Who knows maybe he’s more comfortable with Holder, Obmaa, ACORN, and the ACLU. If he is, he needs to move on over to them.
The Democrats were forced to move a little to the center in the 80's because the were perceived as too liberal, while the Republicans had built a successful center-right coalition.
Now, the Republicans occupy a space a little further to the left than before, while the Democrats have gone hard-left. So, Bartlett's helpful suggestion is for the GOP to move a little more to the left?
I call BS on two counts. One, because his analysis fails to properly identify the current political center of gravity in America, which is still center-right, and two, because I believe his real objection is to the war on terror and the influence of Israel on our foreign policy. He has written a scathing book about the "neo-cons" that all but screams: "It was the Joooos!!!!". Just my opinion.
“The party’s adults formed the Democratic Leadership Council to push the party back to the center and it was very successful. “
The center of what, Stalingrad?
When I first started reading the article, I figured it was about how he hated the GOP because it had become too liberal and militaristic. Instead, it’s because the GOP is too conservative? Isn’t that a bit like grabbing some raw ground chuck and complaining that it’s overcooked?
We went to the middle of the road with McCain, remember - and look what that got us. What would have WON the election would have been a candidate who did exactly what Reagan did in 1980 and 1984 - espouse Conservative values and the greatness of American ideals. McCain did none of that. Why? Because he wanted to present himself as a ‘middle-of-the-road’ candidate, that's why.
This idiot calling himself a Reaganite is an embarrassment.
Has this man ever been part of a winning campaign? It is difficult to believe that he did anything other than work for someone already in office. Yet his piece seems to be all about him, as if by catering to him a candidate could win an election. I wonder if he could come up with some example of how calling Glenn Beck a nut has won an elction for someone?
When someone is this disconnected from reality there is no talking to them.
Bashes “birthers” when they should be called “truthers”.
He's mad because Americans want the POTUS to abide by the Constitution and not what his puppets, the MSM says.
All-in-all I can state that this guy still doesn't get it.
Mr. Bartlett is incorrect. He is a Republican. A 21st Century RINO!! I have not been Republican since President Reagan. I greatly miss that Great American.
I have no use for this turd. Flush.
He bitches about how the GOP no longer reflects Reagan's values and then says this?
I agree that Republicans are worthless but i will be happy if they gain enough to cause gridlock, but not be in charge. That way dems get the blame, and Rs can continue to be worthless.
To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals.
The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity Fair magazine. The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize. For example, he personally asked me at event preceding the White House Correspondents Dinner if I would talk to him about Governor Palin. I agreed. He didn’t call. He didn’t email. He never once tried to get my take. I also know he never contacted campaign manager Rick Davis, or John McCain.
I have known many political leaders over four decades including all Republican presidents and VPs. I have come to know Sarah Palin over the past year and can state unequivocally that she is smart, curious, hard working, charming, and effective. She also has something her detractors clearly lack – a sense of honor and loyalty.
I know this is petty, but it reminds me of the 2004 presidential election where it was commonplace and accepted in much of the mainstream media to call President Bush stupid and Senator Kerry smart and insightful. At the end of the day, when Senator Kerry finally released his college transcripts, wouldn’t you know: he did quite a bit worse than President Bush.
I have seen Sarah up close with leading heavyweights, and have seen her hold her own and then some. At the dinner at my home referenced in the article, she engaged comfortably and deeply with people ranging from Alan Greenspan to Madeleine Albright to Mitch McConnell. She asked for a foreign policy discussion on her June 7 trip to Washington, and I saw her engage in an informed and spirited manner with Frank Carlucci.
Governor Palin has many admirers and defenders out there who will not allow her to be branded by jealous rivals with their own agenda and the elitists in the national media. I am not sure who the unnamed Vanity Fair sources are, but without question they lack chivalry and have acted in a craven manner. They also lack the facts. I am ashamed of my former campaign colleagues, whoever they are.
If Barack Obama has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each-- especially by the media and the intelligentsia -- go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.
That liberals would be thrilled by another liberal is not surprising. But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama, and other conservatives who may not have voted for him, but who are quick to see in various pragmatic moves of his since taking office an indication that he is not an extremist.
Anyone familiar with history knows that Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic. After years of denouncing each other, they signed the Nazi-Soviet pact under which they became allies for a couple of years before going to war against one another.
Pragmatism tells you nothing about extremism. But the conservative intellectuals who seize upon President Obama's pragmatism to give him the benefit of the doubt are obviously bending over backward for some reason.
With Governor Palin, it is just the opposite. The conservative intelligentsia who react against her have remarkably little to say that will stand up to scrutiny. People who actually dealt with her, before she became a national figure, have expressed how much they were impressed by her intelligence.
Governor Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Sarah Palin has. Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.
Governor Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grass roots Republicans in a way that John McCain never did. But there was something about her that turned even some conservative intellectuals against her and provoked visceral anger and hatred from liberal intellectuals.
Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers, who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of us."
The trim, erect and impeccably dressed Alger Hiss, with his Ivy League and New Deal pedigree, clearly was "one of us." As it turned out, he was also a liar and a spy for the Soviet Union. Not only did a jury decide that at the time, the opening of the secret files of the Soviet Union in its last days added more evidence of his guilt.
The Hiss-Chambers confrontation of more than half a century ago produced the same kind of visceral polarization that Governor Sarah Palin provokes today.
Before the first trial of Alger Hiss began, reporters who gathered at the courthouse informally sounded each other out as to which of them they believed, before any evidence had been presented. Most believed that Hiss was telling the truth and that it was Chambers who was lying.
More important, those reporters who believed that Chambers was telling the truth were immediately ostracized. None of this could have been based on the evidence for either side, for that evidence had not yet been presented in court.
For decades after Hiss was convicted and sent to federal prison, much of the media and the intelligentsia defended him. To this day, there is an Alger Hiss chair at Bard College.
Why did it matter so much to so many people which of two previously little-known men was telling the truth? Because what was on trial was not one man but a whole vision of the world and a way of life.
Governor Sarah Palin is both a challenge and an affront to that vision and that way of life-- an overdue challenge, much as Chambers' challenge was overdue.
Whether Governor Palin runs for national office again is something that only time will tell. But the Republicans need some candidate who is neither one of the country club Republicans nor-- worse yet-- the sort of person who appeals to the intelligentsia.