Posted on 02/27/2015 3:22:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
You might recall the name Mark Salter for the role he played as a speechwriter for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) when he ran for president in 2008. In the years that followed his involvement on that failed presidential bid, Salter eventually evolved into a commentator and political analyst.
Following McCain’s failed campaign, Slater spent much of his time attempting to rehabilitate the image of his friend and former employer. In 2011, Salter wrote a meandering, discursive essay on how George W. Bush had failed to meet the expectations of posterity when he chose Dick Cheney as his running mate.
Why re-litigate history 11 years after the fact? “He criticizes my former employer, Sen. John McCain, for ‘losing his temper’ and abruptly ending a meeting with Cheney about his legislation concerning the treatment of detainees,” we discovered in paragraph nine. “ I can say with confidence that McCain neither lost his temper nor abruptly left the meeting.”
And while Salter may be perfectly qualified to opine on the wisdom associated with selecting Republican presidential running mates, he is perhaps less well-equipped to comment on what a winning coalition of voters looks like. That did not stop him from criticizing tea party Republicans in 2013.
“You’re a minority. You’re a minority in Congress and you’re a minority in the country,” he lectured the tea party wing ahead of the ill-fated government shutdown of 2013. “So go ahead and follow Sarah Palin. Let’s put the Senate on Cruz control. Let’s shame those squishes to the firing line. Filibuster the bill. Let Harry Reid pull it off the Senate floor. Shut down the government. I think you’ll find the Democrats you expected to yield to the persuasive power of your kamikaze tactics are only too happy to test your resolve.”
In the interim between Salter’s effort to recast McCain as noble statesman and lambasting the tea party, the former speechwriter became a conspicuously dedicated booster for former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. In a gripping lament over Daniels’ decision to pass on a presidential bid in 2012, Salter attacked The Washington Post’s conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin and accused her of serving as a one of the most bombastic and irresponsible voices in American politics.
You get the picture.
Given his inclination to cast paternalistic aspersions on even the most modestly conservative elements within the GOP, it might not be surprising to learn that Salter has trained all of his copious powers of condescension on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Why? The Badger State’s chief executive has dubious honor of being beloved by all those Republicans Salter despises.
Via Business Insider, Salter recently took to his Facebook page to offer some of his unsolicited thoughts on Wisconsin’s governor. “I want to like him but Scott Walker is kind of a dumb ass,” Salter wrote.
He posted this observation in response to a comment Walker made at CPAC in which he suggested that his ability to serve as a competent commander-in-chief was forged amid his resistance to Wisconsin’s pro-union protesters. “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” Walker said. As a claim to bona fides on the issue of national security, this is rather weak sauce. As an example of political rhetoric, it’s insulting and offensive to equate American progressives with the unspeakable brutes who make up ISIS. But does this comment lead us to draw conclusions about on Walker’s intellectual faculties? Not even slightly. It makes you wonder what Salter was thinking before he issued this unsophisticated schoolyard taunt.
If anything speaks to Walker’s intellect, it is his ability to outwit his adversaries on multiple occasions and to win three convincing statewide victories in a blue state. In fact, a measure of Walker’s intelligence can be found in his ability to dramatically advance a conservative agenda in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican at the presidential level for over 30 years. None of Salter’s Republican heroes have enjoyed the same level of success in moving the ball forward for Republicanism. One questionable rhetorical slip up does not detract from the governor’s bountiful record of achievements.
In fact, if Salter is truly opposed to Walker’s candidacy, you might think that he would refrain from making comments that only lead his increasingly broad coalition of conservative supporters to grow more protective of the Wisconsin governor. If Salter truly hoped that Walker’s support would eventually dissolve, he would have been best served at this stage by keeping his thoughts on the governor to himself. But that obvious conclusion apparently escaped Mark Salter. I wonder what you might you call someone who lacks that kind of basic foresight?
Democrats NEVER NEVER eat their own. Republicans on the other hand are regular Hannibal Lectors.
This jerk’s opposition to Walker is an endorsement for Walker from where I sit.
John McCain is a senile, unprincipled jerk.
Salter needs to SIT DOWN and SHUT UP.
McAnus has been senile since his late teens. I will never forgive the NV for putting him on the map. Had they known anything about his naval 'career,' they would have released him immediately. He had been doing their team a lot more good than he ever did ours!
Too bad they didn’t test my resolve. The government still would be waiting for funding.
I’m glad the dumb@ss is my Governor.
O’dumbo looks pretty scared. Maybe he needs some training wheels.
Bingo!
Keep in mind these 'party' people are all jockeying for their own future. The last thing they want is an outsider with no 'insider' connections who does not owe any of them anything.
Many not all.
“Says the abject moron who crashed five planes.”
You and Kenny Bunk. Great minds think alike.
Michelle shamed him outta the trainong wheels..
...while Salter may be perfectly qualified to opine on the wisdom associated with selecting Republican presidential running mates, he is perhaps less well-equipped to comment on what a winning coalition of voters looks like. That did not stop him from criticizing tea party Republicans in 2013. "You're a minority. You're a minority in Congress and you're a minority in the country," he lectured the tea party wing ahead of the ill-fated government shutdown of 2013. "So go ahead and follow Sarah Palin. Let's put the Senate on Cruz control. Let’s shame those squishes to the firing line. Filibuster the bill. Let Harry Reid pull it off the Senate floor. Shut down the government. I think you'll find the Democrats you expected to yield to the persuasive power of your kamikaze tactics are only too happy to test your resolve."Gosh, that sounds familiar...
Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]
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