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Posted on 04/30/2012 3:42:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist slammed for radicalizing Washington
Washington is more dysfunctional than it has been in 40 years, and while Democrats have deserved their share of the blame over the years, today "the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party," write Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein in the Washington Post. What makes their column particularly interesting is that Ornstein is not liberal, but a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Together, they call the GOP an "insurgent outlier in American politics" because of the party's extremism, antagonism to facts and science, hatred of compromise, and complete opposition to the Democrats' legitimacy.
The biggest two culprits of the Republicans' radicalization over the past 30 years, according to Mann and Ornstein, are Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist—Gingrich for deliberately making the Capitol dysfunctional in order to stoke and use anti-Washington rage around the country, and Norquist for creating an anti-tax pledge that makes compromise impossible. In response to the GOP's nuttiness, Mann and Orstein call on journalists to stop trying to present "both sides" on the issues, and instead concentrate on "truth," focus on who is "taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends," and to stop treating filibusters like they are routine. Ultimately, though, if democracy "is to regain its health and vitality, the culture and ideological center of the Republican Party must change," they write. And the only way that will happen is if voters start "punishing extremism."
A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.
http://www.mofopolitics.com/2008/11/05/ronald-reagan-1975-cpac-speech/
They have to convince people that Newt is an extremist in order to keep Mitt from looking like a liberal that has been pandering and slobbering all over the mushy middle - while giving the base the finger.
Mitt is no mystery. He'll be whatever the K-Street to Wall Street crowd tell him to be.
Can’t keep on the topic, can you?
Gingrich endorses Romney to stop Obama. He has said, straight up, Obama second term = a destroyed America.
You can argue that on principle none of the many who have endorsed Romney should have, but you can’t successfully argue that Newt Gingrich has no point about Obama and this nation’s immediate survival.
IF you try, what does that make YOU...blind to reality, a secret Obama shill...who knows?
Norquist’s role vis a vis radical Islam is a whole other topic.
Nothing to do with this thread, nothing to do with the point, thread aside.
I defend his no tax increase pledge.
It’s a good thing we have it, as the GOP would be so much worse than it is, without it.
Reaching across and compromising with your enemy apparently is the preferred method. Maybe to the GOP-e, those sitting across the aisle, don’t hold such different views.
To find votes, they’re going to sell it that Mitt and McConnell and Boehner will be ready, willing and able to “work for the American people” by working with the opposition.
Ornstein is a huge Ron Paul supporter—and a crank (that may be redundant).
Ornstein helped draft key parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.[2]
Ornstein is a long-time friend of current U. S. Senator and former comedian Al Franken. Ornstein considers himself a centrist.[3]
(Wikipedia)
This is a conservative by the measure of Newser. Ornstein has always been a Rockefeller type “Conservative. He considers himself a Centrist LIBERAL.
NOT ALL THE FISH IN THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE TANK are Conservative or even close by FR standards.
Paul Ryan has a better grip on reality than that. Hopefully that grip will help the rest of them see the light at least in terms of the train wreck that’s coming if they don’t change to be MORE conservative, not less.
He can lay it out in the starkest of terms.
We have a very small window of opportunity to start fixing it, but that will soon close, and then it appears to be hopeless for this nation.
Maryland is a perfect example of a one party state. So is most of New England.
Having moved the center to the left, the radicals are accusing the conservatives of extremism for trying to keep it from moving further left, let alone getting it back to the right.
lol
Clearing the path for the RINO Romney.
I hope you’re right. The GOP seems to use conservative members and the base when it suits them but only until they get what they want.
Our elite political class these days is so far removed from reality that they couldn’t find it with the Hubble Telescope.
....His influence peddling (going back to George Bush) and enabling has had a detrimental affect and allowed the Muslim Brotherdhood to gain a foothoold in the Conservative Movement and reaches to the highest levels of Gov't to include the White House, DHS, DOJ and Dept of Defense....
....Making this bottom-feeding, snake and charlatan one of the most despicable (AND DANGEROUS) scumbags in the US at the present time....
....And its about time that "we" Freepers do something about it/him.
SEE: http://muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com/ and pay particular attention of parts III and IV.
You are correct.
Neither of the individuals named, nor their organizations, are "Conservative".
Just more 5th Column media lies.
The thing about Ryan...you can hardly accuse him of being Newt Gingrich, can you?
Chairman of the House Budget Committee, and someone who knows so much, he’s forgotten more than what most people in DC ever knew.
I realize he endorsed Mitt, but what’s a young, up-and-comer to do? sarc/
The thorn in all their sides is REALITY, not Newt Gingrich or Norquist. And Ryan is about the best I’ve ever seen on that.
It’s reality that we have a spending problem, an out of control big government problem.
Taxes aren’t too low.
And even if you started literally confiscating what people have, you would barely dent the deficit much less the debt. Taxing our way out, even if politically feasible, is a dead ender.
Obama gets away with far too much, about that.
Wouldn’t hurt a thing to go after the would-be despot on it, 24/7.
This just in.
From Forbes:
Obama’s Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives (Read this executive order)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2878081/posts
How do you compromise with this, you knuckleheads who are attacking Newt and Grover????????????????????
KNUCLEHEADS?
Why don't you get your head out of the sand (or some other unmentionable bodily orifice) and do a little due diligence on Norquist, then come back and attack/challenge us who want to "out" this scumbag...as in "out" him as a TRAITOR and "out" him from any position of influence within the Conservative Movement and if possible, the Republican Party altogether.
SEE MY POST #35
:: Obama’s Plan To Seize Control Of Our Economy And Our Lives ::
I’ll go on record at this time and predict: If Obama is re-elected, your 401K monies - as they sit - will be taxed and all further contributions to the 401K will be after tax from your paycheck.
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