Posted on 02/23/2015 10:46:07 AM PST by SeekAndFind
How do you know that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken at least temporary custody of frontrunner status in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016? Beyond, of course, the polls that show him rocketing to the front of the pack in critical early primary states like Iowa? The political press is coming down hard on him and his nascent campaign.
After three unambiguous statewide victories in a Democratic state in just four years, Scott Walker is thoroughly vetted. If there were skeletons in his closet, the media and the myriad opposition researchers scrutinizing his past would have found them by now. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the forlorn MSNBC host Ed Schultz predicted on the night of Walker’s second statewide victory. He never was.
So, the press has taken a keen interest in catching Walker in unflattering moments or making hash out of otherwise minor controversies. Rudy Giuliani was speaking at an event for Walker when he sent the political media into a manic frenzy in which reporter and pundit alike tripped over one another to denounce what they dubbed the New York City’ mayor’s callous and quite possibly racist assertion that President Barack Obama doesn’t love his country. Only now, on day five of that story, is it finally beginning to fade from the media’s focus.
When Walker refused to denounce the former Big Apple mayor to the media’s satisfaction, they pounced. “What Scott Walker did ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender,” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank hyperventilated. “Clownish,” insisted Rachel Maddow Show producer Steve Benen. “Spineless,” The Washington Post editorial board averred.
And all this merely because the Badger State governor said “the mayor can speak for himself” despite conceding that his comments were “aggressive.” The press would not have been satisfied unless Walker had thrown himself upon a pyre in penitence for the sin of having attended an event at which the president’s values were questioned and his honor attacked. It was bizarre to see the political press respond to Giuliani’s remarks as though they had been personally insulted.
This episode did provide the media with the opportunity to quiz every Republican candidate about how they feel about a politician out of office for over a decade. Despite the fact that the head of the Democratic National Committee is involved in a significant quid pro quo scandal and remains suspect of interfaith marriage and the Vice President of the United States is a serial groper, Democrats are spared association with these figures by an energetic political media.
You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Walker has disqualified himself from serving as the President of the United States twice in less than one week, at least according to the Beltway media. Again, Walker was judged to have failed to meet the subjectively defined standards of conduct befitting a member of the opposition party when talking about President Obama. When the Wisconsin governor was inexplicably asked by The Washington Post whether or not he believed that Barack Obama was a Christian, Walker stepped on a landmine when he answered, “I don’t know.”
“I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added. “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
Now, let’s step back a minute. Those of you who didn’t succumb to the compulsion to wail and tear at your clothes over the mere suggestion that Barack Obama wasn’t Christian enough for Walker’s tastes might be predisposed to extend Walker the benefit of some doubt. The interpretation of these remarks that many in the journalistic community apparently share is that Walker was consciously trying to cast doubt on Obama’s faith and frame him as “the other” (and, no, I can’t believe we’re still having this debate after six years of the Obama presidency). It’s possible Walker was trying to be a bit cagey, as was Hillary Clinton when she told a political reporter in 2008 that Obama wasn’t a closet follower of the Islamic faith “as far as I know.” That is, however, the worst possible interpretation of Walker’s intentions. So few in the media entertained the idea that the governor might not have been indulging his inner Machiavelli and was perhaps honestly trying to avoid answering that question at all.
And good for him if he wasn’t. It’s a stupid question, and Walker called it as much in the second part of his answer that, unsurprisingly, is getting far less play in the press. “To me, this is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press,” Walker said. “The things they care about don’t even remotely come close to what you’re asking about.”
He’s absolutely right. At a time when American combat forces are reportedly preparing to re-engage an enemy of nearly unfathomable horror in the Middle East, American diplomatic energy consistently fails to stop the bloodletting in Europe or prevent Iran from going nuclear, and when the Affordable Care Act consistently fails to perform as advertised, the compulsion that drives the media to enforce Republican reverence toward the president is quite sordid.
Conservatives who truly believe Obama is some sort of Manchurian candidate or a covert Muslim are deeply misguided, and not one single serious figure within the party espouses those views. Most of those who do were effectively sidelined long ago. They subsist today on the attentions of the political press and increasingly self-marginalized institutions like CPAC. To imply that Walker was subtly channeling that pathology in conservatives is for the press to again declare themselves code breakers who can efficiently sniff out “dog whistles” better than even their intended recipients.
And that’s just what many did:
For the love of God how is, "Do you think Obama is a Christian?" a gotcha question? It's about as far from that as I can imagine.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 22, 2015
Meanwhile, is Scott Walker trying to redefine the phrase "unforced error"? http://t.co/MACvfiCsRt
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) February 21, 2015
“Why is it so damned difficult for someone to say that Obama is a Christian who loves America—and he also happens to have been a really bad president?” Matt Lewis asked in The Daily Beast. “Why not grant him this small concession? He’s never going to be on the ballot again, so why are Republicans still fighting the last war?”
Incidentally, “I really don’t know,” is precisely what Walker said to the tens of reporters who hounded him over the course of Giuliani-gate. It is telling that the Beltway reporting class reads Walker saying “I don’t know” and hears Col. Jessup issuing a sprawling confession after breaking down amid a withering cross-examination.
Moreover, and this will surprise the reporting class, but not all strict adherents to the Christian faith take your word for it if you claim to be a coreligionist. Those reporters who bristle at the notion that Obama’s devotion to what he has claimed are his faith-based convictions is suspect have conveniently forgotten that the president’s closest advisor admitted as much just weeks ago:
David Axelrod says Obama actively lied about his religious views as not to alienate black voters. Walker says “dunno” and it’s Armageddon.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 22, 2015
The worst part of all of this is that the political press does not seem to realize how completely they have let the veil slip in this agitated and perhaps unprecedented effort to protect Obama’s good name. The most deferential assessment of the media’s behavior over the last week would at least concede that they are preoccupied with frivolities. Nothing so energizes the media as the easy questions and the uncomplicated stories that provide them with opportunities to posture with presumed moral superiority. The worst one can say of the press over the course of this episode is that they remain committed to the success of the Obama presidency even while it flounders. That is an impulse that is growing increasingly frantic as the end of the Obama’s presidency nears and as his dubious legacy is repeatedly impugned by those who aspire to succeed him.
Why is it that Obama questions ISIS’s muslim credentials and he gets a pass, meanwhile if anyone questions his Christian creds, they get exchoriated?
I am there. Walker 2016
Like you said, I would be comfortable either way.
I have a lot of questions about Walker, and it ain’t no “single issue”.
I've seen this repeated by a few crazies here. It's a moronic assertion, some days I shake my head at the insanity of the circular firing squad here........
AFTR - as you know, there’s probably no public official other than Sarah Palin who has been as closely examined as Gov. Scott Walker. And he got his exam not only from the media and left-wing nutbags, but from the John Doe investigation that had unprecedented access to records, subpoena powers, pre-dawn SWAT style raids on private homes, public and PRIVATE emails, and in any honest assessment was a democrat-liberal-progressive sponsored Grand Inquisition led by Democratic Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm
Yet they came up with nothing on Walker himself. Not. One. Thing.
He stands alone in the field of potential candidates in this aspect, and the games have not even begun for the others.
In any southern state Walker would be a moderate Republican or a conservative Democrat(rare breed)
Two years is a long time to ask me to put aside the primary issue of our time. Compromising is hard to do, some of the Walker sluts dove in early.
As soon as a candidate is a threat to the left’s stranglehold on power, their fangs come out and they try to destroy the person.
And not just candidates.
Joe the Plumber got more media scrutiny than any Dem candidate.
Abortion was made legal in Roe v. Wade. Seven of those nine justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. Homosexuality was made legal in Lawrence v. Texas. Five of those nine justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. As a social conservative, I no longer recognize what has happened to my country. The descent has been enabled under the watch of Republican administrations and Congresses. We have lost basically every battle. We have been led into the cesspool at the bottom of the slippery slopes by Republicans. Since we are already in the cesspool, the threat of a Democrat politician if I don’t vote Republican no longer has any sway over me. The lesser of two evils no longer is the threat that it used to be.
Enjoy your handbasket.
I look at what he does more than what he says. Not that his words are not important, but his deeds are the gold standard for who he is.
I’ve not been this excited over a candidate since Reagan’s first term. More so, actually.
Walker’s response to the media when asked a gotcha:
“Go pee up a rope”.
So far, he seems hip to their bag of trick questions, even though the questions are pretty old and worn out. He should be getting some about global warming, abortion, women’s income, the 2nd Amendment, soon. I’d love to see him send the “reporters” back to their puppet masters to ask for fresher trick questions.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3260664/posts
This article amuses the heck out of me. Threat to Social Order, indeed! Can you think of anyone more law abiding and mainstream? Minister’s son, Eagle Scout, delegate to Boys’ State and Boys’ Nation, squeaky clean legislator, brilliant County executive, courageous and SMART governor, devoted family man!
Last week someone accused him of being “disruptive in French class”.
What will they think of next?
People like you me fracture the party because our votes depend on different issues.
>>I have a lot of questions about Walker, and it ain’t no “single issue”.<<
Just ask the same questions of the Universe of potential candidates. No one will have all the answers you want, I guarantee (even Reagan could not pass the FR “Quien es mas Conservative” test).
Remember: Politics is the art of the possible. Sarah won’t run but Cruz might be worth a hard look. Jeb v. Walker answers itself in the latter pretty readily by most yardsticks.
But YMMV — just don’t cut off your nose...
A REAL conservative would say :
” That darn Boehner and McConnell lost my fight again. Dabnabit”
In other words, you want my votes but not my values. No thanks.
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