A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

Author Mark Helprin's grenade in the Wall Street Journal stands out. Yesterday, he launched an attack on conservative radio hosts who oppose presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Helprin sneered that their "major talent is that, like hairdressers, they can talk all day long to one client after another as they snip."...

Helprin accuses conservative talkers who oppose McCain of rooting for a liberal presidency because their "influence and coffers swell on discontent" and they are "nostalgic" for the Clinton years. Translation: They're all just greedy self-promoters who care more about themselves than the good of the country.

Cocooned conservative establishment snobs denigrate talk-radio hosts for preaching to the choir. But these same critics have no problem using the medium to market their own work. Ask their publicists. The message of the anti-conservative conservatives dissing talk radio: Self-interest for me, but not for thee.

Poetic justice: Limbaugh tries to tear GOP apart
by Eric Boehlert

Rush Limbaugh, the marauding Frankenstein's monster of the Republican Party, is on the loose again, causing all kinds of political damage with his signature off-balance swings. But as has become his custom recently, the pain from Limbaugh's rampage is being felt by his creators -- his enablers -- inside the GOP.

Limbaugh and the rest of his get-John McCain brain trust -- Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and campus instigator Ann Coulter -- have been tripping over themselves to get in front of a microphone (preferably a television one) to denounce the Republican Party's presumptive nominee and to suggest that perhaps conservatives should even vote Democratic come November.

After years of watching Limbaugh and his various band of midnight riders within the Republican Noise Machine launch countless, hateful crusades against liberals and Democrats, it's extraordinarily satisfying to watch the Republican Party leadership discover what it feels like when Limbaugh sets his venomous, factually challenged sights on their own front-runner.

For progressives, the sprawling GOP brawl is what blogger TRex would call a schadenfreude sundae. What could be more enjoyable than watching McCain get bogged down in the far-right swamp? Answer: Watching a handful of right-wing pundits come to the belated conclusion that Limbaugh is a dunce. Or, as one Weekly Standard blogger put it last week, the Limbaugh-led response to McCain was "unhinged -- and at times spectacularly disgraceful." And Dinesh D'Souza concluded, that, yes, Limbaugh is an "egomaniac" who "has grown accustomed to conservative bigwigs worshiping at the Shrine of Rush." (Truth is, Limbaugh's not that well liked among Republicans.)

Really? Limbaugh is spreading misinformation? He's wallowing in demagoguery while bordering on megalomania? He and his pals appear to be far more interested in the number of media mentions they rack up than they do in advancing the conservative movement? Ah, what a tangled web the GOP weaves. Wonder how McCain and the Republican Party minions enjoy following behind Limbaugh's broadcast each weekday with a bucket and shovel, cleaning up the mess spread all over the floor. Enjoy!

But this is what Republicans created. They wanted Limbaugh to be an attack dog and to chew up and spit out his/the party's opponents. They wanted him to label Democrats as traitors ("What's good for Al Qaeda is good for the Democratic Party in this country today"), to label them abhorrent and mentally deranged. They wanted Limbaugh to ignore any semblance of decency when demonizing the other side. Indeed, there has been virtually no offensive line that Limbaugh has crossed that Republicans have not dutifully justified or explained away.

Even last year when Limbaugh denigrated members of the U.S. armed forces, calling military men and women who criticized the war in Iraq and advocated withdrawal "phony soldiers," what did the GOP do? It rushed to Limbaugh's defense.

The pats on the back came from presidential contender Fred Thompson and Senate Republican Conference chairman Jon Kyl (AZ), and House Minority Leader John Boehner (OH) as well as his No. 2, Roy Blunt (MO), along with fellow Reps. Mike Pence (IN), Scott Garrett (NJ). Mean Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN) supported legislation that commended Limbaugh following his "phony soldiers" crack. Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) even unveiled a Stand With Rush e-petition, urging "conservatives around the country" to fight for Limbaugh.

Oh, and let's not forget Mitt Romney's reaction to the "phony soldiers" controversy, which was priceless. (Romney was the candidate Limbaugh championed as the one true conservative in this year's Republican race.) Romney flip-flopped! Here he is momentarily chastising Limbaugh's comments. And here Romney is, just days later, as he "rushes to the defense of Rush Limbaugh." (And Republicans used to claim that candidate Al Gore had no moral compass?)

Meanwhile, it really was rather sad to watch former Sen. Bob Dole last week write a letter to Limbaugh trying to reason with the talk-show host about whether candidate McCain was sufficiently conservative. Or when McCain himself suggested that the talk show hosts simply "calm down." Or when Bud McFarlane, former national security adviser to President Reagan, took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal over the weekend to urge Rush and his angry pack to "be rational."

Rational? Where have these Republicans been for the last decade? The Noise Machine doesn't do rational. Was Limbaugh being "rational" when he toasted photos of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib as "good old American pornography"? Was Malkin being rational last year when she attempted to Swift Boat a traumatically injured 12-year-old boy? Was Coulter being rational ... well, ever?

Sorry, GOP grown-ups. If there's one thing the Republican Noise Machine is allergic to, it's reason. And decency, and respect, and rational behavior.

And besides, why is it left to retired Republican graybeards like Dole and McFarlane to try to broker peace with the Limbaugh crowd? McCain, the party's presumptive nominee, is being savaged by a corral of radio talk-show hosts every day, and yet the silence among Republican elected officials has been deafening. Why? Because they're too afraid to stick up for their own candidate, too afraid Limbaugh and his wannabes will try burn somebody else at the stake.

I don't think progressives could have choreographed a better media meltdown if we tried.

Fact is, every time Limbaugh causes a controversy these days, the Democratic Party's political fortunes rise just a little bit -- like when he's treating McCain like a bum, or degrading phony soldiers, or mocking actor Michael J. Fox for allegedly faking the symptoms of his crippling Parkinson's disease while appearing in a Democratic-sponsored campaign ad.

What's so spectacular for the home team is that Limbaugh's crusade to demolish McCain stems from the radical right's fervent desire to cleanse the Republican Party of those who are deemed to be insufficiently pure in their conservative beliefs. And it's not just the candidates. Limbaugh has been clear that his deep disdain for McCain is driven by the fact that he might attract voters in the fall -- the wrong voters -- who do not adhere to the radical right's litmus test of right and wrong.

What Limbaugh and company are doing with their diatribes is launching political correctness into the stratosphere, and in the process herding voters toward the Democratic camp.

The best part? The whole crusade has been a colossal flop. On the eve of the Super Tuesday primary, lots of cogs in the Republican Noise Machine demanded that their readers and listeners embrace Mitt Romney.

Instead, McCain and Mike Huckabee -- the other GOP candidate deemed totally unworthy by the mighty Limbaugh -- pretty much ran the table and shoved the anointed one, Romney, right out of the race. I'd suggest the stunning failure to move the needle even an inch among self-identified Republican voters represented a nice punctuation point on the Republican Noise Machine's collapse, which, naturally, has closely mirrored President Bush's downward spiral. (The same post-Bush tremors are being felt at Fox News; read about their ratings woes here.)

Why did the get-McCain gambit fail so miserably? Maybe Republican voters saw through the transparent attacks. After all, Limbaugh himself wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal during the 2004 presidential campaign in which he commended McCain for being among the "unabashed and unashamed advocates of conservative principles and policies" in his speech at the Republican convention.

And if Limbaugh's uncontrollable disdain for McCain is based on that candidate's allegedly leftward drift on the issues, then why didn't Limbaugh try to run Rudy Giuliani out of the race? (Not that Rudy needed any help.) Giuliani's history of supporting abortion rights, embryonic stem-cell research, and gay rights makes McCain look like Ronald Reagan's long-lost brother.

And I'm sorry, but Romney as the conservative true believer? Baystaters must have spit up their Summer Shack clam chowder when they heard that line. In a manic attempt to veer right for his White House run, Romney flip-flopped on a buffet of supposedly core Republican issues, such as immigration reform, abortion, gun control, tax cuts, and gay rights. (Go here to watch Romney perform one of the purest flip-flops ever captured on tape.)

More likely, Limbaugh is just wildly out of touch with the Republican Party. During President Bush's radical pro-war tenure, the right-wing talkers and bloggers convinced themselves they represented the mainstream -- the majority -- of the GOP. But they don't. They represent the radical CPAC wing of the GOP. And it's a shrinking minority.

I just hope the McCain Crazies keep it up. Their unhinged efforts perfectly capture the state of today's conservative movement. For instance, at one point when Limbaugh was ranting against the Arizona senator on his radio show, a caller asked whether he thought McCain would pick Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as his running mate. Limbaugh sniffed that "Lindsey Graham is certainly close enough to [McCain] to die of anal poisoning."

A Limbaugh pal told the New York Daily News that the host was simply "using a time-honored synonym for 'brown-nosing.' " But as the paper reported, "

Dog-Eating Jew-Counters for McCain!

In the immortal words of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Dog-Eating Jew-Counters for McCain! yikes!

A correspondent tells me that beside John McCain as he gave his Virginia victory speech was the dog-eating Jew-counter himself, Fred Malek--the man who accepted from Richard Nixon the mission of trying to identify and fire the nest of Jews working in the Bureau of Labor Statistics whom Nixon was sure were plotting to undermine him.

That's the modern Republican Party: paranoia, bigotry, and a craven eagerness to do everything possible to assist the criminal enterprises of your highers-up--it's not a disqualification, it's a lifestyle.

Shut down the Republican Party as quickly as possible. America needs an honorable opposition party to face off against the Democrats.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/usconst.htm
The Constitution of the United States of America
Effective as of March 4, 1789
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Article I
...
Section 8. The Congress shall have power
[T]o lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
...

http://dfa.meetup.com/boards/thread/1329388/20/
The Fall of the Athenian Republic:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, and from dependency back to bondage.

Breakfast With Huckabee

February 12, 2008
By John M. Broder
The Caucus

Mike Huckabee, the lone remaining challenger to Senator John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination, visited with about 30 reporters this morning for the Washington ritual Christian Science Monitor breakfast [..]. He didn't make much news and he didn't eat any eggs, but as always he had a number of quotable things to say.

On running for the United States Senate if this presidential thing doesn't work out: "It's more likely I'll dye my hair green, get a bunch of tattoos and go on tour with Amy Winehouse."

On the rigors of a presidential campaign: "Arkansas politics and the savagery of it were far more intense than running for president."

On the recent flood of endorsements of Mr. McCain, now that he is close to securing the nomination: "What are these people saying - that they were for him all along but just forgot to tell him?" [..]

On why Senator Barack Obama appears to be beating her: "The American people are not looking for someone who can fix a carburetor. They're looking for someone who can drive the car." [..]

On why he is a better bet for the Republican nomination than Mr. McCain: "Moderate Republicans lose. Conservative Republicans win."

The conservative ascendancy in American politics is coming to an end. For three decades, the right has dominated, with the Republicans winning five of the seven presidential elections since 1980. Conservatives did more than just win elections: even when liberals gained power, they governed on conservative terms. [..]

Neither Mr Clinton nor Mr Carter created a single, major, permanent new national social programme. Mr Clinton failed to bequeath power to his chosen successor; Mr Carter failed even to win a second term.

John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's attorney-general, predicted in 1970: "This country is going so far right you won't recognise it." His prophecy was vindicated.

Now its time is up: 2008 is shaping up to be the first decisive Democratic victory since 1964 - a 1980 in reverse. The signs are gathering everywhere. Three-quarters of Americans now describe the country as "on the wrong track". Almost 90 per cent express strong dissatisfaction with the costly healthcare system. [..]

An early estimate after Super Tuesday suggests that, thus far, 11m Americans have cast ballots for Republican candidates, while more than 15m have voted for Democratic ones. Democrats outpolled Republicans by 20 per cent even in the state of South Carolina [..].

Although the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama contest looks likely to continue longer than John McCain's march to the Republican nomination, Democrats tell pollsters they like both candidates - they are just deciding which they like best. Republicans remain divided, with Mr McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee each passionately disliked by opposing factions within their party.

In polls, Americans express preference for Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue surveyed, including such traditional Republican advantages as taxes, ethics and competence.

In 2002, equal numbers of Americans identified as Republicans and Democrats. In the six years since, Republican identification has collapsed back to the level recorded before Ronald Reagan. The decline has been steepest among young voters. If they eat right, exercise and wear seatbelts, today's 20-somethings will be voting against George W. Bush deep into the 2060s.

Most ominously, US polls show an ideological sea change: a desire for a more activist government, a loss of interest in the tax question and a shift to the left on most social issues (although not, interestingly, abortion).

As things are going, the Democratic nominee will win a majority of the votes cast (unlike Mr Clinton). They will almost certainly gain an increased majority in Congress (unlike Mr Carter). If the present mood lasts, that nominee will have a green light to move the US in new policy directions (unlike either Mr Clinton or Mr Carter). [G]iven moderate luck and skill, the next president could join Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt as one of the grand reshapers of politics and government.

Tragically, that reshaping is likely to be for the worse. The things that Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama want to do are likely to prove costly and counterproductive, if not outright disastrous. A greater government role in healthcare, higher taxes, tighter regulation, more social welfare, an increased flow of low-skilled migrants with amnesty for those already here, a cut-and-run from Iraq: these are not measures likely to improve US competitiveness or enhance America's standing in the world.

To prevent these negative consequences - to retrieve victory from impending defeat - would require more creativity and responsiveness than Republicans and conservatives have displayed for many years. Unless American conservatism can rejuvenate itself, the odds favour the liberal left holding sway until the day that its own errors and delusions lay it low again.

The writer, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again

I really dislike this warmongering peckerwood (he comes from a famous Canadian broadcast/journalism family) but sometimes he forgets himself and speaks honestly.

blatham wrote:

I really dislike this warmongering peckerwood (he comes from a famous Canadian broadcast/journalism family) but sometimes he forgets himself and speaks honestly.

And says what you want to hear.

He could be right, but then he could be wrong.

If the looming sea-change was as dramatic and inevitable as Frum suggests, I think we would be seeing consistent polls where Obama or Clinton were cleaning McCain's clock in the general election and we're not

His dystopic vision is, by no means, an utter fantasy. I wish it were.

The Conservative Ascendency has lost energy and shows wear around the edges, but as we all know a lot can happen between now and November that could blow Frum's prophesey to bits.

As you know winning the White House alone will not be enough to usher in the New Age of American Liberalism. If Republicans keep enough seats in the Senate to preserve the filibuster brakes the Age will not take off, and they will have McCain and the GOP members of the Gang of 14 to thank.

BTW - I find many flaws in Joefromchicago's list of effective presidents - particularly the grades assigned for effectiveness as commander in chief.