Friday Happy Hour Roundup: Romney Disses Rush?
* President Obama’s approval rating jumps back up to 67%. Key point: The poll was taken after his address to Congress on Tuesday night.
* TPM reports on the bedlam that broke out today in the court fight between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. It’s pretty crazy.
* In light of the implosion of the “$200,000 for tattoo removal” talking point, Steve Benen reminds us what conservative writer David Frum had to say about the right’s obsession with small-bore expenditures like these: “Could we possibly act more inadequate to the challenge? More futile? More brain dead?”
* There is more corruption in government right now than at any other point in American history. That’s according to Chuck Colson.
* Spencer Ackerman says that the key to understanding Obama’s Iraq withdrawal speech is that he put to rest any questions about whether he’s committed to the Status of Forces Agreement’s withdrawal mandate. Ackerman boils it down: “No more war.”
* Sam Stein reports that Newt Gingrich is really, really, really afraid of the Employee Free Choice Act. Gingrich views it as a “mortal threat to American freedom.”
* And unless I’m missing something, Mitt Romney threw a brush-back pitch at Rush Limbaugh during his speech at CPAC. Romney said:
“In the last eight years, we saw how a president’s political adversaries could be consumed by anger, and even hatred. That is not the spirit that brings us together. We want our country to succeed, no matter who’s in power…in good times and bad, the interests of this great nation come first.”
Hard to see that as anything but a reference to Rush’s infamous claim that he wants Obama to fail. Pretty gutsy on Romney’s part.
* And a quick housekeeping note: For the near term, I won’t be posting on weekends. Fun week, all. Back first thing Monday.
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What if a mouse has a tattoo?
“what if a mouse has a tattoo?”
Democrats will spend your tax dollars removing its tattoo and sheltering and feeding it for the rest if its life, of course.
“There is more corruption in government right now than at any other point in American history.”
Exactly why I support candidates like Al Franken, Fran Drescher, and even Stormy Daniels. The less professional politicians (professional criminals) the better. They certainly couldn’t do any worse.
Newt: EFCA is a “mortal threat to American freedom.” In other words it’s the best legislation ever for the rest of us.
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Greg says: Pretty gutsy on Romney’s part.
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Maybe. But is it guts that keeps him from jumping off the cliff with the rest of the lemmings? I think it’s more likely an assertion of sanity.
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Republican primary voters are a lot more moderate than their pundits. (I know, that’s not saying much.) That’s why McCain beat Romney, Giulianni, etc. to the surprise of the echo-chamber inhabitants. He was the only one who did not strike the average GOP voter as a total whack-job.
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Also, Romney’s not ideological at all. He’ll say whatever he thinks the voters want to hear. Other candidates might like to but worry that pissing off the GOP talking heads might impact their fund raising. That’s something the Mittster doesn’t have to worry about.
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jzap – I suspect you’re right that McCain won the primary at least in part because he was the most moderate. But he won his early states by small pluralities, and it cost him in the general election, at least until Palin joined him. The right wing is very unforgiving.
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But I don’t think his statement was gutsy in the least. He didn’t say he wanted Obama to succeed. He said the country. That may sound like it conflicts with Limbaugh to liberals, but not to CPACers. And saying that anger doesn’t serve us is more about style than anything else.
“what if a mouse has a tattoo?”
That was very funny, greg.
The more Newt Gingrich opines lately, the more he gives me the impression that ANYTHING that Newt Gingrich doesn’t personally endorse is a “mortal threat to American freedom”!
We’d all better run for our lives if the conservatives start re-listening to Newt’s (AND Tom Delay’s) advice. They’re trying to resurrect the 90s, but those days are gone forever. This is a new day in America – Yah-Hoo!
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Danp: Thanks for the reply.
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I think I’d say McCain won not because he was the most moderate but because he was the least nutty. The rest of the field was so over-the-top that the average GOP voter had a hard time taking any of them seriously.
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I believe McCain fared in the general much better than any of the other GOOPers would have. I would not say having won early primaries by small pluralities cost him the election. I’d say what did it was the toxicity of the Republican brand and his identification with Dubya.
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Anyway, I agree his statement wasn’t gutsy (that’s what I was trying to say) but probably not for the same reason you think so. I see your distinction between Obama succeeding and the country, but in the context of this moment, I think even CPAC’ers see it as push-back on Rush. And while I understand CPAC’ers mostly agree with Rush, I believe even they feel that wanting Obama to fail is a bit too much.
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Maybe I’m trying too hard to temper my cynicism
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jzap – I enjoy your arguments, even as we disagree around the edges. In this case I do think they want Obama to fail. It’s not that they want the economy (or the country) to fail, though. It’s the fact that his stimulus package is tied to so many liberal things.
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At the end of the stimulus debate, Republicans were veering away from the taxcut-only argument to some spending is stimulative, but let’s restrict it to bridges and dams. What they hate is the idea of the economy improving with success attributed to things like food stamps, solar or wind energy, healthcare reform, and renegotiating mortgages. Even more unacceptable is the conclusion people might draw that the depression was actually caused by tax cuts for the rich and deregulation.
Re Newtie and EFCA…
His cause for alarm is justified though it seems at least possible that some dim vestiges of western civilization will survive.
One of the iinteresting aspects of Newt’s oeuvre is its relationship to American self-help literature. If anyone is going to make a presentation with some title like “Six Simple Steps to National Prosperity”, it will be Newt.
Re Rush and his close-out speech to CPAC tonite…
What is the fellow going to say? I’m really very curious.
He has a dilemma. Clearly, this CPAC is the quite the nuttiest ever (an accomplishment of some note) and there’s going to be a demand for meat red and bloody. The recent events suggest that the “Obama – should we/do I want him to fail or not” probably can’t be left out of what he speaks to. He’ll be getting advices from the saner elements in the party to step carefully here but if he is perceived by most of those in attendance (and his radio audience) to be pulling back, that won’t enhance his popularity. Nor his own ego. Yet he’s certainly smart enough to understand the knife edge he walks here knowing that a much larger audience will be appraised of what he says. Significant portions of that much larger audience, in the present situation, will likely or even surely be offended and seriously put off by adamant and open rebellion against Obama. There’s also the additional risk of further ripping apart the party and movement. So, he’s got his work cut out for him tonight. This might reasonably be considered the most important speech of his professional lifetime.
How’s he going to handle this? His WSJ editorial on the Fairness Doctrine (for a broader and more educated, though still mainly conservative audience) is red-meat free. But he can’t get away with that tonight in this venue. He’ll do lots of dog-whistle stuff (threats to constitution, dangers of socilized governance, ACORN, Reverend Wright) and he’ll likely use “the annointed one” because it will be demanded. I don’t know how much further he’ll go.
Tonight we’ll find out how smart and intellectually resilient he is as a propagandist which, it’s my consideration, is the term that describes him more accurately than ideologue.
His ego won out. He’s just caused a lot of damage for his party, movement and for himself, I expect. He’ll keep the core of his audience but he’s going to continue losing listeners and I think that will accelerate now.
This speech and the reactions to it from sane conservatives will exacerbate the breakup of the party. And it will likely be quite public.
All of the above is, for the country, positive. The negatives that I see coming out of this are small but dangerous.
The invitation to anger and hatred primes something already quite extreme in the CPAC crowd and in those who make up the talk radio audience. Do we now expect that Mark Levine and Laura Ingraham will become more or less extreme as a consequence of what Limbaugh has just done? DeLay and Santorum are now joining in the “hope Obama fails” rhetoric. As this downturn in the world and national economy becomes more serious, these encouragements to anger and hatred could fairly easily manifest in violence.
ps…John Derbyshire has written an excellent piece on Rush and the influences of conservative talk radio http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/feb/23/00006/
Very highly recommended.
Greg – I think you ought to put down some carpets and hang a few pictures. There’s a distinct echo in this place.
I don’t think it was noted earlier, but our notions of how expertly Obama carried off that address to Congress is born out by the CBS poll which shows his approval (for dealing with the economic crisis) moving from 63% to a rather astounding 80%.
ps…this lends support to Hindu theology and the belief that about 2 out of 10 in any given population are likely to be reincarnated somewhere within the sponge genus.
And now I believe I shall sing the libretto from Puccini’s “Madam Butterthighs”
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Greg – this quote by Bay Buchanan really ought to get some play… “If the economy comes back, the group in power stays in power. It’s that simple.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/28/AR2009022801724_3.html?hpid=moreheadlines
It puts flesh on the bones of Limbaugh/DeLay/Santorum’s “yes, we hope Obama fails”
Normally, I sing in the shower while throwing down a solid beat slapping on my unusually handsome buttocks. Be that as it may, James Joyner writes on Newt at CPAC advancing his “12 Point Plan” for recovery. It isn’t just that he has a Power Point noggin, it is that he’s selling simplicity. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/newt_gingrich_at_cpac/
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