Frist The Fool

Senator Bill Frist is about to unveil his GOP strategy for the November elections. Rather than focus on social issues like gay marriage, abortion and stem cells, Frist wants to tout the GOP's successes since 1994.

It's hard to imagine a better strategy for GOP failure.

His stroll down memory lane will highlight welfare reform, lower taxes and an "economic boom". But these items do much more to illustrate Republican incompetence and sloth than success.

Take welfare reform, something the GOP long desired. It occurred because Bill Clinton had the political vision to make it happen despite protests from his own party, not because of Republican savvy. And it happened a long time ago.

Lowering taxes (for the rich) might have been a good idea in peacetime, but it's a staggering mistake in the midst of a costly war, a massive deficit and a historic trade gap. We haven't begun to pay for this blunder yet, but it will hurt.

And the "economic boom" Frist flaunts has only touched wealthy CEOs, corporate executives and lobbyists. The rest of America has been battered by job losses and downscaling, stagnant wages, rising local taxes, towering medical expenses and soaring energy costs.

That these are the three main accomplishments of the GOP since 1994 is wildly shameful and indicates a party full of rhetoric but devoid of ability and empty of substance.

To be fair, Frist left out certain other GOP accomplishments like appointing radical judges, massively increasing faith-based government grants, staffing federal agencies with corporate lobbyists, filling legislation with irresponsible pork, gutting rules that protect the environment and keeping voting irregularities off the agenda. But those might make him and his party look bad.

Indeed, like the Presidency of George W. Bush, the GOP record is an utter disgrace and Frist's plan will do nothing but shine a bright light on it.

Democrats and Independents should be ecstatic.