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.”
he was also touting up Romney in 2008.
How many moons are there on your planet - 5 or 6?
I bet this is why- http://www.dailypaul.com/170185/jason-chaffetz-and-mike-lee-pick-religious-affiliation-over-principle
They are trying to put a stop to the Romney camp. Hatch’s primary challenger is a Mittwitt.
Afraid of direct feedback on these webhit-friendly pieces?
Let’s be fair-Hatch has done an amazing job of getting conservatives on the bench in good times and bad.
Ah, another baiter just like the libs.
Old Orrin is a flipper and he calls it compromise....
No confidence in anything Hatch says...just another smooth-hair politician...
Yep, this proves that Sarah is a globalist RINO bilderberger patsy/s
I suggest you listen to Mark Levin's endorsement of Hatch where he extolls Hatch's "in the trenches" efforts on moving forth conservative judicial appointments. If you think the courts don't matter or some freshman senator can guide a nominee through the minefield, well, I've got some swamp land to sell you.
I don’t know if they know how many but they are all full tonight
Personally I don’t like Malkin or the Erickson from Redstate.
They remind me of the Kos dictator type - always pissed about someone not being 100% pure... demanding we toe this line, call this Senator, etc.
I can think for myself. Thank you.
Is Hatch not a Mitt supporter?
that’s surprising that Greta bought into that nonsense but I still think she’s now days more of a conservative than Hannity - definitely more than O’Reilly hands down.
Hatch = RINO,
Is it just me or has Lindsey Graham suddenly been -acting- more conservative lately? During that debt ceiling showdown we lost, Lindsey was coming out with tough rhetoric. It was strange because I don’t think he faces election anytime soon.
I’m not buying it but it was peculiar.
We are all Bildaburgers now!!!!!
Sometimes we need a tradeoff from ideology to statesman. A lot of people dont like it, and will think it is selling out, but to accomplish anything in Congress, you need a few like Hatch.
As an aside, I really like Chaffetz and hope he runs for some House Leadership position.
His opponent already made a statement in support of Mitt for the Presidency. Maybe Palin is working with Hatch and others to establish a coalition of endorsements when she enters. I don’t know, just speculating.
I was just wondering, because if they both supported Mitt, then there wouldnt really be any stopping the Mitt train in Utah politics.
“Scott Brown for President!!”
“Donald Trump for President!”
“Chris Christie for President!”
Hey I live in Utah, and have had my issues with Hatch, but this endorsement (kind of) at the prompting of Gretta does not disqualify her in my eyes!
Sarah Palin for President! ;-)
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.