Posted on 05/09/2010 12:31:19 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Bennett’s Loss in Utah a ‘Damn Outrage,’ ‘Non-Violent Coup,’ Part of Larger Intolerant GOP Narrative By Brent Baker Created 05/09/2010 - 14:41
“This is a damn outrage,” a disgusted David Brooks, the faux conservative columnist for the New York Times, declared on Sunday’s Meet the Press reacting to Republican Senator Bob Bennett’s loss Saturday at Utah’s Republican convention which chose two others to compete in a June primary for the seat. Brooks fretted he was punished for being “a good conservative who was trying to get things done” by “bravely” working with Democrats on health care and supporting TARP. “Now,” he repeated, “he's losing his career over that. And it's just a damn outrage.”
Sitting beside Brooks on NBC’s roundtable, liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr,. a former New York Times correspondent, saw “almost a non-violent coup because they denied the sitting Senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot.”
Over on Fox News Sunday, NPR’s Juan Williams expressed exasperation: “This is evidence of how the American political center is losing, on the right wing of the party a guy like Bob Bennett, who is a right-wing conservative, is being driven out because he’s not sufficiently conservative?”
ABC’s Jake Tapper brought Rudy Giuliani aboard This Week to address the handling of the Times Square botched bomber, but wouldn’t let him go before bringing up Bennett’s defeat as proof of an intolerant GOP: “Are you worried at all that the Republican Party is not only growing more hostile to more liberal to moderate Republicans such as yourself, but also conservative Republicans who are shown to, at least shown an ability to work with Democrats?”
Later, during the roundtable, George Will answered the presumption Bennett was the victim of an ideological purity test:
This is an anti-Washington year. How do you get more Washington than a three-term Senator who occupies the seat once held by his father, a four-term Senator, who before that worked on the Senate staff and then as a lobbyist in Washington? He’s a wonderful man and a terrific Senator. But the fact is, he’s going against terrific head-winds this year and he cast three votes: TARP, stimulus and an individual mandate for health care. Now, you might like one, two or all three of those, but being opposed to them is not outside the mainstream of American political argument.
Brooks admired those very votes from Bennett, hailing the Wyden-Bennett health plan as “a substantive, serious bill, a bipartisan bill, with strong conservative and some liberal support. So he did something sort of brave by working with Democrats which more Senators should do and now they've been sent a message to him don’t do that.”
As if this would convince conservatives, Dionne pointed to how “you just had an election in Britain where David Cameron, the conservative, almost got a majority by saying we need to de-toxicfy, take the rough edges off conservatism, appeal to a broader constituency.” But he didn’t get a majority with that approach!
From the May 9 Meet the Press:
DAVID BROOKS: This is a damn outrage, to be honest. This is a guy who was a good Senator and he was a good Senator and a good conservative, but a good conservative who was trying to get things done. The Wyden-Bennett bill, which he co-sponsored -- if you took the health care economists in the country, they would probably be for that bill, ideally. It was a substantive, serious bill, a bipartisan bill, with strong conservative and some liberal support. So he did something sort of brave by working with Democrats which more Senators should do and now they've been sent a message to him don’t do that.
The second thing is the TARP. Nobody liked the TARP. But we were in a complete economic meltdown and sometimes you have to do terrible things. And we're in a much better economic place because of the TARP. So he bravely cast a vote that nobody wanted to really cast and now he's losing his career over that. And it's just a damn outrage.
E.J. DIONNE: I agree with David on this. And I think that something’s happening inside the Republican Party that I think in the long run won't be good for the Republican Party. You just had an election in Britain where David Cameron, the conservative, almost got a majority by saying we need to de-toxicfy, take the rough edges off conservatism, appeal to a broader constituency. And here you have a state party convention, by the way, not a primary. It's almost a non-violent coup because they denied the sitting Senator even a chance of getting on the primary ballot. And I think the party in the long run risks a backlash among voters who may not be liberal at all, but don't like this kind of politics.
And before people on the right crow too much about this, it is a party convention in Utah. I would imagine the left would win a party convention on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. So let's not, sort of, make this into a bigger thing than it is. But it is a big deal to dump somebody like Bob Bennett.
From Fox News Sunday:
JUAN WILLIAMS: This is evidence of how the American political center is losing, on the right wing of the party a guy like Bob Bennett, who is a right-wing conservative, is being driven out because he’s not sufficiently conservative?...If I lived in Utah, I’m going to give up Bob Bennett and his seniority and connections?
BILL KRISTOL: Why do you need the seniority? To bring the pork home?
WILLIAMS: To bring the pork home?
KRISTOL: That’s worked well over the last several years.
WILLIAMS: Oh, so you’d sit here and say, “oh TARP was terrible, bailouts were terrible,” even though we saved ourselves from depression? That’s rational? That’s good, inspired caring about America?
I’m posting this before reading other posts and understand somebody probably has already pointed this out but..... These people are “outraged” that representative democracy has worked. They’re outraged that their one party system is being broken up. Amazing, the naked tyranny.
If it pisses Brooks off there’s a solid chance it’s a very good thing, whatever it is.
Libs like these get VERY unhappy when a RINO is thrown out of congress. Nothing the left likes better than a perpetual sell-out and traitor to the American people. Juan McCain is a classic example.
Brooks and Williams and other beltway snobs don't realize that the days of Republicans merrily working with Democrats and trying to make liberal legislation somehow better are over. Especially after watching Republicans get shut out of the debate on every issue since Zero took over.
Most of that money has not been spent and is being used for thisandthat Obama/Geitner-targeted disbursements aimed at feathering their political and financial nests.....no, don't even tell me you believe this.... If you do, you should rent the movie "Tooth Fairy".....
I know, I know. Thanks.
Yep.
They’re taking out the ossified ashes in Utah and Maine...
Which is much closer than we think.
Wait until the Obama regime and their muzzie cronies in the mid East squeeze Israel too far. BOOM!!
Not to mention shepherded by a Treasury Secretary who was a former chairman, CEO of yep, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs.
If TARP was so profitable, let's do more of it!
If you can call those against TARP "knuckledragging finance haters", doesn't that make TARP backers such as yourself "kneepad wearing Wall Street fellaters"?
Take a real look at what's been going on in the finance world over the past several years, and you'll see inside dealing, fraudulent loans, and crony capitalism the likes this country has never seen. Wall Street, WaMU, AmTrust, Broadway, AIG, and there's much, much more to come with over 600 banks on the FDIC's troubled bank list.
And the worst part of it is that the first round of commercial real estate loan resets has only just begun.
I have to agree. Other than TARP, Coburn as been the best senator around. But voting for TARP shows a “Government can fix any problem” mentality that has to be punished.
Some people think the Utah convention that dumped Bennett is a warning to Hatch. It is not. They are just informing Hatch that he is next.
We have the same thing going on here in KY; Rand Paul is ahead of the establishment-Mitch McConnell ‘Pub party that is supporting Trey Grayson. Grayson is a former Clinton ‘Rat who converted to ‘Pub for career opportunity. Here, as in most of the country, we are no longer in to electing career politicians.
Well said, FRiend.
You’re damn right I don’t want to be in your communist party. You and your Mao-loving crony-capitalist ways can go piss up a rope. I used to think you were a Kool-Aid drinker. Now I know you’re just a moron.
All the while keeping toxic assets on the books and playing a shell game with market to myth. In a nut shell, All the big banks are insolvent and should be closed. With the federal money spent, we could have capitalized 10 new banks and gone with an IPO and been better off. All we have done is kick the can further down the road.
You can tell you’re on the right track by the people you piss off.
Rebellion is brewing!!
Vote the RAT BASTARDS OUT!!
__
Right on.
Exactly! Brooks thinks that it’s an outrage to remove someone from his Senate seat just because the chair now is grooved to fit his butt perfectly?? How is he using the word “outrage?” Look at Senator Lieberman; he wasn’t liberal enough for his Democratic constituents. Where was Brooks’s outrage then?
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