Posted on 09/23/2010 3:45:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There's a scene toward the end of the great movie Lawrence of Arabia when the Bedouin warriors seize Damascus, their long yearned for and hard-fought prize at last within their grasp.
Alas, chaos soon grips the occupiers. Fires break out over the city and the new, bickering rulers of Damascus find themselves impotent. They know nothing about electrical grids, or how to operate the water system, or how to govern. Meanwhile the British Army sits on the sidelines and waits.
In short order the frustrated Bedouins, completely bumfuzzled over the complexities of modernity, return to what they know best the desert, leaving the city to the British.
The lesson here, of course, is that while passion is an admirable quality, passion won't make the trains run on time if you have no idea how a railroad works.
For example: Followers of the tea party, a movement filled with its own political Bedouins of malcontents and folks angrier than Yosemite Sam meets Snidely Whiplash, would throw all the bums out of Washington and replace them with what?
There is a school of thought that the tea party effort is made up of ultra-right-wing neo-conservatives who believe in smaller government, lower taxes and yada-Glenn-yada-Beck-yada-Rush-blah-Limbaugh-blah-Fox-blah. But it is becoming increasingly clear that this is a burgeoning party-within-a-party, whose ideals are grounded more in civic illiteracy rather than flag-waving, and situational ethics rather than phony motherhood and apple pie patriotism.
You want proof? Christine O'Donnell.
A few days ago, Delaware make-believe Republicans rejected Mike Castle, an able, experienced legislator respected on both sides of the political aisle. A guy who might have given the GOP control of the U.S. Senate was tossed aside in favor of the Gidget from hell maybe literally.
Christine O'Donnell, a perennial Delaware political gadfly, is less electable than David Duke running in Harlem. She won the Senate nomination thanks to the Know Nothing Tea Party voters who preferred a candidate who has dabbled in witchcraft and hasn't had a job in five years. This is a fiscal conservative whose house was foreclosed on and who used campaign funds to pay her living expenses.
Now there's a Margaret Thatcher moment for you.
Castle's sin? Who knows? Maybe he once said "Good morning," to Barney Frank. Uh-oh.
In Utah, three-term U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, an intellectually honest conservative, was denied re-nomination after being told by a tea party bumpkin he didn't love the Constitution enough.
And in New York, the tea party helped nominate Carl Paladino for governor, a chap who likes to send racist and obscene e-mails. How's that values thing working out for you?
If you are a loyal, rock-ribbed Reagan/Goldwater Republican, you have just been played for a chump. Your party has been hijacked by a gaggle of faux Bible-thumpers, conspiracy theorists, revisionist historians, lemmingesque disciples of the radio dial drive-by bloviators and Sarah Palin, the queen of the cut-and-runners.
This isn't a political party. It's a perverse quilting bee of pinched, ill-informed supernumeraries who would cast an ignorant, unquestioning vote for an unelectable candidate because a failed vice presidential candidate, who looks fabulous in leather, told them to.
You know things aren't looking up for Republican political fortunes when the likes of Karl Rove start checking out real estate listings in France. Rove looked the most shell-shocked over O'Donnell's primary victory, reacting as if Roseanne Rosannadanna might someday wind up sitting on the Senate Finance Committee.
But Rove himself always has relied upon the cluelessness of an easily manipulated body politic to advance his candidates and causes. The O'Donnell win could be viewed as a case of "The Architect" being hoisted on his own disregard.
In the long run, the ultimate victim of the tea party useful idiot euphoria may be Palin herself. If Palin decides to run for the presidency in 2012 (please, please, please, run, Sarah, run) it's hard to imagine the Republican establishment rallying around a figure who so openly opposed more viable GOP candidates that she may have cost the party at least control of the Senate this year.
To her credit the Palin imprimatur has been a valuable commodity this primary election season. But at what cost to her at least titular association to the party, which has provided her such a lucrative career?
In the meantime, Palin better be careful not to even nod hello in the general direction of a Democrat. These tea party types have a very low threshold for perceived treason or reality.
St. Petersburg Russia.
Some in the herd are trying to escape the stampede, but its too late.
Start with a BARF ALERT next time...
You want proof? Christine O’Donnell. + Pelosi + Biden + Obama + Frank + Dodd + Reid + Rangle + ad nauseum.
The analogy still works, only the Obamaites are the Arabs screwing everything up in Damascus and the Tea Party Conservatives are the British Army who will come in to fix it.
I know I r confuzed by electical grids and runnin water. I r just waitin for the ruling clas to tell me how to breathe I r so stupid.
What do you think “Hurl, you shall” means?
Ahahahahahahaaa...bunch of little baby girls.
They ARE scared....the DEMS, that is.
Talking points are out!!
St. Petersburg, Florida - Headquarters for Scientology.
Ah, yes. The lovely St Petersberg Times.
The paper I refuse to buy because I am so sick and tired of their incessant leftist ideology. If they don’t have a headline story that bends left, they’ll publish an editorial as the headline. They don’t care.
I hope they go out of business.
LLS
Well the T Party will have him for a little snack in November. They are here to stay and grow stronger every day as little sniveling Marxists like this Bozo grow weaker.
Why, no. For that you need a Mussolini. Mr. Ruth might want to be a bit more careful with his metaphors.
So the "defense" implicit in this idiotic statement is that "You're better off just accepting the bums!" Elitist bums are better than plebian bums? Better the devil we know than the devil we don't?
Is this what made America great? Resignation to mediocrity?
And this from the people who ran on a platform of "change."
I'll tell you -- what: ANYTHING! Support for Congress is 18 percent! Syphilis is more popular!
If this is the final defense the leftards can offer, they are indeed at the abyss.
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