How are the conservatives/GOP getting away with all this?

Great Debates
1

Do to extreme laziness, I’m not going to list cites, but you’ve heard it all before: planting a stooge in the press corps, paying journalists to promote their agenda, trying to change the ethics rules so Tom DeLay can keep his post… and that’s just a scant few issues. Why is no one crying ‘Foul!’?

Are the Democrats so weak-willed? They give their half-assed, cursory objections, then vote right with the Republicans. If I hear one more time, “The Democrats are protesting the Republican-sponsored bill, but are still expected to vote for it,” I’m going to scream. If you don’t want Condi Rice in the State Department, vote against her! She is not the only person in existence capable of doing the job.

No one’s asking tough questions, either. The media have softened all of their blows in fear that they’ll be black-balled from the press conferences. Not only is asking one direct, tough question worth being black-balled (in my opinion), but you’d think the more left-wing media would wear that with pride on their sleeve.

On The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, guest Richard Viguerie (author of America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power) came up with a good point (not verbatim, but close): “There is no ‘liberal movement.’ The conservatives have been meeting three to four times a week for the past 30 years to get to this point. Liberals don’t see themselves as a movement, but as individual special interest groups.”

He’s absolutely right. The conservatives formed a unified front, whereas the liberals still feel that screaming on street corners is effective lobbying. And it doesn’t help matters that there’s no strong, effective, no-nonsense leader to take the reins. Howard Dean won’t be able to do it, charismatic as he is. I’m not even sure if Hillary could do it. Maybe Barack Obama. Maybe. But, as he puts it, he’ll have to spend the next few years “sharpening pencils and learning from the guys who have been there 10-15 years.” How depressing.

I guess I’m digressing from my original point and answering my own question at the same time. What do you all think? How has the GOP and conservatives effectively made Democrats and liberals their bitch? Is there even any use to a Democratic party anymore? Why doesn’t anyone give a damn that this is going on?

Adam

2

I will attempt to answer before being shouted down by the usual suspects.

One of the main problems the Democrats have is the fact that their knee jerk reaction is to criticize and pick apart any Republican idea without putting forth an alternative themselves. This puts them constantly on the defensive. How would the Democrats have dealt with 9/11? With Saddam? North Korea? The rising cost of health care? I can go on. People are starting to see once you get past the tired class-warfare rhetoric there is nothing else there.

Speaking of 9/11, I have always maintained that those attacks were a mortal blow to liberal politics. People that were mocked for calling for tighter border security, a stronger CIA, etc. were vindicated by the deaths of 3000 people. The Democrats have always had a poor record of supporting the military and foreign policy based on American self interest. Now they are paying for it.

Finally, there is a coming fiscal storm on the horizon between the haves and the have-nots. We cannot maintain a society with socialist benefits based on a capitalist tax base. Either taxes will rise or spending will be cut. The Democrats are traditionally on the side of “We’ll tax those evil rich people to throw more money at you”. That label will not sit well with voters in the near future.

Let the feeding frenzy begin.

3

Point #1: Plenty of people are. Do you think you wouldn’t have heard about any of these events if no one was crying ‘Foul’? They’re being given major media coverage.

Point #2: Few of the issues that are raised are nearly as clear cut and as obvious as you (or anyone, on either side) want them to be.

Bush planted a stooge in the press corps? Unproven- investigation is still going on, and there’s no proof of any kind that Bush or anyone outside of the White House Press Staff had any idea that any malfeasance was going on.

Tom DeLay changing ethics rules? Well, he’s only changing them back to the pre 1994 standards. If they were good enough for Democrats for twenty years, why is it a horror of horrors that they apply to DeLay? Besides, DeLay hasn’t been convincted of anything- shouldn’t he be considered “innocent until proven guilty”? Or is that a standard that only Rostenkowski and Trafficant needed to be given?

Point #3: Just as it was with Clinton, there has been a small but exceedingly loud crowd of detractors who want to point to anything as proof of eeeeevil. Just as any questions of actual malfeasance by Clinton got lost in the idiotic Foster/Whitewater/Lewinsky din, so too do questions of actual malfeasance by the Bush administration get lost in the idiotic din of “What was really in his jacket during the debate?”/“Did he orchestrate 9-11 for his own purposes?”/“Did we invade Afghanistan only for the oil?”/etc.

Well, to some extent, one has to get along to go along. For every major package or spending cut that Democrats are willing to go along with, there are plenty of minor packages or pork projects that Bush is willing to let slide through.

In addition, there is the future to consider. If Democrats stand up now and state, “No, we’re not going to let Rice be Secretary of State because we don’t like the war in Iraq”, then they’re setting a precedent. One that will be used against them the next time a Democratic president puts up a candidate who supports an unpopular decision.

Quite frankly, the Democrats got the best that they could out of Rice- a chance to stand up and rail against the war and Bush a bit, a chance to make a symbolic vote of protest (by giving Condi the least support of any Secretary of State), and yet not put themselves in a position where the Republicans feel they have the right to screw with a future Democratic nominee.

?

What tough questions aren’t being asked? I mean, geez, the Washington Post seems full of tough questions and disdained nausea with the Bush administration.

As I pointed out- the reason you know about any of these issues is because the media is damned well reporting about it and investigating them.

4

When tough questions are asked, they are swept under the rug, answered with meaningless rhetoric, and treated as treasonous. When “unfortunate” answers come out, too many people go into cognitive dissonance mode. They do not believe the UN and CIA reports that both said there are no WMD and no capability of making any in Iraq. They choose to not notice when the alibis change, say from 9/11 is OBL to 9/11 is Saddam to WMD to Freedom. They ignore the fact that the FAA had received and passed on 52 separate warnings about the attacks. They support the initiative to gut Social Security, even though they can’t understand it, and even its biggest supporter can’t explain it. Anyone who opposes or questions anything is villified.

Maybe the Democrat party is too fragmented, or has just outlived its usefulness. Look at all the discussions about how they should be more like the Republicans (thereby negating their reason for existence). Maybe they are discovering that the “common man” just doesn’t care. Maybe they are just too damn incompetent to get their act together, or worse yet they don’t care anymore.

5

The Dems aren’t weak-willed, they just ain’t got the votes. You can’t do much or stop much when you don’t have the votes. The GOP knows this and is running like crazy with it while they can.

They get away with all this stuff because apparently, 51% percent of us don’t give a shit.

6

The Dems aren’t weak-willed, they’re just hamstrung by actually having moral values that prevent them from taking the “win at any cost” low road the Republican Party is on.

7

Not all conservatives and Republicans are part of that front. I’ve heard a number of Republican friends complain about the way the party has been “hijacked.”

8

Yeah, if only that Democrat who ran against Bush (you know, the lanky fellow… talked a lot, wore flip flops) had had a plan to make health care more affordable, I bet he would’ve won!

9

I see it something like the game of risk. The Dems expended and included many independent groups, some of which are with odds with eachother (steal unions and environmental groups). To a point that they are very week and are being steamrollered by the 'pubs.

You may disagree with the ‘liberal media’ line, but there is no such thing as objective media, and it appears to me that the conventional media has leaned left for decades. This has given the dems a incredible advantage in politics. Now that there is an alternative that advantage is gone and we are having a correction. The 'pub’s ideas are finally reaching the people and the people are buying.

Also the Dems have chose an interesting plan, instead of moving to the right, they are trying to move further to the left. They believe they can no longer get their message out, I personal think that it is because they are getting their message out, that they are loosing.

Over the years I have noticed that political parties have appeared to switch positions, for example JFK’s views on defense and policies would be more as home with the 'pubs today, while Nixon and price controls would fit in more with the dems. I suspect that we are seeing another switch today.

10

Hrmmmm…

Looks like Bubba, that notorious VRWC cog, also holds the view that Dems need to articulate some ideas of their own.

11

I’m willing to entertain to some degree that the Democratic message hasn’t been as refined and repeatedly chanted as it might have been, and that has diminished to some degree the support they have gotten in the past three national elections (2000, 2002, 2004).

However, I point up John McCain as an example of how the Bush/Rove lack of morality has allowed them to achieve success. I suspect that we could have run anyone, any single candidate, and if we did not fight dirty, the results would have been the same.

John McCain’s name is often said with reverence by Democrats and Republicans alike. Many of my Republican friends and family members are ashamed by the antics of Bush, and suggest that they wish McCain had run; they would have voted for him.

McCain did run, and he won the primary in New Hampshire. He started losing after that. Was it because he did not have a message? Was he weak-willed and obstructionist?

No. He was accused of being crazy, of fathering illegitimate children and miscegination, and of not supporting the troops. Were these things true? No - they were the “swift boat veterans” of the 2000 Republican primary. Bush and Rove manipulated opinions with lies then, and they have not stopped. Some of their manipulation tactics have been exposed recently (planting people in the media, paying others off), many of their lies are exposed, but there just aren’t enough Republicans of conscience, and the Democrats forgot how to fight back.

I hope these two things change soon.

12

Democrat Message: ‘Think about this’

Republican Message: ‘Go with your gut feeling’

13

“Bush=Hitler” is thinking?

14

“Bush=Hitler” is the official position of the Democratic party? Please, tell us more.

15

No, Bush=Hitler is a perfect example of the hyperbole and drama coming out of the left when discussing politics. You know the drill…women will die in back alleys, the polar ice caps will melt, children will starve, etc. The faithful lap it up and the moderates roll their eyes and back slowly out of the tent, never to return.

Some of you are going to go with the standard response of “They do it too!” Do they? When it comes to over the top gloom and doom predictions of disaster, who takes first prize?

16

What, the ABB (Anybody But Bush) campaign carried out by the Dems on this message board and elsewhere wasn’t “win at any cost”? It was the High Road?

If y’all had put more effort into selecting an electable candidate and less effort into dissin’ the Pubbies, you’d probably have won the past election.

17

Hentor nailed it when he wrote “but there just aren’t enough Republicans of conscience, and the Democrats forgot how to fight back.”

I’ve been a Republican since 1954 and voted for Ike. I stayed loyal to the party until President Bush 41 started mouthing off about a One World Order and I started reading up on the history of his family. Not good folks!

Agent Foxtrot mentioned the Jon Steward show last night and I had forgotten about Richard Viguerie who was big in the Goldwater Campaign of 1964. He had much of the conservative concepts right (this was before the religious right got involved). I met him at many Goldwater fundraisers and praised his concepts of Conservativism. I felt he was a tad on the religous side but with the Separation of Church and State so firmly planted in the Amerian mind and government, there should be no problems. He is still speaking the same message that a limited government is the only way to preserve our American freedoms. We all were astonished that the American voters didn’t want freedom or a limited government and LBJ sailed into power without so much as a comment questioned about his socialism.

The Republican party wandered off and formed small groups to try to get to the local government to stop the assault from big brother. It was a hopeless disaster and when we saw the war on poverty nearly destroy our indjustries though excessive taxation and the people of America having to sell their homes to pay their own taxes and then seeing the property taxes triple in California to support the welfare programs that had been mandated out of the Johnson white house; it all took its toll on all of us. It has been a constant assault from the right and left leaving us with nowhere to go.

When the LP formed in the early 70s my husband was the first of our group to give up on the GOP and join with the LP. I stayed to work on a couple of congressional elections where the GOP was starting to make a comeback. We had Ronald Reagan with us in our Los Angeles group and he lead many of us with his love of America and the people. He was disturbed with the number of abortions that left so many families without mothers that when Roe v Wade was enacted he stood up and became the first Governor in America to sign the legalization of abortions! We thought he was our true hero and needed to head for D.C. as quickly as possible.

He loved Americans, women, gays, everyone who lived in this great nation. He would have never done anything to insult or hurt anyone needlessly. Yes he was a Christian but he was an American first! It wasn’t the Liberals who formed a dirty movement against Reagan but the new Conservatives who worked against him. Bob Novak wrote about this and of course he has now been declared the enemy of the GOP. I worked with the Reagans in the Goldwater campaign and again when George Murphy ran for the senate and won. I’ve known the kids since they were little and how they adored their mother and father. Sure Patty Davis took a stand against their Republican politics but show me a single family who didn’t have one child revolt against what the parents stood for.

In my opinion, the GOP has fallen into the pit of saying and doing anything to win and stay in power. In the number of books I have read points to the knowledge that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld were all told of the attack on 911. None of them had a clue on how to stop it so they went nd used the disaster to build up the sinking numbers of Bush since his inauguration. Their plan became how to use the killings of so many people to build the world plan of fighting terrorism that had been on the minds of the neocons since Bush 41 was in power. One fact that few people realize was that Cheney scheduled a war games attack on 911 which put NORAD in a flat spin and confused the control towers all along the northeastern coast of America. Coincidence? I think not!

I recognized this mess from the first plane going into the twin towers and knew in my heart and head that Bush was somehow behind it all. Bush understood this questioning of many of us and immediately sought out the Christian churches to insure his reelection. Karl Rove took it from there and called in all the markers of the grants sent to the churches under the faith-based grants and it worked.

Most of us realized these votes were paid for by our tax dollars and we were helpless to come up with a single candidate who had even a weak reason for beating the Bush Gang and taking the White House out of their hands.

I have asked a thousand times, “why Kerry?” “Why Gore?” Where is the balance of power so necessary for our American freedoms? Hell, I didn’t like it when LBJ nearly destroyed America financially and now again we have Bush doing the same damn thing! Both men were war Presidents and both had no respect for a single American soldier anywhere on the planet.

Where we go from here is anyones guess! Is there not a single man or woman who can be trusted with America? The name of Frist, McCain and dozens of other are mentioned for 2008 and who knows who will run on the Democratic ticket but it will mean no change for America. The partisan fight will take over the common sense of anyone running and a third party has no chance at all due to the cost of the campaigns and the need for media coverage.

I think we are fucked folks!

18

Um, hi? The dissolution of society if gays can marry? Have you actually ever listened to a Republican talk-radio show? Are you really serious, or is this just another put-on?

19

I do. Rush Limbaugh never goes an hour without reference to his undiluted optimism about the future.

20

May I reiterate to some of you the old adage that the easiest person to fool is yourself.

“We lost because we are kind and good and thoughtful, they won because they are tricksy, evil, and stupid.”

Is that kind of thinking really going to win the 2006 mid-term elections, much less the 2008 presidential election?