November 10, 2008
Centrism has finally become trendy. I always sensed some fear within the hearts of the more outspoken conservative pundits that an Obama Administration would usher in a neo-Camelot era of fashionable liberalism. What we are seeing so far, is a movement toward Centrist Chic. Everyone is getting on the bandwagon. On Sunday’s Face The Nation, Bob Schieffer reported that President-elect Obama pulled the plug on a planned fireworks show in Grant Park for election night, to enforce his own “no gloating” rule. Additionally, the Obama “inner circle” has assured us that we can expect some Republican faces in the next Administration, if not the Cabinet.
Prominent Republican leaders are repeatedly asked: “Where does the GOP go from here?” Their answer should be: to the center. I could never understand why the McCain campaign fought so hard to win over the “hard right” base, once the Republican nomination was secured. In my posting “Which Way To The White House?” on June 16, I expressed my astonishment concerning McCain’s campaign strategy:
Much of the criticism directed against McCain’s campaign has concerned the slim turnouts at his rallies, his speech delivery and his failure (or unwillingness) to keep economic issues on the front burner. Although quite a bit of criticism has questioned his ability to carry “the base” in November, precious little has been focused on how he expects to win over “undecided” voters and those from the center. McCain has to face up to the fact that “the base” has no other alternative than to vote for him. If he expects to win the election, he would be wise to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, rather than cling to them as some sort of political life-raft.
In response to the “Where does the GOP go from here?” question, we are finally hearing the right answer. The most surprising response came from a gentleman who earned the nickname “Bullet” from his old boss, Karl Rove. Steve Schmidt is a rather tall, yet stout, individual with a bald head, resembling a giant bullet. He was appointed to the position of “senior strategist” for the McCain campaign on July 2. Schmidt has been blamed for McCain’s strategic failures in this recent quest for the Presidency. On November 9, The Daily Beast website featured an interview with Schmidt, conducted by Ana Marie Cox. The Bullet made the following observations about the future direction for the GOP:
The party in the Northeast is all but extinct; the party on the West Coast is all but extinct; the party has lost the mid-South states—Virginia, North Carolina—and the party is in deep trouble in the Rocky Mountain West, and there has to be a message and a vision that is compelling to people in order for them to come back and to give consideration to the Republican Party again.
The Republican Party was long known as the party that competently managed government. We’ve lost our claim to that. The Republican Party was known as the party that was serious on national security issues. The mismanagement of the war has stripped that away. So there is much to do in rebuilding the brand of the party, what it stands for, and what it’s about in a way that Americans find appealing. . . . The Republican Party wants to, needs to, be able to represent, you know, not only conservatives, but centrists as well. And the party that controls the center is the party that controls the American electorate.
In the Washington Post of November 9, another prominent conservative, George Will, expressed dismay over the misplaced deference granted to the “hard right” wing of the Republican Party:
Some of the Republicans’ afflictions are self-inflicted. Some conservatives who are gluttons for punishment are getting a head start on ensuring a 2012 drubbing by prescribing peculiar medication for a misdiagnosed illness. They are monomaniacal about media bias, which is real but rarely decisive, and unhinged by their anger about the loathing of Sarah Palin by similarly deranged liberals. These conservatives, confusing pugnacity with a political philosophy, are hot to anoint Palin, an emblem of rural and small-town sensibilities, as the party’s presumptive 2012 nominee.
These conservatives preen as especially respectful of regular — or as Palin says, “real” — Americans, whose tribune Palin purports to be. But note the argument that the manipulation of Americans by “the mainstream media” explains the fact that the more Palin campaigned, the less Americans thought of her qualifications. This argument portrays Americans as a bovine herd — or as inert clay in the hands of wily media, which only Palin’s conservative celebrators can decipher and resist.
Most Republican pundits are acutely aware of the consequences resulting from further rampant inbreeding of the so-called “base” within their party. A resulting blindness to the opinions of those outside “the family” could send the GOP on a path to oblivion. The inability of the Republicans to “connect” with young people, to any measurable degree, was discussed by former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, in the November 7 Wall Street Journal:
Though it is also true that many of the indexes for the GOP are dreadful, especially that they lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation! If that continues in coming years, it will be a rolling wave of doom.
The Republican Party will survive the “Tragedy of 2008” because there are still a good number of Republicans with their heads properly screwed onto their necks. Don’t take my word for it . . . Go ask The Bullet.
Jackass Of The Year Award
January 1, 2009
At year’s end, we see retrospectives of the most important events, numerous top ten lists and recognitions of achievement in one area or another. 2008 brought a record level of cynicism to the American people because of the economic catastrophe, the Bernie Madoff scandal and the cartoon-like escapades from the Presidential campaign. Accordingly, it seems only appropriate to pay homage to the biggest Jackass of the Year. Since I advertise this website as a “Blago-free zone”, the current Governor of Illinois is automatically disqualified from the competition. So, let’s take a look at some of the runners-up and finally, the winner of the Jackass of the Year Award.
Our first contestant is John Ensign. He is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, representing the State of Nevada in the United States Senate. On November 2, 2008 he appeared on the CBS television program, Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer. Election day was two days away and Ensign found it necessary to blame the likely Republican losses on the economic downturn. He described the Republicans’ fate in these terms:
That’s right. Ensign Douchebag thought he could convince the public that the economic crisis was the result of over-regulation of the financial system, rather than the deregulation described by everyone else in the world. That noble statement certainly rates runner-up status for the Jackass of the Year Award.
Our next contestant is Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ and embarrassment to Barack Obama. Thank God Reverend Wright’s fifteen minutes of fame are finally over. Although his infamous sermon with the less-than-patriotic remarks about America was given in 2003, by April of 2008, Rev. Wright made a point of resurrecting the controversy concerning his disappointing association with Barack Obama. At that time Wright hit the road, appearing on Bill Moyers Journal, speaking before the NAACP and giving a grand performance before the National Press Club. He made a fool of himself all three times and (perhaps to his disappointment) his bad karma never rubbed off on Barack. The pastor has also been a disgrace to the name of the Right Reverend Carl Wright (comedic sidekick of Chicago blues maven, Pervis Spann). Although Jeremiah Wright rated recognition, the competition for the Jackass Award was tough this year.
We cannot overlook the valiant efforts of Joe “The Tool” Lieberman to win this honor. Although the people of Connecticut elected Joe to represent their state in the Senate, The Tool spent most of 2008 looking like a stray dog, following candidate John McCain around the campaign trial. You can find my prior rants about Senator Lieberman here, here, here and here.
We must also give consideration to Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. John McCain was on to him. It just wasn’t fair that poor, old Senator McCain took so much heat for pointing out that Cox had to go. McCain made the mistake of stating that he, as President, would have authority to fire Cox. Although he was wrong about that, he was right about the notion that Cox had been a problem for the SEC. On December 16, Jessie Westerbrook of Bloomberg news reported that Cox was blaming his subordinates for the enforcement lapses that allowed the scam, perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, to continue for several years after the SEC should have stopped it. Cox apparently believes in the doctrine that “the buck stops” several levels below himself on the SEC food chain. The environment at the SEC, with Cox at the helm, was best summed up in a December 27 article from the Los Angeles Times by Amit Paley and David Hilzenrath. Here’s what they had to say about the tenure of Chairman Cox and his performance during the economic crisis:
Heckuva’ job, Coxey! Nevertheless, you have been overshadowed in this year’s competition.
The winner of the 2008 Jackass of the Year Award is a professor from Russia, named Igor Panarin. He is a former member of the KGB, who is apparently so upset over the breakup of the Soviet Union, that for the past ten years, he has been predicting that the United States would also break up. On December 29, Andrew Osborn reported in The Wall Street Journal that Panarin has been doing two interviews per day, discussing how “an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.” The article explained:
Worse yet, the other five parts of the country will supposedly become republics that will be part of or under the influence of Canada, the European Union, Mexico, China or Japan. Osborn’s article included a picture of Panarin’s map, showing how the various segments of the country would be apportioned. Panarin’s ideas have brought him quite a bit of publicity . . . and TheCenterLane.com’s Jackass of the Year Award for 2008! Congratulations, Jackass!