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Republicans have once again capitulated to the minority party, the increasingly marginalized Democrats, who just cannot seem to get it through their heads that they lost last November. When the GOP was on the verge of shutting down Democrat use of the filibuster for judicial nominees, a group of seven Republican senators snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by striking an unnecessary compromise. These RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) sided with Democrats rather than their own party and their own president.

As I watched John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, John Warner, Mike DeWine and Lincoln Chaffee bargain away the Republican Party's right to govern in the United States Senate, I couldn't help but think of November 8, 1994.

That was the night when voters, frightened by Bill and Hillary Clinton's attempted power grab of the nation's health care system, swept Republicans into control of the United States Congress. For the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was president, the GOP had control of both Houses of Congress, a majority of state legislatures and most governorships. The Clintons stood alone.

Well, not quite. Liberal Democrats still had a lock on the federal judiciary. They still do, a fact that seems lost on the aforementioned gang of seven.

For the past half-century, socialist ideas, as fostered by Democrats following in the footsteps of their idol, Franklin Roosevelt, have dominated the political, cultural and spiritual landscape of America. These ideas have come close to destroying the social fabric of the greatest, most prosperous society the world has ever seen. A morally bankrupt welfare state has decimated the black family. A culture of death has destroyed one third of an entire generation and threatens to discard the old and the infirm just as it has the unborn. A worldview so twisted and deviant has taken hold of our civilization that our most sacred institutions are now at risk as we seriously discuss such ludicrous proposals as "marriage" between individuals practicing homosexuality.

And yet, even today, in 2005, such ideas could not see the light of day if put before the voters. In referendum after referendum, Americans have said in as many ways as they know how that they do not want these radical, destructive changes foisted on their society.

Unfortunately, the gang of seven has ensured that these corrosive ideas and the Democrats who foster them will continue to rule America. By agreeing to allow Democrats to resume their unconstitutional filibuster of judicial nominees, these Republican senators have handed members of last November's losing party veto power over future Supreme Court appointments.

The so-called compromise allows Democrats to decide when and toward whom they will again direct their filibuster attack, and everyone knows exactly when that moment will come: when the president tries to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court who actually believes in following the Constitution -- especially if the appointment is to replace a liberal.

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