John Podhoretz explains how to be a good loser RINO
Jack Kemp
It seems one doesn't have to work inside the Washington Beltway to think like a good loser RINO. One can be a "sophisticated journalist."
John Podhoretz, in his piece in Commentary Magazine
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/14/why-the-budget-deal-passed-even-though-it-was-a-trick/
entitled "Why the Budget Deal Passed Even Though It Was a Trick," makes the following rationalization while explaining why he thought a government shutdown was a horror the Republican Party could not recover from, even as he calls the budget deal a "trick:"
"You have to be a very driven, very confrontational, very ideological person to believe it is best for the country that the government to shut down because legislators have failed to press a point about immediate deficit reduction."
END QUOTE
Apparently Mr. Podhoretz believes that you are a "driven" ideologue if you don't want the government's incessant spending to make the dollars in your wallet purchase fifteen percent less goods by next year. And has it ever occurred to Mr. Podhoretz that what he said in this piece is that all the Democrats have to do is threaten a shutdown and none of the current Republican "leadership" (I use the term loosely) will stand up to the threat? This is virtually a guaranteed formula for defeating the Republican Establishment EVERY time. The so called "battle
over the debt ceiling" will probably be just as anti-climatic.
If I may be crude for a moment, I want to quote I story I read in the respectable 1960s press about Lyndon Johnson.
Johnson used to tell a joke about a farmer who had an unfaithful wife who was a prostitute. The farmer would laugh and call his neighbors stupid because "they paid money for what he got for nothing." This is the same level of self-delusion that passes for sophisticated analysis of how to advance one's party's objectives as Mr. Podhoretz has given, albeit his rationalized explanation was much more polite. Podhoretz has created a blueprint for Republican constant defeats and is indirectly explaining to us rubes his sophisticated way of thinking. And it is a way of thinking that conveniently excuses his Party's having to take responsibility and fight, i.e., cause a large confrontation in a situation that calls for one.
The type of person Lyndon Johnson was is an excellent example of who the Republicans have to be ready to fight politically. If someone thinks that Democrats aren't as down and dirty as Ole Lyndon because Democrat Presidents now don't lift a dog's ears to "yelp" a beagle - or lift their own shirt to show the press a scar from an operation - for the press, then they had best return home because they brought a pea shooter to a gun fight. Washington used to be a place where a Republican could be a RINO with limited penalty, but that was when the real unemployment rate was below six percent - as was figured by the statistical methods of the 1960s, a much stricter and realistic standard than the methods used by the government today.
We are getting much closer to a time when everyone not getting a handout from Washington (and even some getting them), whether they are Tea Party people, Republicans or Democrats will have to ask themselves, "Can I live in this community (or country) with this level of malaise and personal hopelessness? How long can a union carpenter who can't find a job keep believing that the people they voted into office in Washington (from either party) support them in turn? When Obama needs your vote, he is a Democrat. When you need Obama's help in getting a small or large business to hire you, you are no longer a fellow Democrat or fellow citizen in their eyes. It is as if Minnie Pearl had morphed into totally self-absorbed Lindsey Lohan - but still talked "down home."
Today I got a mailing from Speaker Boehner, asking for my "Pledge of Support." It was machine signed by him. He wanted my (financial) pledge to fight the Democrats (well, then one of us would be fighting them) returned the Business Reply letter to the "Friends of John Boehner" at P.O. Box 96816 in Washington, DC 20077 with the following note on their donatation page:
"After seeing your pathetic, anemic effort to get true U.S. budget cuts, I pledge to donate to Mr. Boehner's opponent in the 2012 Republican Primary."
If Speaker Boehner wants honest feedback so he can gauge his level of support, he just got it. If anyone else wished to contact him - and they haven't received this timely mailer, the address above can be used on your own envelope and stamp.
It seems one doesn't have to work inside the Washington Beltway to think like a good loser RINO. One can be a "sophisticated journalist."
John Podhoretz, in his piece in Commentary Magazine
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/14/why-the-budget-deal-passed-even-though-it-was-a-trick/
entitled "Why the Budget Deal Passed Even Though It Was a Trick," makes the following rationalization while explaining why he thought a government shutdown was a horror the Republican Party could not recover from, even as he calls the budget deal a "trick:"
"You have to be a very driven, very confrontational, very ideological person to believe it is best for the country that the government to shut down because legislators have failed to press a point about immediate deficit reduction."
END QUOTE
Apparently Mr. Podhoretz believes that you are a "driven" ideologue if you don't want the government's incessant spending to make the dollars in your wallet purchase fifteen percent less goods by next year. And has it ever occurred to Mr. Podhoretz that what he said in this piece is that all the Democrats have to do is threaten a shutdown and none of the current Republican "leadership" (I use the term loosely) will stand up to the threat? This is virtually a guaranteed formula for defeating the Republican Establishment EVERY time. The so called "battle
over the debt ceiling" will probably be just as anti-climatic.
If I may be crude for a moment, I want to quote I story I read in the respectable 1960s press about Lyndon Johnson.
Johnson used to tell a joke about a farmer who had an unfaithful wife who was a prostitute. The farmer would laugh and call his neighbors stupid because "they paid money for what he got for nothing." This is the same level of self-delusion that passes for sophisticated analysis of how to advance one's party's objectives as Mr. Podhoretz has given, albeit his rationalized explanation was much more polite. Podhoretz has created a blueprint for Republican constant defeats and is indirectly explaining to us rubes his sophisticated way of thinking. And it is a way of thinking that conveniently excuses his Party's having to take responsibility and fight, i.e., cause a large confrontation in a situation that calls for one.
The type of person Lyndon Johnson was is an excellent example of who the Republicans have to be ready to fight politically. If someone thinks that Democrats aren't as down and dirty as Ole Lyndon because Democrat Presidents now don't lift a dog's ears to "yelp" a beagle - or lift their own shirt to show the press a scar from an operation - for the press, then they had best return home because they brought a pea shooter to a gun fight. Washington used to be a place where a Republican could be a RINO with limited penalty, but that was when the real unemployment rate was below six percent - as was figured by the statistical methods of the 1960s, a much stricter and realistic standard than the methods used by the government today.
We are getting much closer to a time when everyone not getting a handout from Washington (and even some getting them), whether they are Tea Party people, Republicans or Democrats will have to ask themselves, "Can I live in this community (or country) with this level of malaise and personal hopelessness? How long can a union carpenter who can't find a job keep believing that the people they voted into office in Washington (from either party) support them in turn? When Obama needs your vote, he is a Democrat. When you need Obama's help in getting a small or large business to hire you, you are no longer a fellow Democrat or fellow citizen in their eyes. It is as if Minnie Pearl had morphed into totally self-absorbed Lindsey Lohan - but still talked "down home."
Today I got a mailing from Speaker Boehner, asking for my "Pledge of Support." It was machine signed by him. He wanted my (financial) pledge to fight the Democrats (well, then one of us would be fighting them) returned the Business Reply letter to the "Friends of John Boehner" at P.O. Box 96816 in Washington, DC 20077 with the following note on their donatation page:
"After seeing your pathetic, anemic effort to get true U.S. budget cuts, I pledge to donate to Mr. Boehner's opponent in the 2012 Republican Primary."
If Speaker Boehner wants honest feedback so he can gauge his level of support, he just got it. If anyone else wished to contact him - and they haven't received this timely mailer, the address above can be used on your own envelope and stamp.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:30 AM
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