Tom Coburn and the Republican Problem

In an opinion piece at WSJ.com, Tom Coburn nails the Republican problem:

Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

...The fruit of these efforts is not the hoped-for Republican governing majority, but the real prospect of a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in 2009. While the K Street Project decimated our brand as the party of reform and limited government, compassionate conservatism convinced the American people to elect the party that was truly skilled at activist government: the Democrats.

Coburn even goes on to explain why "compassionate conservatism" is neither compassionate nor conservative:

Compassionate conservatism's next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor's possessions. Spending other people's money is not compassionate.

A valid point to George Bush (as well as those who use religion to defend their socialism), who probably isn't listening any more than the rest of the Republicans.