Why Do Conservatives So Quickly Abandon Their Own?

Cathryn Crawford

[Cathryn Crawford]

Isn't it true that a lot of the bashing of Bill Bennett is simply due to the fact that conservatives naturally rejoice in the misfortunes of their own? The ability of the conservative movement to abandon their own people when they are even slightly attacked by the liberal/media establishment is absolutely astounding.

Why are conservatives so quick to judge their own? Are we afraid? Are we so afraid of being tainted by a scandal that we will so easily turn away at the first sight of blood?

This is a serious and long-term issue among conservatives that deserves to be adressed.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Now I'm going to have to take the time to read through the posts. Till you told me, Todd, I never knew it was even posted here. Interesting...thanks.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I love you. Thank you. So sick of all the labels.

[Graewoulf]

There you go again, equating honest disagreement with extreme words such as "bashing" and "slaughter." Very misleading, even for one in "the media."

[Cathryn Crawford]

I've been killing myself trying to figure out how everyone seemed to know what I did (writing) when I joined FR. Now I know.

[Cold Heat]

The fact that Bennett is a high roller is well known, especially since reporting in 1996.

This has surfaced and is circulating as stories like it did about 18 months prior to the 2000 elections against others who are conservatives. The democrats use the the tactic, developed by Stalin to demonize their opponents and take away public support.

Bennett's story was out there and was the easiest. He is the first of many to recieve the treatment. They do it because they can.

Gambling is not a unaceptable vice unless it affects the family. There is no there here. Unfortunately the democrats also know that we will help them demonize our own people so they are using this fact to great success.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I use appropriate words, no matter how harsh they may sound. I'm not here to be nice, sorry, you've got the wrong girl.

[TLBSHOW]

I have never been the same here since The Trent Lott back stabbing by Bush....

Speaking of eating their own. LOL

Why Do Conservatives So Quickly Abandon Their Own?

BUMP

[Cathryn Crawford]

Sorry about that. I caught flak, too, from my readers, but I don't care. I don't make an effort to be a pansy so people will read what I write.

[Graewoulf]

My error, I understood you to mean that you wanted a serious discussion of your question. It is always nice to be accurate.

[Cathryn Crawford]

So true. You just can't stay away, can you?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

"Bashing" is one of them liberal words. Conservatives don't bash, they criticize.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I do want a serious discussion, but I'm not here to bandy around PC terms. Bashing is what it is. Let's just call it that, okay?

[Cathryn Crawford]

Right...

[Cold Heat]

It is the "just one more syndrome". G'nite!

[Cathryn Crawford]

I've got it, too.

[Swordmaker]

Liberals may defend their guy no matter what, but conservatives swing to the other end of the cycle and automatically abandon their guy.

Cathryn, the cases of Bill Bennett and Trent Lott are not truly similar.

Trent Lott had pretty much burned his credibility with true conservatives through years of unnecessary compromise with the opposition. When the wolves of Political Correctness started circling over his remarks at the birthday party, his supply of "good will" from those who once would have backed him was severely depleted. Years of frustration engendered by Lott's kowtowing to the Clinton administration, his sabotage of the impeachment process, the bargaining away of conservative issues and passage of liberal programs, and finally, the unnecessary "power sharing" of the Senate with the opposition and his inability to keep control of Jeffords left him bereft of support when he badly needed it. Lott was not at risk of losing his seat... and the leadship of the Senate Republicans would remain in the hands of a Republican; leaving him twisting in the wind, even when he did not deserve it for the remarks, was understandable given the rest of his actions/inactions.

Bill Bennett has unfortunately played into the hands (hmmmm, interesting way to put it) of those who promote moral relativism. His gambling (whether a problem for him or not) has damaged his, and by association the Republican party's, credibility. Officials in the party and Republican politicians had given him their imprimatur of moral superiority and rectitude by the positions they had given him and by their citation of his works and words; their judgement, rightly or wrongly, is now called into question and WILL be criticized by those pushing relativism. The correctness and value of those ideas and philosophies he espoused in his books are now "damaged goods," open to ad hominem attacks on the messenger. The level of discourse about those ideas has been and will be lowered.

Already we see those on this forum positioning various vices as either equivalent or not-equivalent to gambling. This is just a microcosm of the firestorm of criticism we will see from the Left, as they gleefully jockey to position their favorite vices, criticized by Bennett in his speeches and books, as equivalent or "not as bad" as gambling.

Bill provided a rational, well presented indictment of the dangers of moral relativism and unlimited license and did so from a position that appeared to his readers as the moral "high ground." The criticism he is not receiving from the conservatives most likely has its roots in disappointment in his lost appearance of rectitude and a feeling of betrayal of their expectation that he truly deserved to stand on that "high ground."

[Graewoulf]

If I am in disagreement with someone, I consider that to be normal, as few of us think alike. Are we communicating?

[TLBSHOW]

I caught flak, too, from my readers, but I don't care. I don't make an effort to be a pansy so people will read what I write.
....

I am with you there. I don't follow the blind people as I call them. Those that have totally abandoned their principals for George Bush when if Clinton did half the the things Bush does would be screaming bloody murder. But instead they will bash anyone that tells the truth about The President. Sad really but goes right back to

Why Do Conservatives So Quickly bash those that don't tow the Bush/Clinton agenda.

[TLBSHOW]

ping

[Humidston]

*applause*