1) No matter what Clarke Reed may think, Dick Cheney was NOT a mistake. Heaven help us if we've come to the point of keeping skilled, intelligent conservatives out of government because the public doesn't adore them and the media dislikes them.
2) George Bush is less a part of the problem than a lot of Republicans will admit. Noonan says the Republicans should have broken with the president on spending - does anyone remember how, when President Bush vetoed that water spending bill, Congress overrode his veto? The Republican Party doesn't merely not go in that direction; when President Bush goes, they don't follow.
I think it's time the Republicans stop blaming President Bush for their electoral troubles and take a good, long look at themselves. If for no other reason than George Bush is leaving and the party (one hopes) is staying, they should.
3) I think Peggy Noonan has contracted BDS. I don't buy for a minute that she wanted to be one of the president's speechwriters; that is nothing more than an Internet rumor. But in the past three years she's gone sour as a lemon on him. It's gone beyond harsh criticism to snarky asides that have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
4) I think that most pundits and members of Congress understand the antipathy towards the war and the president. I really do.
If I were the Democrats I would be careful of the cornered Republican it may fight back with nothing to lose....
Ah, the latest from Arianna Noonan.
Next week, Peggy will begin speaking in a Zsa Zsa Gabor accent and announcing a faux marriage to a gay millionaire.
If McCain had any money, he would run T.V. ads all day long with Obama telling us about his foreign policy, which would make any American lose sleep at night, but he can't because he pissed all over the conservative base and Mr. McCain - Feingold POS
Hung on his own noose
I get so sick of the above attitude that the enemy skates on ice and has no worries in the world while everything we do is ruinous.
The MSM does the exact same thing for the terrorists... All that we do creates more Terrorists and strengthens them while everything for us only looks bad.
Rose, the hardest thing we have to do this year, is sell the idea that we are materially different than the Democrats on issue after issue.
Because we are (or at least have a background) in the Republican party, we often think we are much different. The populace isn’t as stupid as we take them for though.
Bush passed a great society program. He solidifed the one-theater level of military readiness. He allowed illegals to pour across the border for most of his presidency. He failed to order his agencies to crack down. This is the model Bush followed for eight years.
Despite what folks think, Bush cannot articulate. He has a following of folks who think he can. But he does not attract folks to his cause. He cannot make a sale. He fails over and over to even plead his case effectively.
Public opinion began to turn around at one point when he made the case for the war, but that was only temporary.
When you state that Bush isn’t the problem, I have to say that I think you’re missing some serious issues.
He has soured many of us. Those he has are not going to blindly support the next guy who isn’t close to a Conservative. His policies have been far too lefist in nature, and that hasn’t garnered him any respect from the left. Now we have another guy in that mold, and he thinks he can sell ice-cubes to Eskimos. No he can’t.
You can’t sell leftist policy as a Republican. Leftists want to vote for the real thing, and they will.
You attract people to your cause by sticking to principle, explaining why that policy is solid, and winning folks over to your view. McCain isn’t doing that. He is trying to appeal to the left, and they already have a candidate.
Reagan attracted folks with sound fiscal, military and global policy. He din’t win by adopting the Democrats principles.
McCain thinks he can. And he’s been convinced of that in part because Bush got away with so much leftist policy.
We very much are dealing with what Bush has done IMO.
The war? Gas prices? Foreclosures? What about the huge price increase of lattes at Starbucks? Stupid article.
I see that the self inflicted intentional demoralization of the Republican base continues apace. With friends like Peggy, who needs McCain?
I sure hope our purist finger pointing conservative psuedo-intelligentsia are right about an intentional tank job this year leading to a conservative resurgence in 2010. Depress the vote! Show “those people” in Washington what’s what, as if they(and we) have no responsibility whatsoever for the silly decisions our party “leaders” have made.
Well said..enough blame to go around for the entire DC bunch. The RNC/GOP has lost it all and have no one to blame other than themselves.
For years the conservative base has been angry..they have called/emailed and voiced their concerns upon deaf ears. The prevailing attitude among the Republicans was that you little people in fly over country will settle down and do what they are told. Well guess what...IT DIDNT WORK!
Donations are off, folks are quiting the Republican party, vols are walking out of the RNC. Republican house/senate staffers have been brought to tears by phone calls from an angry base.
The house/senate has zero leadership...other than a handful of memebers who do take a stand but they have no voice or power.
In the 06 elections its been estimated at least 16% of conservative base voters stayed home...while others voted for other candidates. I dont blame them one bit...Why vote for someone you know will not take a stand?
There is no doubt conservatives will face difficult years ahead but perhaps a re-grouping will occur. I certainly hope so but dont see it with the election of McCain or the re-election of the majority of Republican members of congress. That surely is slow death.
I really think she did want to write for the president, not because she believes, only because its her craft.
Noonan sees herself as some kind of oratory wizard, when in fact shes simply become flowery and wordy.
She is enamored with her own craft!
Thats the reason she falls all over B. Hussein, shes more concerned by the delivery and mechanics of the speech than policies and message it delivers. Self involved and pathetic, come to mind.
Personally I'd rather watch paint dry than listen to Obama speak but I listen because he's frankly the enemy within and I hear his policies, a shame Noonan can't do the same.
I gathered he was talking about "bringing him in to campaign" in the MS race. But he almost certainly was a mistake in that there was never any expectation that he'd be groomed to make a presidential run himself after 4-8 years. Don't forget, he was the one appointed to "find" the VP candidate in '00 and came up with himself. Were the Republicans so bereft of leadership at the time that they couldn't have found anyone else? Furthermore, even playing a favorite son for a swing state would have been a better idea with the electoral vote margin in that election. It's not all hind-sight either, these things were known 8 years ago and discussed.
McCain offers nothing that is inspiring or makes one enthusiastic to support him. He is just another politician making empty campaign promises and hoping voters don't look too closely at his 25-year record in Washington.
Like it or not, Obama is inspiring his followers and bringing enthusiasm to his campaign. He is also bringing in many new young voters. Obama's message (lofty words that have little substance, but they sound good) is resonating: He is something different, he represents a signficant change, he is not old-Washington-establishment-status-quo-same-ole.
Obama's trend in the primaries was to bring in new voters. If he continues that, he could bring in more than enough new voters to overcome the disaffected Hillary loyalists.
McCain depends on the old voters, and he has to reach across the aisle for disgruntled Dems and Independents for much of his support. It may not be enough, especially if the Conservatives write in Donald Duck or vote for a 3rd party or go fishing.
Fox&Friends
Geraldo declares that McCain is the savior of the Republican Party, because of McCain’s stand on immigration [that is amnesty for illegals, which Geraldo also supports].
Noonan is a spurned and scorned WH speechwriter who consistently takes jabs at Bush. There is no love lost between them, but she is on the money with that paragraph.
Peggy is spot on, and Republicans better look hard in the mirror and take stock. I support a strong and effective counter terrorism strategy. While I think Petraeus is doing the best he can, I support nothing else this administration has done. The neocons who led this mess have not one day of military experience between them. NOT ONE. Chertoff is the public face of Homeland security, and it is not a pretty one. He needs to be gone - and like yesterday. HS is a fraud anyway. It is the DOD, CIA NSA and FBI who will save us from terrorists, not a bunch of highschool dropouts with rubber gloves scaring little girls in airports.
Running hyperinflation and then denying it exists in order to bail out the banks, and the national debt for an ill-planned war, is Jimmy Caterism. The lesson when you don't know how much things cost the average voter is that you lose the next election (Bush Sr, Carter).
What in the world is the party doing? Are they all drunk?
Americans continue to live in a state of luxury and individual selfishness that the rest of the world can hardly imagine. $4 gas? 4% of mortgages in foreclosure? Airlines that do not serve you a nice, hot meal? Not enough convenient parking spots at the mall? A 25% federal tax bite? Those mean US Marines in their local recruiting office? Having to pay for after school activities out of your own pocket? These are “hardships” that make the rest of the world laugh. The hard, cold fact is that it will take more devastating attacks upon the U.S. by insane Muslims before the population wakes from its comfy slumber and realizes it has to get tough or die. Only then will the country toss aside Liberalism and get serious.
The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are.
Spot ON.
The Democrats can see daylight ahead.
For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech.
Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing.
You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.
Exactly.
>The Republicans? Busy dying.
The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound.
Crunch. Twig. Hunting party. ...
Exactly
"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times.
This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be?
"We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued.
Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.
So exact and spot on, it's frightening!
This is impossible because the MSM and a third of the people on FR tell us that Juan McNuts is such a fine conservative candidate!
Comment:
Flipping through the channels late last night and hit on PMSNBC and the Dobermanfuer Count Down.
I did not know that Senor Dobermanfuer had a smarter brother named Borat.
Keith Dobermanfuer is what some of you have called a childish A$$CLOWN deluxe.
Shilling for the Democrat party has a way of coming back and biting a person in the butt, don't cha know Senor Dobermanfuer.
Not widely reported but two days ago Sen. Clinton told a crowd that people who have voted for her would be wrong if she loses if they did not cast their vote for Sen. John McCain. I mean Sen Obama.