We are all familiar with the idiom. Crossing the Rubicon means to pass a point of no return and refers to Julius Caesar’s army’s crossing of the river in 49 BC.
I strive mightily to avoid using melodramatic hyperbole though the temptation to do so rears its seductive head almost daily. Lord knows the regime’s antics over the last five years made me shake my head in disgust and frustration. However, I’ve refrained from figuratively throwing my hands in the air and calling for all hands to abandon ship.
And, I’ll not do that in this commentary, but I suggest crew members slip into their life vests and locate the nearest lifeboat.
The bottom line first: the Republic cannot survive institutionalized lawlessness that is fostered and sanctioned by the administration and ineffectually opposed by Republicans.
The IRS scandal simmers; new, troubling misdeeds emerge daily. And other federal agencies’ misbehavior bubbles up from the cesspool on the Potomac. The huge iceberg of political corruption buried deep in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy remains largely undiscovered; decades will pass before we learn just how insidious it is…should we ever.
The politicians and bureaucrats do their time-honored soft shoe. The big shots deny any wrongdoing…”It was all a mistake. A few lowly worker bees at the bottom of the organizational chart ran off the plantation and did something stupid. By God, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
All the while they obfuscate, stall and ignore lawful requests for information.
Conventional wisdom dictates their tactics won’t work…it never has so say the pundits. They tell us the cover up is always worse than the original sin, and the strategy of telling lies today to cover up those told yesterday eventually collapses under its own weight. After all that’s what happened to Nixon, didn’t it?
But does conventional wisdom hold up in unconventional times?
The Obama administration has shifted the paradigm. It hasn’t changed the rules of the game; it’s created a brand new game. The Republicans thrash about, throwing yellow penalty flags here and there, and are puzzled when those guilty of the fouls pay no attention.
Deadlines for submitting information are ignored. Congressional investigative bodies are lied to. Arrogant and unconcerned bureaucrats walk out of hearings. The president’s spokesman overtly lies to the media…day after day after day.
The Republicans dig deeply into their rule book in search of an explanation; there is none to be found because the other team is playing a new game with a different rule book.
Obama’s team knows it has a five-year head start playing the new game. Progressive ideologues permeate the federal bureaucracy, and they clearly understand their marching orders. They snicker at the floundering Republicans and gleefully forge ahead, transforming the federal government’s regulatory, law enforcement and revenue collection apparatuses into nothing more than tools to silence and eliminate political opposition.
Republicans continue to throw penalty flags, and the administration continues to ignore them. The GOP huffs and puffs and threatens this and that. The administration laughs at them.
Back to the Rubicon; we’re in the middle of the river…our Republic creeps toward tyranny. The far bank represents a progressive victory, the never-to-be-reversed triumph of a political ruling class, the end of representative government as we knew it.
The bank from which we departed fades from sight and memory. Republicans claiming a desire to return seem incapable of leading us back…they’re too busy playing an obsolete game that became extinct five years ago.
