Opinion: GOP puts party before country
By Paul Begala, Newsweek
As the poet predicted, the center cannot hold. But it’s not because both the right and left are tearing at it equally. In an age in which journalism and punditry are terrorized by the demands of false equivalency, it is time to speak a simple truth: conservatives are to blame.
It was not liberals who ended the career of Richard Lugar. The longest-serving Republican in the Senate was unceremoniously dumped last week by the Tea Party fringe. He was not, as the saying goes, caught with a dead girl or a live boy. He was just too doggone moderate, too ready to compromise with the Democrats. Thanks for that, Senator Lugar. Oh, and you’re fired.
Today’s Republicans are different. They truly have put partisanship ahead of patriotism, as the political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann document in their book, Even Worse Than it Looks. “The GOP,” they write, “has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
Careful, guys, they’re going to revoke your pundit license. Don’t you know you’re supposed to say “Both sides are to blame”? Their response is powerful—and as damning of conventional media analysis as it is of the GOP: “‘Both sides do it’ or ‘There is plenty of blame to go around,’” they write, “are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias.” They describe the standard calculus of compromise—both sides moving toward the middle—as “a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.”
Sure, the Democrats hated George W. Bush. But when he wanted to meet them halfway on education, even Ted Kennedy helped him. And when he wanted to make an impressive commitment to fighting AIDS, TB, and malaria in Africa, Harry Reid and Joe Biden—along with Richard Lugar—made it happen.
Well done, I couldn’t agree more. We are in a new era of political ‘branding’. Currently, the right has engaged in an insurgency that, at it’s heart, is all about their ‘brand’. Republicans are not only to blame, the idea that they are ‘unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science’ is dead right. They are a kamikaze party, willing to sabotage the country’s interests and long history of social obligations for the sake of their Brand, right or wrong. This, combined with FAUX News and others, has created a machine of the entitled, unashamed of the repercussions for country and government, concerned only with rewriting American history for their constituents, confused about constitutionality and brainwashed/entrapped by Grover Norquist and his ridiculous no taxes ever nonsense. This is not a philosophy they espouse, but a war doctrine which justifies the means to an end, throws granny under the bus with the Ryan plan and requires gestappo-like compliance from all. Poor Romney, he just isn’t one of them, I believe he’s actually rational, but he must act insane to get along on the playground with the others.
Newsweek has been dead and moribund for years. This article just proves that zombies can still arise and continue spewing out half truths and nonsense.
Both parties are guilty of globalism at the expense of Americans and America.
They are both devils, but the democrats think they wear a halo.
It’s amazing that rose colored glasses invert the view depending on which side of the glass you’re looking through.
Wish we could throw them away and deal with an unbiased and unobstructed view.
Atomic and his comment in regards to Paul Begala’s article was spot on. Can the far right conservatives get any more crazy? Yes, and they will as soon as we get closer to the November election.
I would disagree with the statement that Romney is rational, the more I find out about the guy the more I find to dislike.
Take care, Old Liberal Long Skiis
Dionne writes, Americans have believed that We The People “were able to see democratic government as a constructive force in our national life and to use it in creative ways.” A far different vision from the Tea Party, which, Dionne notes, “casts government as inherently oppressive, necessarily wasteful, and nearly always damaging to our nation’s growth and prosperity.”
Both are true. Now what?
Both are true.
The ‘now what’ is compromise. Always has been compromise and always will be compromise in a properly functioning democracy. Something the young bucks of the tea party have up to this point rejected.
We are currently hijacked; welcome aboard. Your bags will be searched for any evidence of sanity before boarding.
Many pundits like to mention how Ronald Reagan and Bush 41 compromised with Democrats in agreeing to raise certain fees or taxes. Problem was, they both agreed as part of deals that would also reduce spending. However, the Democrats made the terms such that the spending cuts would come about in later years.
Well the Democrats reneged in both instances! The spending cuts never materialized. Hence the resistance to have another ‘deal’! Willingness to compromise should also mean a willingness to ‘etch in stone’ to what’s agreed! And in a repeat of history, Dems.. are again talking about reducing spending ‘down the road’!
I think it’s called Dunning-Kruger effect. Fueled by the doughy pantload on radio and faux news that facilitate the delusion.
The left continues to have it wrong.
While the conservatives continue to take back America for what it was, an America based on the constitution. They will put the “Handout” generations in liberal areas like Tahoe on it’s rear.
California is the land led by non-profit handout and the sheeples that think that makes economic sense.
Mr. Mojo, I believe that response is called “case in point”.
It is interesting that this article coincides with the illegal release of confidential US intelligence info in an apparent effort to boost the Presidency.
Laughable …. if it weren’t so damaging to our country.
The admin of this web page is very biased.
Pitifully transparent…
Yeah I can’t believe he lied to us, falsified evidence, to get us into an illegal war that created one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, killing 10s of thousands of innocent people, giving handouts to contractors with close ties to his VP.
Oh wait, that was your guy.
There’s no sense in trying to reason with a stubborn conservative. My brother became a libetarian / Ayn Rand fan and there’s no convincing him that his stance may just be a liittlle bit off base. “Greed is good and Selfishness is a virtue”, is not for me, nor would I think for most folks.
Handouts? In liberal Tahoe? Just wait till the shoe is on the other foot. Lets say you get laid off from work, or become that person with an illness or disability, mounting medical bills that you can’t afford, caring for aging parents, no job prospects. The years tick by as you find yourself slowly watching everything you worked for gradually disappear.
Not a pretty picture is it? Well alot of people my age and older are facing this scenario. Keep moving back the age for eligibilty to Social Security, cuts to Medicare, cuts to pulic health clinics…the list is long and scary, just the way conservatives like it!
Turn off Fox “news” and look around to what these tea party backed politicians are doing to this country.It ain’t good!
Take care, Old Long Skiis
Thing fish your view of history is as the state run main stream media would want it to be…
Proof that brainwashing works…
Obama will go down as the worst president in history – PERIOD
All the “blame Bush” people out there will slowly wither away in their irrelevance.
Wisconsin was another wake-up call that many in California slept through…
GBA
Dunning-Kruger effect poster boy.
Plain and simple, in Wisconson, Walker outspent his opponents 8 to 1 thanks in part to the citizens united decision from the five republican appointed supreme court justices. A question for those so called constitutionalist out there: Is that the democracy our founding fathers had in mind?
Chip, You got the first three words right …
Plain and simple, the Wisconsin election was a battle of ideas and
Walker won on his ideas.
Everyone knows that, why don’t you?
Americans, even many in the unions themselves, see the government employee unions are hurting America.
In Wisconsin Union membership has been cut in half since the law now lets people opt out of having to pay union dues.
Liberalism/Democrats are losing – it’s just that many liberals are so loud mouthed that it seems there are more of them, there are not.
GBA
“Liberalism/Democrats are losing”
Pub, the big difference concerning the conservatives/republicans is that they have NOTHING to lose! No new original ideas, no moral high ground, no major contributions to aid in America’s battle against the economic downturn, no candidates that spark the parties core, no cohesive message for the party to rally around. And I’m pretty sure that the term proactive is an utterly foreign concept to them, because since 1992 all they seem to do is to react to what the democrats do, and then base their ideas on anything that would be considered the polar opposite of the Dems and try to mask it as original thought (a tactic they even used during George W’s two terms).
So in that sense you may be right, cause when you ain’t got nothing, you ain’t got nothing to lose!
It seems it’s no longer We The People. Government is saying: we know whats best for you, from the federal level to local level.
BiggerPicture,
Wrong again…
What are you talking about? I won’t bother with most of your empty arguments but this one I will…
No original Ideas…? That is just wrong! As in not true –
For instance – Conservatives have been pointing to a better way to reform healthcare for years…
Key point being … increase insurance competition across state lines, tort reform, portable individual health insurance with tax free money so that your insurance isn’t tied to your employer… just three original ideas that render your point WRONG. Stop spreddin it would ya. Learn what you are talking about.
YOu are
Pub, if not agreeing with you is wrong, I don’t want to be “RIGHT”!
P.S. I love double entendres!
BiggerPicture,
I specifically pointed out details that made your statement wrong… it had nothing to do with agreeing with me, it had to do with facts.
Where are you coming from? Did you read what I wrote?
Pub, didn’t see any facts in your post, just talking points!
Off to enjoy the day, suggest you do the same.