Posted on 03/23/2010 3:52:31 AM PDT by ICAB9USA
Looking at the state of both parties after President Obamas health bill win in the House, ABCs Terry Moran elevated the view of prominent conservative David Frum, author a year ago of Newsweeks Why Rush is Wrong cover story, who blamed Rush Limbaugh and Fox News for what hes dubbed the GOPs Waterloo. On Nightline, Moran contended anger, stoking it, expressing it, riding it...was the Republican strategy to defeat health care. And over the weekend all that anger got ugly, as some Democratic Members of Congress were called vial, racial and anti-gay slurs.
But, he warned, in the wake of the Democrats victory, some Republicans are not sure all that anger makes good politics, as if Limbaugh and other conservative leaders advocated yelling the slurs. Moran relayed how Frum says the real leadership of the Republican Party during the course of the health care battle was not to be found in the halls of Congress, but on the air waves since it was talk radio and Fox News, Frum argues, that drove the GOP strategy. Moran paraphrased Frums take:
It sounds like you're saying that the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, hijacked the Republican Party and drove it to a defeat?
Frum rued: Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox. The balance here has been completely reversed and the thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican Party. On his FrumForum blog on Sunday, in a post titled Waterloo, Frum charged: We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
An excerpt from his tirade against talk radio and Limbaugh for making it impossible for Republicans to make a deal with Democrats, as if thats a bad thing, as Frum claimed Limbaugh really wants Republicans to fail so he has more listeners and can sell more ads: ....There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or more exactly with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
Ive been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination.
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 Rushs listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So todays 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, its mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, its Waterloo all right: ours.
Rush said that the meeting on healthcare with Obama was a mistake, but the Republicans did it anyway.
Frum needs to give a single example of an elected Republican citing Limbaugh as a factor in his voting, or he is just writing crap for the weak minded.
LLS
Not even the dims believed the slur crap.. and dims NEVER TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ANYTHING... EVER!
LLS
Perhaps we will want to make 11/2 a national holiday like 7/4. Would that piss off the libs! lol
So Frum got up off of his knees from in front of Mitt Romney long enough to spew more RINO lickspittle for the mainstream media to slobber up? I imagine Romney must be feeling a breeze about now.
'The Great One' is one of my favorite people in the world. We go back a long way ...... to the days of N. Sanders Sauls and the rebuff of Gore's bid for hand recounts of ballots in 2000.
the one to blame are those REPUBLICANS who VOTED FOR OBAMA because they thought he was a moderate
LLS
Amen... I despises the bassturds.
LLS
It has it's weaknesses but I used to think the two party system generally worked, but now it'd be folly for Americans to ever elect a democrat again. I'm not comfortable with the republicans having all the power either, but the democrats have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can never again be trusted with a political position above dog catcher.
The guy (Frum) is a political dinosaur. He would be better off to just disappear!
People like him just serve to preserve the status quo. Look what politicians like him have done to this country over the past decades.
Frum ...... GET LOST!
Just because the government is doing something illegal to the health care system is no reason to get your pantys in a wad? Is that what Mr.Frum is trying to say?
frum is a useful idiot
...... steaming pile
LLS
LOL
Frum is an out of touch beltway fool.
___
excellent
Well David. It's way past time for some NEW THINKING on your part. Grow up, get wise ...... or GET LOST!
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