A Guide to Republican Reform Rhetoric

Jon Henke at TheNextRight has posted this guide to Republican reform rhetoric

1. [BAD] Bargaining: "If you return us to power, we'll stop the Democrats! And behave better!"
2. [INADEQUATE] Apology: "We've learned our lesson"; "We lost our way."; "We need to return to principles."; "You can tell we've learned because we're voting against Democrats!"
3. [GOOD] Repentance: "I was wrong to [fill in the blank with specific votes, decisions and opinions], because [fill in blank with specific reason] and I pledge not to do that again."
4. [BETTER] Acceptance: "You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point." - RNC Chairman Michael Steele, acknowledging the Republican Party's failures, lack of credibility and responsibility for same.
5. [BEST] Reform: "We abused the power we were given, and we should not be trusted with the majority again until we have taken steps to reform ourselves. To that end, we are unilaterally adopting transparency, ethics and procedural rules for the Congressional Republican Caucuses. What's more, the RNC, NRSC and NRCC are adopting strict accounting rules to protect donations and expenditures, and strict communications accountability rules, including disclosure of evidence for independent review and verification, that will ensure the integrity and accuracy of any message we communicate to the public. We hope the Democrats will join us in these reforms, but we will not wait for them to act before we get our own house in order."

Unfortunately, all I keep seeing is the first. This is what the RNC has been using on me for the last two years every time they call.

Until we see more of the last two, a lot more, Republicans will have an uphill climb. Fortunately for them, and unfortunately for us, Democrats seem hell-bent on giving back Congressional control to the undeserving. More on that to come.