After the latest dismal performance by congressional Republicans in their battle (a generous description) with the president and his minions over the budget and ObamaCare, it's time to ask, "Why the Republican Party?"

From Jed Babbin, writing for American Spectator:

Staggering, without direction, not quite dead and in search of brains, the Republican Party is giving a really good performance as the Zombie Party. According to the media's current narrative, it has to rid itself of the Tea Party's influence or die.

The saddest of facts is that the media narrative is shared by many establishment Republicans. The fossil media and Washington Republicans are simpatico in wanting to rid the Grand Old Party of noisome Tea Party patriots.

But back to the questions.

What purpose does the establishment-dominated GOP serve other than as doormats for Democrats, handy and durable ones?

We've seen John Boehner, along with top bananas Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, sally forth time and again, sans lances and swords sheathed, in budget fights. The last go-round, Boehner and his Knights of Impotence had swords shoved into their hands. The results? No difference. Why?

The speaker did his duty, not his heart. (Mitch McConnell simply cut a deal for a slab of pork.)

Was it realistic for anyone to expect that Boehner-led Republicans could wrest substantial concessions from our leftist president and his congressional allies? Or that McConnell, the old sausage-grinder, could do any better? No.

But beyond Boehner's lack of swordsmanship, the Ohioan is no general -- at least not one with a strategic sense. Not a general with an eye for seizing an opportunity and exploiting it. Boehner's instincts are of the cloakroom variety.

The last lost battle was a chance for Republicans to roll out a national campaign that reached out to persuadable constituencies, featuring an indictment of ObamaCare, Obama profligacy, Obama debt, and the Obama big government cudgel, used to beat down liberty in small and big ways. But that would've taken imagination and daring, two qualities in short supply among Washington's shirking and shrinking pachyderms.

Yet other questions --

Are establishment Republicans naïfs, or are they culpable in the damage being done to liberty?

There are certainly patsies among establishment Republicans. But there are also conspirators, playing their parts in advancing big government. Why?

Because they gain. Establishment Republicans are in their ways as invested in big government as are Democrats. They gain status, incomes, privilege, and much else by being part of the problem -- i.e., the system -- than being against it.

Establishment Republicans aren't change agents; they're "tweak agents." They tweak the system, if that, because they 1) don't really believe that real change is achievable and 2) why change a system that works for them?

Now, the big question -- at least about the GOP's future.

What purpose does the Republican Party serve when its establishment regularly displays contempt for much of its own base? When it ridicules Tea Party patriots as scourges? When grassroots conservatives are told to clam up, go along, or get lost?

-SNIP-There's more:

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/w...l#ixzz2ieZ1EzDr
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook