The Anchoress Spanks Republican Leaders

In a post titled Attention GOP Leadership the Anchoress makes some points that I have been stewing about for weeks:

The world is tilting, and you useless, ineffectual, dithering moneysuckers seem increasingly to be empty suits, given shape and movement not by ideas and a willingness to serve the electorate, but by wispy tufts of ambitious smoke. You seem directed toward nothing more than keeping your almighty Senate or House seat in your name. You give away your power, you give away your advantages in committee, you leave in place utterly feckless people like Arlen Specter and then, when you finally seem like you are on the cusp of doing something productive and right, like investigating the CIA or okaying drilling in a bare, muddly, uninhabitable tundra, you fall into a faint and go slinking back to your states and districts to gladhand and pump for money and then gladhand some more.

This is harsh rhetoric, but it perfectly captures the frustration that many principled conservatives feel with our unprincipled representatives. More, their lack of principle is reflecting badly on us -- unfairly, since politicians are rarely as interested in principle as their intellectual defenders, but inevitably.

In an update, the Anchoress claims that this disaffection from the GOP is different from criticisms of the Harriet Miers nomination. But I think she was wrong to object to the treatment of Miers, "due to her not being permitted her hearing". Miers and Bush were not owed any such hearing. People voicing their opiinion is precisely the data that Senators should have taken into account in making their decision whether or not to confirm, and the fact that the opinions expressed caused Bush to withdraw the nomination is a perfectly acceptable outcome.