Where the GOP right went wrong

From the Houston Chronicle, Dick Armey (who was the Republican leader, back in in the "Republican Revolution" days) asks "How did GOP right get it so wrong?":

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4310979.html

His answer, in essence, is that when the Republican politicians got in power, they stopped being conservative, and became the party of big-spending, big government, and debt to special interest groups.

He says:

Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.

They're fooling only themselves.

Getting power changes people, and not for the better. The best thing that could happen for conservatism would be for the current batch of politicians to leave office, so candidates who actually have a clue about what "conservative" means might be able to run in 2008.