I weary of reading about Republican soul searching. Who are we, and where are we going, and how do we get there, and so on. The party of Palin and Vitter, Sanford and Craig, Duke and Lieberman has lost its way. Pundits everywhere are trying to help find it again. Here's news for the pundits: don't bother. If the Republicans really want to claw their way back to power, all they have to do is – nothing. Oh sure, maintain the full schedule of fundraising. The black tie dinners and speeches by Cheney to audiences of the full-walleted must continue unabated. But otherwise, Republicans can gain ground by sitting on their hands and shutting up.
Because every time a Republican opens its mouth, the party loses more ground. The spectacle of wrinkled blow-dried Pillsbury doughboys trying to get a rise out of Sotomayor last week was unseemly. The fiesta of facial flatulence, led by the deeply unappetizing Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions, signified nothing and lacked even sound and fury. Palin and Sanford vied for the title of dimmest-witted of 2009 with competing press conferences at which incoherence vied with solipsism. And though joined by the usual misguided Democrats and of course the hermaphroditic Lieberman, the GOP-led gang of six, announcing a health care program consisting entirely of obstructionism, made for a depressing show. The Republicans made no new friends on any of these occasions and probably turned off some of their own faithful.
But it doesn't matter. Unemployment ratchets up. Goldman and Morgan announce huge profits on the backs of the taxpayers who bailed them out. More casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars without end. More foreclosures, homelessness, cuts in state services. The long hot summer rolls on towards a very likely winter of severe discontent. With the Democrats temporizing and conciliating their way to electoral disaster, all the Republicans have to do is be seen as little as possible and heard from not at all. They can take their cue from the time-dishonored strategy of the French army: the GOP needs but retreat in order to better advance.