Quite simply, it’s wrong of a person to switch party affiliation six months after being elected. Doesn’t matter who it is.
Jeffords had ample reason to switch. I can understand (on several levels) why he did it. It’s still wrong.
And RTA? Comparing Jeffords to Jesus is one of the saddest leaps of imagination I have ever seen. I can understand partisanship, and being happy about majority control of the Senate. But it’s possible to carry hyperbole a bit too far, you know.
I KNEW she’d like this.
Of course, it would’ve been nice if he’d gone Green.
I say heroic.
Belonging to a party does not always mean following a certain ideology or taking certain positions. It involves a trade off that the party will support the candidate and the candidate pledges to the support the party in return. Belonging to a party and using its resources to help you get elected means promising to support the party once you do get elected. That Sen Jeffords thinks so little of his honor and his word that he would go back on them and betray his supporters because of wounded pride over an award ceremony stub shows just what kind of person he is. The GOP is better off without this Judas in their midst.
Amusingly, every time I hear or read the phrase “award ceremony snub” in relation to Jefford’s switch, my somewhat twisted brain keeps referencing the phrase “impeached for a blow job”.
Why is it acceptable for the conservatives to try to reduce Jefford’s motivations to petty pride but not acceptable for liberals to try to reduce the House’s motivations for Clinton’s impeachment to prudish outrage? Jefford didn’t switch based on that ceremony any more than the House impeached based on Monica’s most famous mouthful.
He’d been ignored, slighted, and pushed aside by his party colleagues since well before January. Dubya’s accession only put the treatment into sharper relief as Jeffords then got it from his own party in two branches of government. If your colleagues who supposedly share a party affiliation are going to treat you like the red-headed stepchild, why should you continue to stand there and let them beat you? The Republican Party left Jeffords behind.
This should be a warning to the actual political operators in the GOP (not the elected GOP…the Party machinery for whom the politics itself is their business). If they let the party swing too far right, they’re going to lose a sizable portion of their numbers. They killed the Rockefeller branch of the party 20-odd years ago. They’re working on the centrist portion now. And calling the Republican moderates “liberals” only shows how far to the extreme the person doing the labelling is.
jayjay
**
The chief spokesperson of the Party of the Intelligent and the Enlightened has deigned to give us another pearl from the mount.
:rolleyes:
Poor Sen Jeffords, snubbed and slighted, aw poor baby! The Democrats will make sure he gets his milk and cookies on time and that someone is there to tuck him in at nap time. If his sensibilties are so delicate that he would make a betray his supporters over a bruised ego,let him go to the Dems. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Jayjay:
You can hardly put not getting invited to a party in the same category with abusing the highest office in the country to have oral sex with an intern and then perjuring yourself. I for one had hoped never to have hear the Monica Blowjob mentioned in discussion again.
It’s not quite the same.
Nevertheless, I agree with you that the snubbing had little to do with this.
It’s quite possible that this thing was an open enough secret back then, and the snubbing was more of a “Fuck him. He’s leaving” kind of thing.
flowbark:
Thanks. It’s the test of the usefullness of a theory or analysis to see what it predicts.
I for one, prefer not to play the us vs. them mindless generalization and insupportable bullshit slinging game that seems to be par for the course around here on political matters.
So far, I’ve seen nothing here to contradict my initial assertion that the GOP brought this upon themselves. They made a hard, abrupt shift to the right, they screamed at Jeffords to come along, and now they’re wailing when he refused. Further, the petty name-calling in which certain posters to this thread are indulging strengthens this view rather than weakening it; why on earth would anybody want to have anything to do with people whose ideological rigidity is such that variations in political philosophy can be labeled traitorous?
Another telling quote, again from a Republican who is engaging in some honest soul-searching: "“I’m an old Marine. I’ve always felt that you care for your wounded at every step. It was obvious that he was wounded. Those of us who know him well unfortunately recognized it too late.” That’s from John Warner, a Republican senator from Virginia. Warner, Snowe, McCain, and others. I’m no Republican, but I respect the need for there to be a healthy, vigorous debate from all sides enough that it breaks my heart to see the GOP’s leadership – and many GOP partisans on this board – unable to learn the obvious lesson from their catastrophe.
Incidentally, the argument that Jeffords did this to increase his own political power is self-serving bullshit. He may score a few bill sponsorships and committee placements in the short term, but he no longer has the party apparatus behind him for any future elections. He’s on his own now, for fundraising, campaign organization, and many, many other functions that are usually handled at the party level or with its assistance. Make no mistake, the national GOP committee is going to aim some heavy weaponry at Jeffords in his next election, whether it’s returning to the Senate in a few years or seeking the governor’s seat before that. The amount of money and influence that can be brought to bear simply cannot be underestimated. If Jeffords were from anywhere but the fiercely independent Vermont, his move would be suicide, and even as it is, there’s no guarantee of political longevity.
Don’t get me wrong here: While I’m happy that Bush’s pro-corporate, anti-environment, anti-family, short-sighted and panderingly anti-intellectual agenda will be, at least to some extent, stymied, I don’t want to engage in the distasteful, foaming-at-the-mouth gloating seen in the more partisan Democratic posters to this thread (you know who you are). Frankly, the childish response of this liberal peanut gallery – the strident “take that, you fascist loons!” reaction – embarrasses me, and makes me want to distance myself from people like that. Philosophically, I may be on the same side, but in terms of emotional maturity, I shudder to think that I’d be painted with the same brush.
Naturally, this kind of childish reaction cuts the other way as well, as Dubya demonstrated when he entered office with nothing resembling a mandate and immediately started tramping around with big arrogant feet. (“I don’t care if I should do this, I can, whether I was elected by one percent or fifty.”) Intelligent, mature people on either side of the political divide ignore the mainstream at their peril, and I caution my fellow liberals not to make the same idiotic mistakes that have placed the GOP in a quagmire of its own construction.
Everybody, please, just grow the hell up.
I apologize if it looked like I was equating the two. I wasn’t. I was equating the reactions from the opposite sides.
The House Repubs bring Clinton up on charges of perjury. The Dems try to portray it as nothing more than the Repub prudes getting incensed about a bj.
Jeffords changes parties after six months (more, actually, but the last six months broke the back of this camel) of marginalization within his own party (and his own committee, for gosh sakes!). The Repubs try to portray it as nothing more than hurt pride over a minor snub.
I hope I’ve clarified that. My butt’s on the fence on a lot of issues. I’ve got only one foot over on the Left side of this aisle, and I don’t want to give the impression I’m more committed to that viewpoint than I am.
jayjay
Oh, and one more thing: Bill Clinton had to learn this exact same lesson in the middle of his first term. He came in on a Democratic wave, and pushed a hard-left agenda. I liked most of what he was doing, but I feared a backlash. And as I suspected, that backlash came in 1994. However you may feel about Clinton’s personal ethics, you cannot deny his political intelligence, and for his own survival he shifted back to the right.
Bush and the GOP are now experiencing the exact same phenomenon, but in the mirror ideological direction. They left the center behind, and got snapped back. If they’re smart, they’ll correct, and they’ll survive the way Clinton did. If not, well, we’ll see, I guess.
Yes, that would explain why Bush, Cheney and moderates from his own party had emergency last minute meetings with him. While they all said it was to try and convince him to stay, but I’m sure your right: They really just did it to have a last chance to tell him to fuck off.
:rolleyes:
MIRRORS, GET YOU MIRRORS HERE!
Tejota:
So your contention is that he left because he wasn’t invited to that party? Is that what your’re saying?
Stuffinb and Tejota:
I really can’t recall attacking Democrats, and the only generalizations I’ve cast have been at those who choose to see this through rose colored glasses and accept it at face value.
My thoughts haven’t been general chortling or gnashing of teeth but have been rather specific.
So thanks, Stuffinb. I’m looking pretty good in that mirror.
And Tejota with that rolleyes smilie: Don’t make that face or your eyes will get stuck that way.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Milossarian *
**
Well, gee, thanks Milo, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.
Really I don’t see why one would think that people turning back on their parties is traitorous. Of course I don’t suscribe to the US vs them mentality that alot of people get when they turn political. IMHO the idea of political parties controlling their members actions sounds to me like a dictatorship than a democracy.
UPON FURTHER REVIEW
The court finds sufficient wiggle room in Scylla’s statements to absolve him of the charge of hypocrisy
never let it be said that I don’t admit when I’m wrong
Uh. no. Please pay attention now. If you look you will see I was showing how your guess as to why the White House snubbed him couldn’t possibly be true. I said nothing at all about Jeffer’s motivation.
No, you just attacked as ‘naive’ anyone who didn’t see the issue from the same angry, hurt perspective that you seem to have. By doing so, you attack not only Democrats, but also moderate Republicans. (Although only indirectly, of course. I’ll agree with stuffinb that you havn’t used the word Democrat)
True, you made specific and unsupportable accusations of bad faith toward Jeffers, and stupidity toward anyone who won’t condem him. Are you expecting kudos for that?
:rolleyes: I’ll tell you what. Print out this thread and come back an look at it in a month. I gurantee you won’t like what you see of yourself.
tj
please replace Jeffers with Jeffords in the post above. <sigh>
Tejota:
I dunno who crapped on your biscuit, but you’re beginning to get on my nerves. First you say my posts are pitworthy, and warn me as if you were a moderator, next you consistently misinterpret my posts.
I went back and counted, and for the fourth time, (I would have thought three would be enough for you,) I am neither hurt nor angry by Jefford’s defection.
Also, for the fourth time. I think that both he and the Democrats made a hell of a good deal.
You haver accused me of making worthless generalizations, but again (this one for the third time,) I was rather specific, and time will test my assertions. Therefore, they are not generalizations, they are testable hypothesis.
Then you claim that somehow I am attacking the Democrats by “implication.”
WTF?
First off I don’t do shit “by implication.” If I want to attack Democrats, I usually do so directly.
Secondly, it would only be an attack by implication if I asserted that somehow the Democrats were doing something wrong by making the deal, or if I was suggesting that the Republicans would greet Ted Kennedy with open arms should he suddenly encounter reservations with his party and look to change.
Hey, if you choose to accept that speech at face value that’s fine with me. Because clearly Bush is the first Conservative President we’ve had from the Republicans. Bush and Reagan weren’t against abortions, right? They were big on the environment, right? They weren’t religious, were they? Noooooooo?
It’s just this sudden little change that occured in the last couple of months with the party all of a sudden that is causing this man to change under such key circumstances.
There’s no ulterior motives at all. Surely there’s nothing going on here behind the scenes. This is just an act of conscious, and the ramifications are sheer coincidence.
Sure. That’s it.
Bwahahahahah!
Forgive me if I think the less of you if you swallow this bullshit hook line and sinker, but I do, and you won’t get an apology out of me for it either.
Finally, I’m getting a little tired of being deliberately misinterpreted, and I don’t like to play nitpicky games over minutiae.
The reasons for the “snubbing,” could be several. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise and they were trying to send him a message to straighten up and tow the line, and his defection was a surprise. That has no bearing on my hypothesis (which is looking pretty good, btw.)
So, please desist from this disingenuous misinterpretations, and don’t attempt to argue attribute arguments and standpoints to me that I have not endorsed. M’kay?
Oh, and I told you your eyes would get stuck like that.
Stuffinb:
Damn man, thanks. I don’t consider it “wiggle room” though. I have only so much ire, and if I want to do a good job, I need to dole it precisely and specifically.
I have no quarrel with the Democrats on this one. Indeed, I think they would have been fools had they acted otherwise, and you’ll noticed that I addressed the concept that this might be to head off something the Reps got cooking.
Again, my ire is saved for those that nod in sober agreement with Jefford’s little attack of conscience, and sleazy backroom political infighting in general.
I’ll also toss of a dose of ire to the “Yippee, Bush is antichrist” crowd as well, just for good measure.
But seriously, I appreciate your reconsideration.