No. I reject the suggestion that Conyers is an “extremist” as a bit of nonsensical conservative hysteria. I reject the frame that the victors last night are somehow poorly fit for the Democratic party, or that the Democratic party will have to make some kind of significant adjustment to accomodate their views.
It’s all poorly disguised attempts of badly beaten conservatives to salvage something from the ass whipping they took yesterday. The underlying message is renob’s point #3, and it is crap. The Democrats who won are fine democrats. Just because not every person who won also flounced their way through the last gay pride event with a “mandatory abortions for all” doesn’t mean that they somehow are out of step with the Democratic party.
The Democrats fit in just fine with American interests and ideals. That was reflected in the overwhelming landslide last night. The Republican Revulsion is over.
What the fuck is your problem? If you got a problem with Renob, talk to him about it. If you do not understand that Conyers is one of the more extreme members of the Dems, you might want to clue the Dem pundits in on it. Or pay a-fucking-tention. This was bantered about very much last night. “If Pelosi does what she has claimed she will do and seek to be a reasonable, moderate voice in The House, will she be able to control more extreme members like Conyers.” One example is that Pelosi has vowed to quash moves to attempt to impeach Bush. Conyers has expressed his strong desire to do so.
“Overwhelming landslide”? Last I checked, the Senate was still up for grabs, and when/if the Democrats take control, it’ll be by a margin of one. Reminds me of some careless talk about a “mandate” a couple years back…
Yowza. I think I pay very close attention. Just because it was “bantered” around doesn’t make it true. It makes it a bit of conservative framing or spin. It happens to be false. If you have a case to make that Conyers is an “extremist” relative to the American populace or the Democrats, please make it. Simply labeling him and pointing to Candy Crowley’s opinion is insufficient evidence.
No, I’m not simply going to accept Republican or conservative conclusions and assertions just because they want me to, and I hope that more people do the same. The voters did last night, and perhaps eventually the punditry will as well.
Well…I don’t really consider myself a ‘conservative’, nor is the Republican party MY party. I’ve actually voted Democrat more often than I’ve voted Republican in the last decade…though to be honest I’ve voted Independent/Lib more often than either…but I love to give unasked for advice, so I’m game.
I agree though…the moderate (sane) Republicans definitely need to retake their party after this disaster. One of the things that drove me out of the Republican party was the quasi-religious bullshit. That stuff has no place in politics IMHO…at least no place in a party that I want to be associated with.
As if that isn’t distasteful enough, the one thing that you would think you could count on the Republicans for, fiscal conservatism, thats out the air lock as well. Bush et al are spending money like it grows on trees, like drunken sailors on leave, like a liberal with an open national checking account…hell WORSE than a liberal with an open national checking account.
I agree with the OP…its time for Republicans to toss out the religious nutballs and moderate themselves on the various social issues…and at the same time get back to your fiscal conservative roots. Get back in touch with the friggin PEOPLE of this country, back to the center, and stop playing to the right wing fringe.
FWIW, thats what I think you guys should do anyway.
Well, losing 0 seats and picking up 30 is quite an overwhelming turn around in the house. Taking nearly all of the close elections in the Senate and picking up 5 to 7 seats is also huge.
If you don’t like the label of “landslide” for that, call it whatever you like, but the reality of it is incontestible.
When the Reps ran the Congress during the Clinton era, things were pretty good. Throw in a little gridlock here and there and poof, predicted budget surpluses. As a good Republican, I assumed that in 2000, if they able to run both the Congress and the Presidency, things could really get done. Roll back a few tax increases, get a better hold on spending, leave my guns alone to the point of even getting rid of some pesky gun control legislation (1994 AWB) etc. So I went into the new millennium with high hopes.
9/11 hit and screwed up everything. It seemed as though those who I once trusted to run my country stepped aside and let the “neocons” take control. Maybe “they” were in control the whole time, but things went downhill from there.
Then in 2004 the best that the Democrats could offer was “vote against Bush and in doing so, you’ll elect a flake from Mass for the next four years.” At that time, I said thanks, but no thanks, plugged my nose and voted for the Bush again, lesser of two evils and all that. The problem is however that when one votes for the lesser of two evils, they are still left with evil.
Sorry for the rambling. At 36 years old, my memories of a Democrat Congress and Presidency bring back images of the passing of the 1994 Assault Weapons ban and the “largest tax increase in US history”. I guess we’ll see what happens now. I read the 100 day Pelosi agenda, and I am not ashamed to say that there were several things that I liked. Like I said, we’ll see.
Look, genius, I was watching Matthews/Oberman last night, hardly your right wing spinmeisters. And why is it so hard to accept that there is a more extreme wing of ANY party. KInd of obvious, don’t you think? Or do you think that all Dems are exactly right in the middle of thier own party?
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
And do you think that wanting the President to be impeached falls to the right or the left of the party? Ooops, I forgot, they’re all exactly right in the middle. :rolleyes:
I think managing to go from “Conyers isn’t on the extreme end of the Democratic Party” to “There are no extreme ends of the Democratic Party” is certainly worthy three rolleyes. Well done on your reading for comprehension, there.
Thanks for your insightful analyis (sigh) but you overlooked the part about impeaching Bush. Do YOU think that is where the center of the party is? Are you not aware that Conyers has vowed to attempt to do just that?
Impeaching Bush is not extreme; it is simply bad tactics. Ever since the Republicans turned impeachment into a purely political weapon, any attempt to use it as intended in the Constitution now has to originate among the Republicans or they will whine forever that it is being used politically for revenge.
I’d actually like to see an ethical Republican introduce an impeachment motion.
(And, no, I would not ever stop that sentence after the eighth word.)
I didn’t overlook it; I was critiquing what you’d got out of Hentor’s post, not whether what either of you were saying was correct.
If i’m assuming correctly that the vast majority Democrats aren’t actively seeking to impeach Bush, then yep, it seems like an extreme view in comparison. However - while I would be quite happy as an outsider to say he’s out of step with the majority of the Dems, one extreme view does not an extremist make. Are there any other issues on which he’s unlike the majority of Democrats?
National Journal did rank him the 31st most liberal member of the House in 2005, based on his votes in 2005. For comparison, they ranked Pete Stark the most liberal, and Pete Sessions the least liberal. The least liberal Democrat was Gene Taylor, and the most liberal Republican was Chris Shays. Four congressmen, John Cambell, Dennis Hastert, Rob Portman, and Jean Schmit weren’t ranked.
So, while I wouldn’t call Conyers an extremist, he’s definately on the left wing of the Congressional party.
This is still Great Debates, right? Because I’d love to respond to your spittle as well as your lack of content, but I’ll focus for now on the latter.
Matthews is very much a right wing spinmeister. Olbermann clearly is not. In either event, it changes nothing about whether the punditry is to be relied on to be accurate or honest. It’s nice to see that you put enough faith in them to blindly accept their opinions, but I do not.
I much prefer something a bit more objective, along the lines of Captain Amazing’s post. You’ve tried to move the goalposts from labeling him “an extremist” to suggesting that I think everyone is in the center. I do not, and I’m perfectly happy to call Conyers a liberal Democrat. I also contend that there is no need or interest for Nancy Pelosi to ostracize him, and to the contrary I fully expect that he’ll resume the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee, and will carry on doing a fine job there.
This meme that the Democrats won by running a bunch of Republicans will die an ugly death, but it will die. Rove just doesn’t have the power or the touch anymore, and Ken Mehlmann is no Karl Rove.
Now, if you really want to take the rest of your vitriol to the pit, I’ll be quite happy to meet you there and tell you what I really think.
The loss of moderates should not be greeted with cheers by Republicans, or by any voter who’d like to see thoughtful opposition to Democratic programs based on traditional conservative principles (without the fundamentalist-appeasing, anti-libertarian bent of people like Bill Frist).
One Republican moderate I’m sorry to see go is James Leach of Iowa, a 30-year incumbent Congressman and a decent man whose views I respected. He was a consistent opponent of Bush’s Iraq policies (including a 2002 vote against the blank check for the Administration’s use of force in Iraq). He’ll be missed.
Pelosi has said she won’t, and Pelosi is the Decider in the House. It’s not that he doesn’t deserve it but mpeachment would cost too much political capital too quickly. Bush is a lame duck anyway. There are plenty of ways the Dems can keep kicking him in the nuts for the next two years without having to impeach hm.
By the way, what does impeachment have to do with left/right ideology?
You mean traditional conservative principles like increased government spending (of which moderate Republicans were a driving force), higher taxes (the moderates did a lot to frustrate meaningful tax reform), unchanging entitlement programs (moderates were key in stopping efforts to reform Medicaid and Social Security and expanding Medicare).
If we can get rid of Republican Congressman who want more spending, high taxes, and no entitlement reform, then I’m all in favor of that.
Funny, I don’t recall hearing that right-wing Republicans disdain pork-barrel spending.
I also don’t remember them pressing to defeat entitlements like Bush’s prescription plan, though they did help ensure massive deficits through irresponsible tax cuts (which people like Dick Armey said didn’t go far enough).
I don’t think you can blame moderate Republicans for spending sprees which our descendants will have to pay for. Most everybody in Congress gets some blame, but those who’ve parroted the Bush line deserve the most censure.
Pork barrell spending has very little to do with the huge increases in spending seen in the past five years. I’m talking about spending increases, not earmarking spending.
Quite a few of the most conservative Republicans were opposed to the Medicare plan and voted against it. Others were persuaded to vote for in because the Democrats (along with moderate Republicans) had an even more fiscally irresponsible Medicare plan that would have carried the day if the Bush plan was not enacted.
I think moderates deserve a lot of blame. They refused to support appropriations bills that did not contain enough spending (forcing the appropriators to increase spending in these bills) and they opposed even small efforts to reform Medicaid and Social Security.
