Posted on 06/21/2008 12:51:38 PM PDT by goldstategop
When someone starts yammering about transcending partisanship, renouncing “hatred and venom” and “bringing us together” – head for the hills. He’s talking capitulation on the right, with long lines of defeated, dejected conservatives in tattered uniforms being marched away to political POW camps.
Former Bush flak Scott McClellan, author of a tell-all book on his White House service, is worse than a rat fink. He’s worse even than a fawning sycophant craving the establishment’s favor. He’s a defeatist who bids his party to stand with him in the middle of a four-lane highway at rush-hour. Can we say “road-kill”?
Here’s an excerpt from an interview Bill O’Reilly did with the weasel on June 2.
O’Reilly: “OK. Now when you come to the realization that what you write in your book see it being used by people who absolutely want the worst for this country and this administration, doesn’t that give you pause at all.”
Doing a passable impression of Uriah Heep, McClellan responded: “But the whole thing about the book (his book – “What Happened Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”) is that there are a lot of good people on both sides. We’ve got to get rid of the venom and hatred on both sides and find out how we can come together. I’m a centrist. I believe in working together to solve the problems we’ve got. And we need to get rid of the venom in the political atmosphere in DC. It’s a poisonous atmosphere.”
Note the weasel renounced “venom” not once but twice, thereby establishing his sensitivity and sincerity.
Three observations are in order:
First, McClellan is begging for the establishment’s approbation, particularly the mainstream media.
When an ostensible Republican starts whimpering that we have to overcome enmity and work together, he’s asking to be loved. He’s telling the world that he’s not one of those mean, cranky old reactionaries sowing seeds of discord wherever they go. He’s enlightened, compassionate and reasonable, and wants to build bridges to those who seek our annihilation.
Two: By calling himself a “centrist,” McClellan acknowledges that he has few principles – and those are negotiable. Tell me what a man will fight for, and I’ll tell you what he’s made of. McClellan is a big cipher.
Three: A call to non-partisanship is a call to surrender. It’s a truce only one side will honor. It’s akin accepting a wolf pack’s invitation to dinner, with the menu to be determined later.
What’s needed in national politics is more partisanship not less (partisanship here defined as adherence to principle).
Liberals are loathsome and deserve to be despised. With the left ascendant everywhere this year, venom should be delivered in stainless steel drums by the truckload.
Most of the cutting-edge issues that divide us are incapable of a negotiated resolution.
· Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is threatening to veto a partial-birth-abortion ban – for the second time. How do you split the difference between jamming surgical scissors into the base of an unborn child’s skull and suctioning out its brain, and not committing this gruesome act? Suctioning out only part of the brain? But do we really need more Democratic voters?
· What’s the centrist position in dealing with Iraq – let Hitler-wannabe Ahmadinejad have a few nuclear weapons and short-range missiles capable of hitting only Israel and certain parts of Europe, in lieu of a stockpile and ICBMs that can strike the U.S.?
· Is civil unions the compromise position on gay marriage – give homosexuals all of the privileges of marriage but reserve the name alone for normal relationships? In civil-union states, activists are pushing just as hard for same-sex marriage.
· How do we work together to counter spiraling gas prices? Environmental-wackos (that is, a majority of Congress) are adamantly opposed to off-shore drilling, exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (mustn’t disturb the caribou), the development of nuclear power and building more refineries. In the meantime, they insist on strict enforcement of the Kyoto Treaty, which will raise energy costs for producers and consumers alike. If we ask them really nicely, maybe they’ll let us drill on Mars – assuming there are no caribou there.
· How about hate crimes laws and campus speech codes? How do you compromise with censors who want to gag you and punish dissent from liberal orthodoxy?
· How about a deal on judicial rape of the Constitution? Activist judges agree to only misinterpret the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but not the Second and Fifth? Judicial autocrats can only legislate from the bench on alternate days of the week?
· We’ve reached the following arrangement with the Red Chinese: They’ll continue to engage in massive human rights violations, enforce their maniacal one-child-per-family policy, augment their war machine, hack our computer networks, and rattle their sabers at Taiwan, and we’ll continue to trade with them, resulting in an annual deficit approaching $300 billion for the U.S. The lead-poisoning is a bonus.
· Similarly, the Israelis have agreed to keep surrendering land and releasing jailed terrorists (what Condeoleezza Rice calls “confidence-building moves”). In return, the Palestinians have agreed to keep firing rockets into the rest of Israel, promoting terrorism and inciting anti-Semitism.
“Get rid of the venom and hatred”? But the left deserves to be hated; it merits our derision and scorn.
Obama, Clinton, Gore, Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Carter, Soros, Huffington and the rest of the loathsome lot are destroying our country -- ruining our economy, pulverizing the middle class, undermining national security, and attacking Judeo-Christian morality at every turn.
How should we respond: By asking them if they’re having a bad hair day? By announcing “Somebody needs a hug!”
Ted Kennedy is the quintessential representative of the American left.
A member of the United States Senate for longer than most Americans have been alive, Kennedy has spent the last 46 years raising taxes and piling regulations on productive Americans, attacking business, pushing racial preferences, advancing abortion, blocking votes on judges who will defend the Constitution, promoting amnesties for illegal aliens, and working diligently to make America less free, less safe and less decent.
After his successful surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor (in which he benefited from the best health-care system in the world), the Senator announced that he couldn’t wait to join Barack Obama in campaigning for socialized medicine.
Just as Kennedy’s fiscal policies are intended to ensure that members of the middle class will never amass the Kennedys’ wealth, his push for national health care is intended to guarantee that ordinary Americans one day enjoy the medical services of Canada, the United Kingdom and North Korea, while Kennedys continue to get the best care money can buy.
Two possibilities arise: Liberals are unbelievably stupid – so dumb that they need help tying their shoes and not walking into walls – or they’re malicious malcontents consumed by envy and animated by a lust for power – in a word, evil.
You don’t compromise with evil, negotiate with it, sign truces with it, or look for a middle way. You expose it and oppose it.
If heeded, McClellan’s entreaty to disavow what he calls “hatred and venom,” would result in a unilateral disarmament in the war of words.
The left will continue to call us fascists, racists, hateful, selfish and heartless, greedy, superstitious, Neanderthals, anti-science, paranoid, delusional, hypocritical and war-mongers.
In his book, “Makers And Takers,” Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer notes the way conservatives are routinely libeled by the left.
In “Conservatives Without A Conscience,” John Dean (a weasel from a previous Republican administration) described conservatives as “arrogant, condescending and self-righteous” – unlike, say, Hillary Clinton, who’s humble, down-to-earth (her autobiography should have been titled, “Here’s Looking Down On You, Kid”) and non-judgmental.
Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee, calls conservatives “evil,” “corrupt,” and “brain-dead.”
Humorist Garrison Keillor (who’s as funny as genital herpes) prefers the subtle approach, describing Republicans as “swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brown-shirts in pinstripes, sweat-shop tycoons, aggressive dorks …”
Clinton advisor Paul Begala engages in what the late Ayn Rand termed the broad-brush smear, writing: “You see the state where James Byrd was lynch-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart – it’s red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay – it’s red. You see the state where right-wing extremists blew up a federal office building and murdered scores of federal employees: red … and the state where neo-Nazi skinheads (as opposed to the multi-cultural skinheads?) murdered two African Americans because of their skin color, and the state where Bob Jones University spews its anti-Catholic bigotry: They’re red too.”
You see the state where a disabled woman was denied nutrition and water for 6 days, until she literally starved and dehydrated to death, it’s red too. Wait, I forgot, Begala and company condone that particular murder.
The point of Begala’s pointless drivel is guilt by association -- indicting the average red-state (conservative) voter as a violent bigot and militia nut-case.
Apparently, there is no racism, anti-Catholicism or senseless violence in blue states. In true-blue Illinois (with a governor and two U.S. Senators from Begala’s party) the average sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ --which Obama attended for 20 years -- oozes hatred for whitey and America.
Chicago is also the home of the Nation of Islam, an organization not noted for preaching brotherhood and tolerance. Hollywood -- the citadel of anti-Catholicism – is located in a blue state.
Blue states generally have higher rates of violent crime (including murder), divorce and addiction – and lower rates of charitable giving and church-attendance– than their red-state counterparts.
Liberals are masters of the fine art of the political smear. They don’t want a debate. They can’t debate. Their idea of a dialogue is invectives strung together with ad hominems, with a few jeers and catcalls thrown in for good measure.
Get beyond the hatred and the venom? For the left, that’s all there is. Since reality contradicts their worldview –- because they are incapable of using logic or making rational arguments – hatred and venom are all they have.
Demonizing the opposition has been SOP for the left -- from the French Revolution, to Leninism and Stalinism, to the nihilism of the ‘60s New Left, to the anti-Americanism and reverse racism that dominate our college campuses today, to the defamation of Christianity and Middle America emanating from Hollywood, academia, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party.
McClellan is an intellectual fraud and a poseur. His call to eschew “hatred and venom” and “find out how we can come together” is an invitation to suicide on the right – imbibing slow poison just to show how nice we are.
Well put.
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong,”
Maybe in the world of a fictional book but not in real life. That statement is nowhere near true.
Really? Then the Obamanites will give you some interesting choices when they get the upper hand.
Some of the nicest and most interesting people around are Torah-observant Jews. I’d be happy to have Don Feder (or Michael Medved) over ... they could bring supper, and we’d use paper plates!
Yes they are loathsome. If love your country then despising liberals is not a sin. It is an obligation. I don't want to work with them. I want to defeat them utterly and forever. I want them to all dry up and blow away.
Great article !
bookmark bump
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Yep, what you said.
Essentially, “moderation” is cowardice.
LOL! Hopefully you're not the deepest thinker in your family.
No, not going to vote Obama. McCain. Not the best we could have run (Thompson would have been my choice).
But you go ahead and continue to think I'm a liar. It matters little to me. I'm sure that bitterness keeps you nice and warm, somehow.
Nah, I’m the nicest guy in the world - - just ask me!
I just loathe collaborators.
Like you.
You're correct - it does work, because it is *easy* to get caught up in an emotional argument. How much BS legislation has been passed due to "it's not fair!" being the clarion call from the lips of politicians.
What I want is a level-headed conservative to stand up and say look, these things I believe in are proven to work. Less taxes = more jobs and more revenue. Abortion = bad because of the taking of life plus it kills our future workforce causing us to import labor and all of the problems that brings. And so on.
What causes people to tune you out (not you specifically but the royal you) is when you say dumb stuff like "We conservatives should hate liberals and centrists - on principle and policy grounds" and other ridiculous crap like that. You really want Bill O'Reilly being associated with conservatism? Guys like that are ***holes, no matter what their politics. Just like Franken, Rhodes, and all fools on the left.
To get conservatism back on track you need to pull the moderates over and make them understand that conservatism does not equal cronyism, or corruption, or hypocritical beliefs as contrasted with a politicians personal life. We want reasonable. Not vitriolic. Would you give car keys to a teenager who went around screaming "I'm gonna kill that sonuvabitch for touching my girlfriend!". No, you'd get him to calm down, think about it, and then beat the crap out of the other kid at a later date.
Face it, the GOP blew it in the last ten years. They completely wandered off the reservation. That is why conservatives are losing ground. Its the people in our own party.
My mistake. I didn't realize he was Jewish.
You have to admit, however, that rallying one group of people to hate another group of people is pretty far away from the 'love one another' tenet of Christianity.
You can stand your ground and fight for your beliefs without "hating" a group of people. Too bad with that view I seem to be in the minority, at least on this thread.
Essay of the WEEK! I could not agree more! More venom. And I’m particularly hatin’ on weasels. The original GOP weasel: John Dean! Weasel of the century.
Excellent find! Thanks.
The left’s definition of bipartisanship is you agree with them.
“liberals are loathsome and deserve to be despised.”
an understatement.
worse than vile, venomous snakes.
they have done such damage in the last fourty years, and more, that a million volumes can never recount the pain they’ve caused.
their ilk, in the last century, are responsible for millions upon millions of murders. now, that worse than loathsome spirit is spouting its hideous rhetoric in government and seeking to make us acquainted with slavery at an ever-increasing pace.
(high time to vote all the sons-of-bi&^%es out of office)
IMHO
I couldn't agree more - it is the people within our party.
I think its more than a coincidence that the demise of the conservatives happened in tandem with the 'kinder gentler, new tone' GOP.
Its one thing to wish the right wing of your party away because you disagree with them.
Its another to blame them for their own marginalization.
Its the 'centrists' who have disenfranchized conservatives (the passionate core of the GOP), ergo its the centrists who are cause of the GOP current problems.
Well, I’m not saying that one should espouse hate in its most visceral form. But I look back to the absolutely savage politics of personal destruction practiced back during the Federalist vs. Democratic-Republican era and I think when so much is at stake, you will never eliminate vitriol and ‘hate’ in politics.
I think the writer is making the point that we should stop trying to placate or compromise with these people unless it’s TRULY going to make headway in those issues you and I care about.
Basically, there IS a right and wrong here and it’s not only a theoretical argument it’s proven over and over in the laboratory of trial and history. The Left (as opposed to a left-of-center moderate system that might be imagined) is the enemy of freedom of thought. It seems, actually, the only freedom they actually care about is “reproductive” freedom. I’ve even seen many of them that don’t want to legalize drugs. They aren’t even a ‘sovereign over your body’ faction, for the most part.
And their policies have not only failed but contributed to new crises, real and exaggerated, which they then propose to solve with new bad ideas. And it would be one thing if they were patriotic but simply ill-informed or misguided. Many of them are viciously anti-American and seem to care not a whit for our security, let alone freedom.
So, I don’t think one should go spewing “NO!No!NO! God Damn the Left!” to every liberal you meet, but certainly they have earned that type of opprobium, frankly.
Not true. Highest rates of divorce are in the south, and the states with the highest murder rates are also located in that region. Lowest divorce rates in the country are in the Dakotas (red states), followed by Minnesota (blue).
More and more, as time wears on, I see Don Feder as one of the few remaining strong voices for moral sanity in our culture. God sustain him and raise up hundreds more like him.
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