The Locusts are Back
By Charlie Johnston

Dick Durbin will not be our senator after next year. Let me explain why.
Winston Churchill described the decade when Europe could have been preparing for the threat of Hitler but did not as “…the years the locusts ate.” Yet the decade did serve a purpose. It first elevated to prominence and power and then unmasked all those little men who were unworthy of the nation. When the storm broke almost all the little men, having been clearly identified, were sent packing, never to hold power again.
In 2006 Democrats were very careful to hedge about the war, exaggerating every problem and blaming it on George Bush while pledging they would run it smarter. They screamed foul every time a Republican accurately described their program as one of defeat and retreat.
Now they have been in charge of Congress for a mere seven months. The nation’s ability to intercept wireless communications is a mere third of what it was. Democrats are proud of this. All evidence indicates that the surge in Iraq is working. Even the New York Times has sorrowfully conceded as much. The Democratic response has been; a) to walk out of a briefing by General Petraeus, claiming that the success he described would “divide the country”, as Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan) said and, b) to note that good news about Iraq is very bad news for Democrats as Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said.
Within a year of the 9–11 attacks, Democrats made a critical gamble that the Jihadists didn’t mean what they said. Despite the fact that Jihadists kept murdering innocents in every other part of the globe, their failure on American soil made this gamble work very well in 2006. But now our guard has been lowered by law at the Democrats behest and their leaders have publicly proclaimed that what is good for the country is bad for their party.
It is now impossible, even with a media echo chamber, for Democrats to pin the blame for future Jihadist attacks on Republicans. They have revealed themselves and publicly committed to defeat and retreat even if that was not what they intended. This interregnum has also done us a signal service by revealing those cowardly Republicans who, like John Kerry, supported the war on Jihadists before they fancied it was now more politically expedient to oppose it.
The locusts are back. Yes, they have eaten years when we should have been preparing. But they have also devoured the protective foliage that our own little men have hidden behind.
A lot of top Republican names have taken a pass on the 2008 election cycle, fearing it will be a repeat of 2006. It is time to rethink. The country is in desperate need of serious men and women of serious resolve. The little men stand revealed for what they are. If serious people do not step up now, voters in many districts will be faced with two defeat and retreat candidates – one with a D next to their name and one with an R.