The Weekly Standard’s Whitney Blake points out in this column that Republicans had some great legislative victories in 2007.  Read the entire column here.

With Democrats emerging victorious just a year ago in the 2006 midterm elections claiming a mandate to drive the country in a new direction, one would have hardly predicted headlines like "Bush, GOP prevail in host of Hill issues" in the Associated Press, "Dems cave on spending" in the Hill, and the Politico's "Liberals lose bigtime in budget battle."

Leading mainstream publications agreed that Democrats had surrendered to Republican demands, and the left's base was utterly furious at the outcomes. In reaction to the $70 billion Iraq and Afghanistan troop funding vote, comments such as, "You are kidding yourself if you think the Democratic Party stands for anything - clearly they do not - This is an outrage," were posted on Daily Kos. Huffington Post entries included, "Democrats lose evey [sic] time becuase [sic] they are a pack of spineless cowards".

Even Republicans were surprised with the outcome. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remarked, "If we had been having this press conference last January and I had suggested that a Republican minority in Congress would be able to meet the president's top line, you all would have laughed at me."

"We couldn't have scripted this to work out better for Republicans they conceded almost every issue," said Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-WI).

Not only did Democrats eventually meet Bush's required $933 billion appropriations spending level, they also capitulated on unconditional funding for the troops, an energy plan without corporate taxes, a one-year patch to the alternative minimum tax without additional taxes (a $50 billion violation of Democrats' pay-as-you-go principles), and a straight extension of SCHIP without a large expansion.

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Republicans decided early on to stick together on issues such as taxes and Iraq, said one senior Republican aide. Democrats were much more fractured. One Washington Post headline declared, "Democrats Blaming Each Other for Failures." The article cited House Democrats accusing their Senate counterparts of selling out and folding. In December 2006, Reid said in an interview, "legislation is the art of compromise and consensus building and I'm going to compromise." House Democrats didn't embrace this theme.

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Incidentally, according to McConnell, the only truly bipartisan piece of legislation where genuine compromise was part of the equation was ethics reform, signed into law in September. But even Democrats, who heralded the landmark reforms, took advantage of the loopholes in the bill to insert about 300 air dropped earmarks which had not been taken up by either the House or Senate on the floor or as part of a vote.

Now, with the Democrats' base up in arms, the Democrats' infighting publicly aired, and the minority declaring victory, backed up by the mainstream media no less, the bills don't even appear bipartisan. Democrats came out with the short end of the stick, even though the odds were clearly in their favor after the midterm elections.

While Hillary is busy wrapping up universal health care, and "bring troops home" presents for potential voters, Democrats won't be able to deliver these or any other promised initiatives this Christmas season.

You can read the entire column from The Weekly Standard here.