Frum: Republican Waterloo

moderatevoice ^ | March 21, 2010 | JOE WINDISH

[ironangel]

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum says it’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the GOP disaster. And he blames this “most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s” on conservatives and Republicans:

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Do you think maybe we’ll see the re-emergence of some moderate Republicans?

[ironangel]

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

[muawiyah]

When Frum went gay on us didn’t he also start working for the fascists?

[DJ MacWoW]

Frum is a nut.

[winodog]

I am not buying it.
Rush knows theres plenty to get angry about. He makes hay even when the sun is not shining

[mnehring]

That doesn’t even make sense.

[webschooner]

Frum is a maroon, a squishy unprincipled moderate, who had a lived during the time of the Revolutionary war, would have been arguing for offering the British some sort of “compromise”.

We lost a battle. The war is by no means over.

[Blue Turtle]

HA..Frum is a joke. This article is a joke. Health care is NOT. So bugger off Frum.

[The_Victor]

Rush wants conservatism to succeed, period.

[rbg81]

What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

---

So....let me get this straight. Rush wants Obama to fail, but he also wants the GOP to fail? Unless he wants both sides to fail, one of these must not be true. I am not a regular Rush listener, but I have listened to him for almost 20 years. I don’t buy for a second that Rush wants a more Socialist country just so he can get a bigger audience. Someone who is THAT manipulative would have done much better with women that Rush has.

[stephenjohnbanker]

FRUM SCUM

[Oceander]

Nice to see the collaborationists coming out of the woodwork already. Freedom lovers have never made deals with, or accomodated, totalitarians, fascists or dictators. The Iron Curtain, and with it the Soviet Union, fell because this nation, under Ronald Reagan, would not make the final accomodations to the Soviet Union to accept that it would exist in perpetuity. Solidarnosc did not make fatal accomodations with the Polish communist party. We never made fatal accomodations with the Nazis or the Japanese Empire, even though plenty here at home called for such accomodation.

Why on Earth should we make accomodations with our own home-grown fascists?

[Redleg Duke]

Your comment indicates too many traps where your forehead hit the HUD!

Get real!

[wita]

Do you think maybe we’ll see the re-emergence of some moderate Republicans?

Not very likely Frum, there are too many in the Congress now. Any more and we would become another arm of the democrat party, which I think is what you think we ought to be doing.

[adc]

Dittos.

[kabar]

Frum is what is wrong with the RINOs. They just want to become the Democrat lite party. 40% of Americans self-describe themselves as conservatives or twice the number who say they are liberals. The problem with the GOP is that they have failed to distinguish themselves from the Dems on the major challenges facing this country. The voter must choose between tweedledum and tweedledee.

[aruanan]

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry.

Oh, poor, poor David, who has been around Democrats and RINOs so long that he can see nothing except through a cynical lens.

[ilgipper]

Frum is literally the biggest jackass I have ever seen in my lifetime. This idiot is translating a very unpopular bill passing as a victory. In face, the party in power was placed there 18 months ago, and basically has destroyed all that good will in the time since. Every election since then and every poll in the past nine months proves this bozo wrong. The people lose here, not the GOP. the GOP and people are now all on the same team.

[Maurice Tift]

Mark Steyn had something to say about David Frum.

[AlexW]

I can’t wait to hear Rush tomorrow morning, my time, via Rush 24/7.