the lesser of two evils.

Christine O'Donnell is that lesson. At Friday's Values Voter Summit in Washington, she said, "They don't get it. We're not trying to take back our country. We are our country." That reminded me of another outsider derided by the establishment: Ronald Reagan.

With Democrats on the run in so many races, their resources are stretched. Democrats will need to rely on bitter Republicans to fend off O'Donnell's run in Delaware. Conservatives mustn't allow the bitter Republicans to destroy the chance to take the Senate by backing down from, or making excuses for, their establishment "friends."

The 2010 elections will show who's on our side. It's up to the people who care too much about America to no longer care what the establishment thinks of them.

More relevant words for this week:

wa·ter·shed   
[waw-ter-shed, wot-er-]

–noun

1. Chiefly British . the ridge or crest line dividing two drainage areas; water parting; divide.


2. the region or area drained by a river, stream, etc.; drainage area.


3. Architecture . wash ( def. 44 ) .


4. an important point of division or transition between two phases, conditions, etc.: The treaty to ban war in space may prove to be one of history's great watersheds.

mile·stone   
[mahyl-stohn]

–noun

1. a stone functioning as a milepost.


2. a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc.: Her getting the job of supervisor was a milestone in her career.

sea change 
–noun

1. a striking change, as in appearance, often for the better.


2. any major transformation or alteration.


3. a transformation brought about by the sea.