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Has Fox News Destroyed the Republican Party?

October 16th, 2013 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 16 2013

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It was more than two years ago when ABC News televised Terry Moran’s interview with David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush. On March 23, 2010 – the day after the interview – the ABC News website ran this piece by David Schoetz, which included an embedded video of the interview. As we can see from the article, Moran’s interview with Frum was right on target:

Among the comments Frum made to “Nightline” was the assertion that “nobody ever won an election by spitting at his political opponents” and that “anger trapped the [Republican] leadership.” But it was this exchange, which you can see starting at the 2:20 mark, that is generating some buzz today: Moran: “It sounds like you’re saying that the Glenn Becks, the Rush Limbaughs, hijacked the Republican party and drove it to a defeat?” Frum: “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.” Our report posed the question: Will Democrats pay a price for pushing through health care at any cost? Or are Republicans the ones in trouble for the way they chose to fight? We know where Frum stands.

As the battle over Obamacare began to reach a boiling point, Fox News televised a discussion between Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer on September 26 entitled, “Is Ted Cruz the new leader of the Republican Party?” Krauthammer was less enthusiastic about Cruz than the fawning O’Reilly. Krauthammer pointed out that the battle Cruz was waging against Obamacare was doomed and that Cruz was simply attempting to position himself as the next GOP Presidential candidate. As an aside, I find it curious that those who tout the sanctity of the Constitution are so willing to ignore Article Two, Section 1, which states (in part):

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Here is what Wikipedia provides concerning the controversy over this issue:

As Cruz was born in Canada, various commentators from the Austin American-Statesman^[97] and the Los Angeles Times,^[98] discussed Cruz’s legal status as a natural-born citizen. Because he was a U.S. citizen at birth (since his mother was a U.S. citizen who lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years as required by the Nationality Act of 1940), most commentators believe Cruz is eligible to serve as President of the United States.^{[10][99][10][100]} After hearing that according to legal experts he is a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S., Cruz announced on August 19, 2013 that he would renounce his Canadian citizenship.^[101]

I enjoyed the last sentence, which stated, “After hearing that according to legal experts he is a dual citizen …” One would have thought that Cruz might be a legal expert himself, since he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. In any event, any plans Cruz had made for the Presidency were certainly destroyed by the government shutdown fiasco. Of course, Cruz will always remain popular with his hard core supporters, despite the fact that he has alienated the Republican Party itself, and he has no chance of getting elected – even in the unlikely event that he should become the GOP nominee.

Cruz will always be haunted by his recitation of Green Eggs and Ham during his pseudo-filibuster, which Krauthammer aptly pointed out was simply an attempt to upstage the filibuster conducted by Rand Paul over the use of drones.

The bigger question concerns the devastation this fiasco has caused for the Republican Party. As David Frum pointed out, the hero worship Fox News brings to the wingnuts of the GOP empowers those characters, making the GOP a party of extremists. Although a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Congressional Republicans handled the budget crisis, the more important issue concerns the extent to which the GOP has sustained long-term damage as a result of this episode. If it causes Republicans to become unelectable, they will have Fox News to blame.

ABC News, Bill O'Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, David Schoetz, Fox News, government shutdown, Nightline, Obamacare, Ted Cruz, Terry Moran, United States Constitution

Building A Consensus For Survival

March 29th, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized

Mar, 29 2010

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March 29, 2010

In my last posting, I focused on the fantastic discourse in favor of financial reform presented by Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to Hoenig’s speech, last week brought us a number of excellent arguments for the cause that is so bitterly opposed by Wall Street lobbyists. On the same day that Thomas Hoenig delivered his great speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin also addressed that institution to argue in favor of financial reform. I enjoyed the fact that he rubbed this in their faces:

That is why it is so puzzling that, despite the urgent and undeniable need for reform, the Chamber of Commerce has launched a $3 million advertising campaign against it. That campaign is not designed to improve the House and Senate bills. It is designed to defeat them. It is designed to delay reform until the memory of the crisis fades and the political will for change dies out.

The Chamber’s campaign comes on top of the $1.4 million per day already being spent on lobbying and campaign contributions by big banks and Wall Street financial firms. There are four financial lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Wolin’s presentation was yet another signal from the Treasury Department that inspired economist Simon Johnson to begin feeling optimistic about the possibility that some meaningful degree of financial reform might actually take place:

Against all the odds, a glimmer of hope for real financial reform begins to shine through. It’s not that anything definite has happened — in fact most of the recent Senate details are not encouraging – but rather that the broader political calculus has shifted in the right direction.

Instead of seeing the big banks as inviolable, top people in Obama administration are beginning to see the advantage of taking them on — at least on the issue of consumer protection. Even Tim Geithner derided the banks recently as,

“those who told us all they were the masters of noble financial innovation and sophisticated risk management.”

Yep. That was our old pal and former New York Fed President, “Turbo” Tim Geithner, making the case for financial reform before the American Enterprise Institute. (You remember them — the outfit that fired David Frum for speaking out against Fox News and the rest of the “conservative entertainment industry”.) Treasury Secretary Geithner made his pitch for reform by reminding his conservative audience that longstanding advocates of the “efficient market hypothesis” had come on board in favor of financial reform:

Now, the recognition that markets failed and that the necessary solution involves reform; that it requires rules enforced by government is not a partisan or political judgment. It is a conclusion reached by liberals and by conservative skeptics of regulation.

Judge Richard Posner, a leader in the conservative Chicago School of economics, wrote last year, that “we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails.”

And consider Alan Greenspan, a skeptic of the benefits of regulation, who recently said, “inhibiting irrational behavior when it can be identified, through regulation, . . . could be stabilizing.”

No wonder Simon Johnson is feeling so upbeat! The administration is actually making a serious attempt at doing what needs to be done to get this accomplished.

Meanwhile, The New York Times had run a superb article by David Leonhardt just as Geithner was about to address the AEI. Leonhardt’s essay, “Heading Off the Next Financial Crisis” is a thorough analysis, providing historical background and covering every angle on what needs to be done to clean up the mess that got us where we are today — and to prevent it from happening again. Here are some snippets from the first page that had me hooked right away:

It was a maddening story line: the government helped the banks get rich by looking the other way during good times and saved them from collapse during bad times. Just as an oil company can profit from pollution, Wall Street profited from weak regulation, at the expense of society.

* * *

In a way, this issue is more about human nature than about politics. By definition, the next period of financial excess will appear to have recent history on its side.

* * *

One way to deal with regulator fallibility is to implement clear, sweeping rules that limit people’s ability to persuade themselves that the next bubble is different — upfront capital requirements, for example, that banks cannot alter. Thus far, the White House, the Fed and Congress have mostly steered clear of such rules.

Congratulations to David Leonhardt for putting that great piece together. As more commentators continue to advance such astute, sensible appeals to plug the leaks in our sinking financial system, there is a greater likelihood that our lawmakers will realize that the economic risk of doing nothing far exceeds the amounts of money in those envelopes from the lobbyists.

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The GOP Is Losing Centrists

March 23rd, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized

Mar, 23 2010

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March 23, 2010

David Frum’s Sunday afternoon blog posting, “Waterloo” has been receiving praise for its painfully accurate diagnosis of what ails (or should I say, “Ailes”) the Republican Party. Among his important points were these:

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

* * *

The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say — but what is equally true — is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed — if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

On the following evening, Frum appeared on ABC’s Nightline with Terry Moran and this exchange took place:

Moran: “It sounds like you’re saying that the Glenn Becks, the Rush Limbaughs, hijacked the Republican party and drove it to a defeat?”

Frum: “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party.”

During the days leading up to the vote on the healthcare bill, the rallying tea party activists exhibited the behavior of a lynch mob. Their rhetoric was curiously extreme and anyone with a neutral point of view on the issue had to wonder what was pushing those people to the edge. Following up on Frum’s thesis, Thomas Frank of The Wall Street Journal seemed to have the right idea:

It is tempting to understand the tea party movement as a distant relative of the lowest form of televangelism, with its preposterous moral certainty, its weird faith in markets, its constant profiteering, and, of course, its gullible audiences.

Tea partiers fancy themselves a movement without leaders, but this is only true in the sense that, say, the nation’s Miley Cyrus fan clubs don’t have a central leader. They don’t need one — they have Miley Cyrus herself. And the tea partiers, for their part, have Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the various personalities of Fox News, whose exploits were mentioned frequently from the speaker’s platform on Saturday. But it was only after I watched an online video of Capitol Hill protesters earnestly instructing one another in what sounded like Mr. Beck’s trademark theory of progressivism that I understood: This is protest as a form of fandom.

These are TV citizens, regurgitating TV history lessons, and engaged in a TV crusade. They seem to care little for the give and take of the legislative process. What seems to make sense to them is the logic of entertainment, the ever-escalating outrage of reality TV.

But maybe, one of these days, the nation is going to change the channel.

That change of the channel is exactly what the Republicans need to worry about. Karl Rove’s trademark strategy of pandering to the so-called “base” of the party failed in 2006 and it failed again in 2008. Nevertheless the GOP continues with a tone-deaf strategy, focused on the manipulated emotions of the tea partiers.

As I observed when I started this blog two years ago, a decision by John McCain to continue pandering to the televangelist lobby after winning the Republican Presidential nomination, would make absolutely no sense. McCain now finds himself struggling against an ultra-conservative tea partier for the Republican nomination to retain his Senate seat. He has again chosen to pander to the base and in the process, he has painted himself into a corner — boosting the chances for victory by the Democratic nominee in November.

The Republicans just don’t get it. John “BronzeGel” Boehner’s decision to ally himself with the banking lobbyists has given another black eye to the Republican Party. Although the voting public has become increasingly educated and incensed about the bank bailouts as a form of “lemon socialism” BronzeGel decided to give a pep talk to the American Bankers Association, advising them:

“Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves.”

Who is going to stand up for the taxpayers (and their children) who have been forced to support the welfare queens of Wall Street? Certainly not the Republicans. BronzeGel Boehner has promised to fight a protracted battle against financial reform. In the process, he and his party are throwing the centrist voters (and the educated conservatives) under the bus. What a brilliant strategy!

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PSD

October 23rd, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized

Oct, 23 2008

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October 23, 2008

It happened again. Another conservative pundit predicted that Barack Obama would likely become the 44th President of the United States. This time it was David Frum, appearing on The Colbert Report. Frum stated that the McCain-Palin ticket is unlikely to win the election, unless Obama-Biden loses it. With that in mind, Joe Biden has now begun wearing his Halloween costume. He will continue to do so through Halloween weekend for the supposed purpose of entering as many Halloween costume contests as possible. Halloween is on a Friday this year. Biden has been entered in contests through Sunday night. He will be wearing a ball gag in his mouth. He will be carrying a card with the following explanation:

This is my Halloween costume. I am the “ball gag guy” from Pulp Fiction.

After the Halloween costume contests, Biden will be able to remove the gag from his mouth during the wee hours of Monday morning. On Monday, he will begin eating soft pastas and work his way up to solid food. Tuesday won’t matter, since that will be Election Day.

Unfortunately, things look worse for Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. I am reminded of her fate by the constant appearance of Brooke Shields on TV. By now, most of the public might realize that Brooke is apparently suffering from Post-Stardom Depression (PSD). This condition has ostensibly caused her to appear in televised Volkswagen commercials. Poor Brooke! Her self-esteem must have gone through the floorboards! Isn’t there any medication that can help her with this? Did Tom Cruise dissuade her from taking it?

Meanwhile, Republican operatives have already announced that Sarah Palin’s campaign outfits will be given to charity after the election. At least Sarah managed to secure possession of “The Cards” (the cue cards from her appearance on Saturday Night Live). After the election, PSD could likely put Sarah into a world of hurt. Trig would be sitting in his playpen, crying … and Sarah would be sitting on the rec room floor, crying and hugging The Cards. All will be lost. She will be forced to return to her existence as the Governor of the State of Alaska. Her attention will be abruptly refocused from the world’s most monumental crises, to the humdrum issues involving meth labs and snow machines. She would, no doubt, do her best to cope with this malady. She might go so far as to seek compensation for this unexpected hardship. The Republican Party could hire experts to testify that PSD does not really exist. Governor Palin might be forced to hire experts to dispute those opinions and, in the process, eventually be compelled to disclose personal records concerning the consultations between those experts and herself. It could get really ugly. The would-be “poster woman” of the future “gender-inclusive” Republican Party might end up being portrayed by her former advisors as just another “claimant”, attempting to milk the “frivolous lawsuit” system for all it is worth.

Many of us began to suspect that Sarah would get “thrown under the bus” after the election. We became suspicious of this, once she was assigned to deliver the “cheap shots” against Obama in her stump speeches. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has already expressed suspicion that John McCain might be harboring resentment toward Palin, out of concern that she could be the reason for his diminished standing in the polls. After all, most commentators believe her candidacy wasn’t McCain’s idea, anyway. At the Republican Convention, Newt Gingrich did a lot of bragging that the selection of Palin was his idea. Will this bragging continue after Election Day?

In the weeks ahead, the human tragedy could take its toll. Will Sarah Palin be left in the ditch with PSD? Will it be necessary for her to “eat crow” and capitulate to reliance on Barack Obama’s health care plan, to address PSD? Regardless of what the courts might do with such a claim, karmic justice would prevail.

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