CNN reports that the Republican strategy for the coming year is to focus on limiting government spending, fostering free enterprise, limiting government power and diminishing the role of government in people's everyday lives.

Oh wait, nevermind. I read the article now. The Republican agenda this year will once again be death to fags and banning abortion and free speech.

The House has approved an amendment to the Constitution to outlaw flag burning and passed a bill to crack down on the practice of minors' crossing state lines for abortions to evade legal limits in their own states

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, and a possible presidential candidate in 2008, announced early this year that the Senate would consider those and the anti-gay marriage amendment that has failed in both chambers despite Bush's endorsement.

While I understand the Republicans have reliably mobilized their wing with these issues for a decade now, I don't really believe it's going to work this time. After passing the bankruptcy bill, pissing off the largest minority group with this immigration bill, and generally proving incapable of running a government, I somehow doubt that dragging out these same tired issues is going to work again. I mean flag burning? Are you kidding me? Has anyone even burned an American flag on our soil in the last decade? This broad distraction campaign is dated, and started to fray at the edges.

"It seems like for only six months, every two years -- right around election time -- that we're even noticed," said Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council.

"Some of these better pass," he added. "You notice when it's just lip service being paid."

Guess what, they're not going to pass, just like they never passed any other year. The smart Republicans are going to try to distance themselves from the incompetence of this administration and the hate-mongering of the leadership. You think I'm crazy? Even George Will is irreparably pissed although it is his usual crap about money being equivalent to speech. Jackass.

The juggernaut of a coalition that these guys built in 1994 is falling to pieces. The libertarians like Will are pissed, the fundies are pissed, the small government types are pissed. Exactly which of their constituent groups is satisfied with the performance of this do-nothing congress? Frist and the leadership are making a hail Mary pass to try to bring the fundies back into the fold, but it's just going to piss everyone off and motivate the left wing base even more. I, however, personally welcome this strategic error, and look forward to their futile attempts to regulate free speech and people's bodies.