Posted on 08/19/2011 5:24:40 PM PDT by Mozilla
I just read a very bizarre blog post about entrenched incumbent Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch by Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren and then watched an equally distressing interview van Susteren conducted last night with Sarah Palin regarding Hatch.
First, the title of van Susteren’s blog post: “Is someone trying to manipulate the UTAH Tea Party vote unfairly away from Senator Orrin Hatch?”
Van Susteren absurdly suggests that dark, sinister, unnamed, and uninformed forces in Utah with outside backing are somehow trying to take away Hatch’s seat through nefarious means. She’s clearly talking about D.C.-based fiscal conservative groups like FreedomWorks and Club for Growth that support possible GOP primary challenger and current Rep. Jason Chaffetz (whom I also support). But she won’t come out and just name these groups. What gives?
Moreover, she fails to explain how it’s bad for a few Beltway-based groups to “manipulate” the race by encouraging primary challengers, but it’s fine for Beltway-based van Sustern to influence readers with her ill-informed dissection of the race and her promotion of Hatch’s purported Tea Party bona fides.
Hatch’s people have lined up big national guns from outside Utah to help him hold on to his power and perks. It seems clear to me Hatch is calling in every last chit he has amassed over four decades in the Beltway. It’s the only rational explanation for the beyond-laughable promotion of Hatch as a — gag — “Tea Party visionary.”
[snip]
Utah voters themselves sent a clear, potent message that entrenched incumbency is no argument for more entrenched incumbency last May when they booted Hatch’s Senate big government Republican colleague Bob Bennett from office in the primary. Were they “manipulated,” too?
Van Susteren’s sloppy blog post (which doesn’t include a single hyperlink) provides erroneous facts about the Tea Party movement, erroneous characterizations of the core Tea Party agenda, and erroneous analysis of Hatch’s fiscal record after three decades in office. After insinuating that unprincipled motives are fueling those who oppose Hatch, she wraps up with a rather specious conclusion that based on Hatch’s creaky old support for the balanced budget amendment, she “would think that fact alone would make him the champion (the visionary?) of the Utah Tea Party.”
She ends with a question: “Am I wrong?”
Flabbergastingly so.
[snip]
Orrin Hatch is the antithesis of the Tea Party spirit. He is a mascot for big-spending Beltway entrenched incumbency who has consistently joined hands with destructive Democrats.
He slobbered over corruptocrat Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.
He co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy, with whom he also joined hands to create the ever-expanding SCHIP entitlement.
He supported tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from day one, lavished praise on Joe Biden’s balls, and embraced and defended Attorney General Eric Holder’s nomination because, he said, “I like Barack Obama and I want to help him if I can.”
He was an original sponsor of the open-borders DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout and voted for the massive TARP bailout.
And there’s much, much more from his support for Fannie/Freddie bailouts to farm subsidies and beyond.
Most importantly: How do Utah Tea Party people feel about Tea Party pretender Orrin Hatch?
The same way they feel about his former big-spending entrenched incumbent in Utah — former Sen. Bob Bennett…
[snip]
And yet on her TV show interview with Sarah Palin Thursday night, van Susteren accused Tea Party folks of factual omissions.
[snip]
She then went on to minimize opposition to Hatch as “small” and criticized Hatch’s critics as “disruptive.” Van Susteren looked perplexed and irked that Tea Party people would want to turn out an elected incumbent in the Republican Party.
Hello? From day one, the nascent Tea Party movement has always been about holding both parties accountable for their records. “Disruption” of Washington business as usual is the entire raison d’etre of the grass-roots revolts and out-of-control taxing and spending. Token support for a balanced budget amendment means nothing if the BBA sponsor has spent nearly 40 years — as Hatch has — rubber-stamping expansion after expansion of the welfare and entitlement state, then hooking up with corruptocrat Dems like Chris Dodd and Teddy Kennedy to preserve and protect pet boondoggles.
Most devastating of all, Palin offered ZERO rebuttal of van Susteren’s nonsense and agreed that Tea Party folks should “work with” Hatch instead of “shoving him out.”
VAN SUSTEREN: You know, I see a lot of good, hard-working Americans who are in the Tea Party movement. And then, you know, from time to time, I see things like — you know, today — today, I wrote on Gretawire a blog about what’s going on within the Tea Party movement to Senator Orrin Hatch. I mean, he’s getting attacking by a small portion of the Tea Party movement for not being Tea Party-ish enough, and it’s — and it fundamentally goes around the balanced budget amendment, which is so — which is the mantra of the Tea Party movement.
But if you do a little research, Senator Orrin Hatch going back to 1979 in the U.S. Senate was pushing the Tea Party — a balanced budget amendment. Yet some of these people in the Tea Party movement won’t recognize it. They won’t look at the facts and they go after him. So it’s, like, even within the Tea Party movement, there is — you know, there’s a disregard for the facts and an effort to be sort of disruptive even within the — within the group.
PALIN: Well, and you’ll find that within any venue, within any group, Greta, especially when it involves politics. But to your particular point about Senator Orrin Hatch — he is doing good in terms of trying to get a balanced budget and he has been for the last couple of decades. And he’s pushed hard for some fiscal reforms that we have got to see implemented, otherwise, you know, crony capitalism is going to continue coming out of Washington, D.C., and we’re going to continue on the wrong path and we will be bankrupt.
So people like Orrin Hatch, who now especially — he’s rising up with quite aggressive talk about the balanced budget amendment and other things that he has seen for all these years need to be done. We need to be agreeing and embracing his idea and working with him to make sure that that happens, instead of shooing him away and shooing him out of a Tea Party movement, if you will, when he agrees with such a basic fundamental principle that we must see implemented, and that’s just simply balancing the doggone federal budget!
Is this the same Palin who just a few weeks ago boldly (and rightly) wrote: “Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.”
Hatch can be counted on to suck up to those in power the majority of the time. The trick is to be in power, wield that power and you have a solid vote. If your power wanes, Hatch wanes with it.
As the prevailing winds blow, so goes Hatch. There are far worse RINOs. This one you just have to understand and use him to your advantage. The Maine twins are the opposite. When you have power, they will go against you more often than not to show their ‘independence”.
Personally I wish they’d primary him, but if they don’t, he CAN be dealt with as mentioned above. If Palin can handle the CBC, Hatch is a walk in the park. Orin likes committees and power.
Is it possible not to play the game?
Uri'el-2012, I do not know but, Thank God, God knows. I know Perry is bought, Sarah is a mystery to me yet.
As you know I put no faith in the world system. I would love more information or even misinformation about this. The Spirit can discern the truth.
btw, Chaffetz has already endorsed Mittens for 2012 on MTP recently.
Palin is making lemonade while hobbling Mittens.
It’s a pragmatic move in order to keep energy, time & resources for more important fights.
It also lets a few key people know, that a steamroller isn’t necessarily in your future as long as you don’t break fiscal faith.
Palin is trying to co-opt the GOP establishment, a-la Shadow/New Party, instead of the establishment co-opting her.
just muh 2 cent.
tD
Why is this a problem? It’s politics, not religion. If Palin won’t speak against Hatch, maybe it’s because she’s picking her battles carefully. Maybe she is planning to run for president and expects that Hatch will be a useful endorsement. Maybe she plans to win and expects Hatch to be in the Senate ready to deliver positive or negative payback, and she’d like to insure she has an ally in him.
This is where the KAD factor shows up, people. You think she’s the sweetest thing since George Bailey’s angel. She’s a solid conservative — with charisma beaming out of every pore — isn’t that enough? Does she have to come with magical powers to change the very process of politics?
Magical she is not. If this helps her govern later, let her be.
This actually renews my hopes she’ll run. No reason to cultivate the political landscape if she isn’t planning to be POTUS.
Like good generals are good at killing, good presidents are good at politicking. Never mind that in Heaven, killing and politicking are bad behaviors. When you need a general or a president you need the best you can find.
Spot on correct.
The only posters who are really getting bent by this are those who keep a candle burning 24-7 in front of the Palin shrine in their living room.
They're all politicians, folks. Sooner or later every one of them will take a position you disagree with. It's better for your mental health to accept and deal with it, rather than trying to twist the facts in an attempt to keep your idol stainless.
INDEED.
Took me a bit to figure all this out, I back Sarah, Hatch and Greta, not Malkin
The ‘BEST’ person for the job won’t win, that’s why we need to compromise and settle for a lesser qualified candidate who can actually beat obama.
I’d love to see Sarah win the general but too many hate her with a passion, they’d come out in droves just to vote against her.
It would take an act of God for her to win.
The ‘BEST’ person for the job won’t win, that’s why we need to compromise and settle for a lesser qualified candidate who can actually beat obama.
I’d love to see Sarah win the general but too many hate her with a passion, they’d come out in droves just to vote against her.
It would take an Act of God for her to win.
It was because of Palin I was actually ‘EXCITED’ to vote GOP last election.
Yeah, there are ways.
If true, Is the American system and culture responsible for this in any way?
“We are all Bildaburgers now!!!!!”
Just a subset of the Illuminati. Remember their objectives are to trim out the lesser quality individuals through disease, starvation, disasters, etc.
Masons, CFR, Trilateral, Rothschilds, Rockefellers are all subsets of the Illuminati. Get in the Illuminati and you’re in high cotton.
Chafettz has endorsed Romney and worked for Huntsman.
Would that make him more conservative than Hatch who is a RINO in my book??????
I think Greta throws a lot of baited questions at Sarah Palin nowadays.
What would those ways be be? Remember we are talking about Satan's kingdom AKA the world. I do not know but, Thank God, God knows
Its a good thing I got my membership card in the mail last week, then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.