Not Your Daddy’s Republican Party
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush came in for an avalanche of criticism from conservatives for saying that Ronald Reagan and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, “would have a hard time” getting nominated in today’s Republican Party.
Speaking to reporters and editors at Bloomberg News on Monday, Bush said:
“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,”
[...]
“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan suport,” he said. Reagan “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”
For his trouble, Jeb has now been branded a RINO, having angered that perpetually outraged faction of right wingers whose self-appointed duties include keeping party members on the straight and narrow — and unthinking path — of “true” conservatism. This, despite the fact that many of these same Guardians of the Sacred Chalice of Orthodoxy were begging Jeb to run for president just a few months ago and save them from the scourge of Romneyism.
Why criticism of one’s own party equates with the notion of disloyalty or ideological impurity is a mystery. The GOP is not the politburo, but the conservative NKVD in the blogosphere acts as if it is. Evidently, echoing the criticism of some liberals is reason enough to throw the heretic into the Lubyanka and toss away the key.
Nevertheless, the reaction among some conservatives to Governor Bush’s statements was puzzling. Bryan Preston of the PJ Tatler wrote:
The GOP has nominated a Bush in 2000, re-nominated him in 2004, and then nominated centrist John McCain in 2008 and centrist Mitt Romney in 2012.
[T]he GOP is so extreme our last two nominees have been John McCain and Mitt Romney . … I am so sick and tired of this garbage.
Jebadummy Bush says that his father, as well as Reagan, would have a tough time getting nominated today because the republican party is too ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE. He says this while Romney swept through the primaries like a hot knife through butter.
No, Jeb Bush was not saying that today’s GOP is too “extreme” or “ultra-conservative.” Reading what isn’t there will always get a blogger in trouble. In this case, the bloggers quoted above, as well as many others, stepped in it.
Bush did not say Reagan was more moderate than today’s candidates. He said that the Gipper’s record of cooperating with Democrats in Sacramento would be a strike against him for many modern Republicans. And imagine the hue and cry that would have gone up on the right if Reagan had to deal with today’s Republicans when, as president, he raised taxes and didn’t shrink the government as he promised, not to mention working closely with Democrats to pass his tax-cut package, budget package, and defense buildup.
“…that perpetually outraged faction of right wingers whose self-appointed duties include keeping party members on the straight and narrow — and unthinking path — of “true”
conservatismRINOy BIPARTISANSHIP.”There. Fixed it for you.
Conservatives THINK. All you wishy washy RINOs do is ostensibly “care,” my friend.
“Guardians of the Sacred Chalice of Orthodoxy were begging Jeb to run for president just a few months ago and save them from the scourge of Romneyism.”
I know of not one single real conservative that ever “begged” Jeb to run for president.. We clearly prayed he would stay out of the fray to avoid another “Bush Confusion Factor” Jeb is no more trustworty than his old man, whose image some are now trying to refurbish…(read my lips my a$$). “anyone but Romney” clearly assumed that old Jeb knew we had had enough of the Bush family to last us and he would not even be considers as an “anyone”. Jeb was pushed by the “party elite”, the same assassins who were afraid of a win by Cain, Bachman, or Gingrich…
What is a “Moran” anyway.. a misspelling?
DEBUNKS Moran’s article completely:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/06/14/not-so-fast-jeb-bush
Yep. I notice Mr. Moran quotes AOSHQ’s remarks on Bush. He said, essentially, the same thing. No small wonder Moran didn’t like it.
It would seem to me that, bipartisan legislation is what got us into this mess to begin with. Tell me, is it conservative intransigence that hasn’t gotten a budget passed the last three years? I take it the Democrats had nothing to do with the two years of 99-0 votes against. The Senate holding up appointments?
Hmmm…. who controls the Senate, that secret cabal of dirty underhanded Conservatives?
Meh….I should have stopped when I saw who the author was.
“Tell me, is it conservative intransigence that hasn’t gotten a budget passed the last three years?”
It’s “fiscal conservatives” who passed a (Paul Ryan) budget that doesn’t balance the deficit for literally 30 years. With big-government “conservatives” like this, who needs liberals?
Let’s see: Democrats want to socialize medical care. Republicans want a free system. Compromise: we’ll socialize half of the medical care in the country. Democrats want to stop coal mining; Republicans want to allow as much coal mining as the market will allow. Compromise: we’ll only shut down half the mines. Democrats want to eviscerate our military. The Republicans want a strong military. Compromise: we’ll only gut half the military.
Do you really think Reagan would compromise on critical issues? I don’t; he would be fine in today’s Republican party.
I will believe the Republicans want free-market solutions for health care in this country when they make “and repeal Medicare and Medicaid” a plank of the party platform.
I will believe the Republicans care about domestic energy production when they stop trying to do away with import tariffs on coal mined by prison labor in Brazil. The Klinton Administration established all manner of new and startling precedents in using the RICO laws against pro-life groups, precedents that Dubya was too cowardly to use against more deserving targets, like, oh, say, Greenpeace and the rest of the environmentalist wackos who would ooze out of the woodwork if we actually started building oil refineries and nuclear power plants again.
I will believe the Republicans aren’t just paying lip service to “strong national defense” when they submit a defense budget that resembles the ones we had in the 80s, back when we actually HAD a six-hundred-ship Navy, four Marine divisions, two airborne divisions, back when we actually HAD the capability to project force and wage two major ground wars in different parts of the world at the same time.
If they want my vote they know where to find me. On Election Day I think I will stay home and clean my guns. Thanks but no thanks, RINOs.
Don’t stay home get out and vote, vote for Mittens and vote for every TEA Party Conservative you can. We may not get the sweep we want and we may not have the perfect candidates but maybe, just maybe we’ll get enough that will listen to the people and fight for what’s right.
What has bipartisanship done for America?
Bipartisanship deals gave us Vietnam, Iraq, the Reagan and Bush 1 tax hikes, NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, No Child Left Behind and prescription drug benefits under Medicare. Bipartisan big deals led America to the brink of bankruptcy.
Did not Albert Einstein define insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result?
When the two parties get along, there’s only one loser, and that’s the American people.
The parties aren’t supposed to get along. They’re supposed to be at each other’s throats. They’re supposed to keep each other in line.
When the parties get along a little too comfortably, what you really have is a one party system. And the American people are getting screwed.
When the Republicans and Democrats make a deal … the American people are getting screwed.
This country has always functioned better with divided government, and gotten into trouble when one side runs the table.
During the days that both parties pretended to care about adherence to the US Constitution and were essentially representing the interests of Americans, I suppose a case could be made that compromise had some value. But in today’s world, where the Marxocrats are hell-bent on the outright dissolution of what’s left of the US Constitution and the destruction of this country to subsume American sovereignty under some sort of One-World-Order transnational Marxist-driven Leviathan state, compromise is a fool’s game. I will never again cast a vote for some RINO buffoon who has some idiotic need to “reach across the aisle” to embrace the monstrous advocates for the Devil himself.
another RINO Whino Bush family member feeling entitled to tell us what to think and do. no wonder they feel so comfortable with the likes of O-bs-er. They probably love the idiot Mayor Bloombug, too. The entire family has no credibility except to try to ride coat tails of Reagan. Reminder – his disaster father’s presidency destroyed what Reagan accomplished and gave us Clinton. His idiot in chief brother gave us such a good presidency with his compromises and moronic nation building that we wind up with the current disaster in chief. Give it a rest – Bush family – history will not judge you compromising traitors kindly – me thinks, just saying.
Let’s face facts, the only reason the Republican party is back so quickly into the race after being sent into the wilderness in 2006 and 2008, is the grass roots uprising of the TEA Party. And the big government Bush family is exactly what the small government fiscally responsible TEA Party folks don’t want. This is what Jeb Bush is really complaining about, the fact that the TEA Party despises the Establishment Republicans like him and his family, which they blame (completely justified) for many of our present problems.
If the Taxed Enough Already Party wanted small government, it would have pushed hard to elect the presidential candidate who wants to cut one trillion dollars of actual spending and eliminate the entire income tax and IRS — Ron Paul. But the Tea Party got hijacked by big-government fake conservatives, so that didn’t happen.
No, there’s a reason we didn’t get behind RP. Besides the fact that he’s got the onset of dementia , we don’t need to gut our military and ignore the rest of the world. That was tried before and the results weren’t stellar. I will say that Iraq was a less than stellar move, Bush1 should have gone to Bagdad and called it a day, would have saved us a whole lot of very valuable lives.
It seems that compromise with the Democrats always seem to leave taxpayers with mountains of debt and more busybody regulations.
It’s the Democrats turn to compromise.
After all, they never did live up to their end of the Reagan illegal alien amnesty/immigration reform deal. That’s the typical result of the right compromising its principles.
The GOP (greedy old pigs) are always and forever the same. They create false consciousness in the White working class with racist propaganda. From Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” to the Wille Horton ads to Bushitler’s “Axis of Evil.” (two Muslim nations and an Asian one) This takes the focus off the machinations of the greedy corporate overlords hoarding ever-greater sums in their trust funds while the people are downsized and left to die of exposure, starvation, and treatable medical conditions.
Every “compromise” is something similar. They are window dressing pretense of doing something for working people while really enriching the portfolios of the greedy pigs at the top!
Wow, you hit the trite card trifecta there: greed, racism, and ‘corporatism’.
All in one paragraph, too. And it’s SO clever, because you can just roll out all the ‘card’ words and completely avoid having to craft anything close to an logical argument, or having to deal with nasty little things like “facts”. But then, who needs facts or that equally nasty thing called the “truth” when you have the Words, right?
Hey! *THANKS* for that trip down Old Memory Lane, about how absolutely f*cked up those crazed ’60′s Yippies were!
I’m visualizing some liberal rally where they’re handing out Talking Points Cards and are told, “Pick one from column A, one from B…”
Must be a slow day at HuffPo. The trolls have left the cave.
“…enriching the portfolios of the greedy pigs at the top!’
Well, that’s one way to “put it”.
Looks like that service you provide at campaign Head Quarters gets those “pigs” Yobbin’s a Throbbin. Portfolio? To paraphrase another poster, set up a video camera and you have Modern Liberal art. Cannes! Post it on online, and even better, you will be… Right Now Famous! At least for a Warhol time unit.
Do you… con$ummate?
Look, when you give it away for free, that’s when people get greedy.
Hint. Charge. Dem Pigs have $$$ too. Shame on Dems!
You need to go back to your filthy tent you OWS troll….
Yeah, glad those $40,000/plate get togethers with the poor that Barry goes to aren’t really with rich Liberal pigs. Oh wait, they are. How many are we up to now??? 100 plus?? Hypocrite!!
There is an unspoken reason why there is so little genuine bipartisanship (as in, both parties working together on things that will actually benefit the country). That reason is–the radicalization of the Democratic Party. It’s not the Republicans who have become extremists, it’s the Democrats. Or rather, the national leadership of their party. They are the ones who demand utter loyalty to a radical agenda of government control of health care, of cradle to grave socialism, of an America economically crippled by insane environmentalism.
It is the Democrats who are the ‘reactionary radicals’, not the Republicans, and certainly not the Tea Party.
Since when is a desire to breath clean air and drink clean water to be considered “insane?”
Government is a failure, and America in danger of failed state status. The next term will be the most challenging for POTUS since Lincoln and we expect the GOP to fall flat on its face with leaders like Jeb.
Government does not need to get something done, it needs to dismantle 50 years of its work.
Jeb ISN’T a “leader”; he’s just been given a megaphone by the establishment GOP to expose his utter fecid stupidity.
Yet another PJM columnist auditioning for a writing job at the WaPo or NYT. Just pathetic. Here’s a bit of advice for Mr. Moran and the rest of his ilk who seem to be most of what PJM is about these days…when you continually sound like the MSM on every single issue, you’re not the “alternative media” anymore; you’re just a dull, low-budget echo of the MSM. And, of course, there’s no reason to bother reading you or visiting this site anymore in that case.
Hopefully, this will occur to the folks who run PJM at some point, but I’m not hopeful about that happening.
QUOTE: “This, despite the fact that many of these same Guardians of the Sacred Chalice of Orthodoxy were begging Jeb to run for president just a few months ago and save them from the scourge of Romneyism.”
What world do you live in? No one but isolated Washington insiders EVER wanted Jeb Bush to run. Most Republicans outside Washington understand the Bush name would be a cancer on the national ticket. He never had a shot at the nomination even if he had run, and he has no shot at being Romney’s running mate, either.
Sorry to be rude, but you really need to pull your head out of your ass. Not only for the delusional comment I quoted above, but for defending Jeb Bush for lending a voice of support to a liberal Democrat talking point about how “extreme” Republicans are for not working with them to increase spending, raise taxes, and pass new government programs like ObamaCare.
How did you get a job writing columns here, anyway?
the criticism of jebs comment stem from one thing…it is a lie to portray his father and ronald reagan as agreeing on ideology. george bush was no ronald reagan. if he had the same belief system as ronald reagan, there never would have been a bill clinton.
You just called me “unthinking” but I think I’ll be able to remember your name. This is not the insight for which I come to PJ Media, I can be insulted by any MSM source. Good day sir, so long, and good riddance.
Just what are Republicans supposed to compromise with? Harry Reid will NOT bring a budget to the Senate Floor. Any budget O’Dismal has brought is voted down without any yes votes. O’Dismal said I won, you lost and if you bring a knife, I’ll bring a gun. The House Democrats are full of communists/statists hell bent on destroying the U.S. as originally constituted. O’Dismal is a radical of the first order. All his pals are radicals and all his appointments are radicals. O’Dismal has Islamists crawling all over this administration. The Islamists are even “Helping” to write terroism policies. O’Dismal has gone around the world bowing and scraping before Islamic dictators and potentates. O’Dismal gutted NASA, is gutting our miltary, and is destroying our economy purposefully through rampant spending and regulation. Ok, how do you compromise with poison? Take just a little to be bipartisan and “get things done”. Getting the wrong things done is worse than doing nothing.
Conservatives want much smaller government, liberals want much bigger government. Jeb Bush and others (Colln Powell et all) think that a little bit bigger is a compromise worth celebrating, a wonderful example of bipartisan governance and seek the praise of the liberal media. Conservatives view such a compromise as a betrayal of core principals. The only compromise that conservatives will support is a little smaller.
I remember HW Bush’s first big accommodation – a bail-out of the S&L’s that weren’t even federally regulated. That massive bill was just the excuse the Democrats and the Bush Administration were looking for to raise taxes and undo Reagan’s reforms.
Since Jeb has so much time on his hands, perhaps he can read The Shadow Party, the Democrats of today are nothing like the Democrats of our grandparents. Leaders on the Left, George Soros, The Tides Foundation, MoveOn, Code Pink,Van Jones, many hardcore Environmentalist groups, etc. Reagan could not find common ground with these groups.
One of Reagan’s most celebrated statements of intent was his plan for the Cold War – “We win; they lose.”
As the left becomes increasingly aggressive, at some point, we Americans must say the same thing about our internal leftists – “We win; you lose.”
The Establishment GOP doesn’t want a clear victory and certainly not a contest towards a clear victory. That would risk too much of their personal perogatives. Jeb hopes to remain on top of the heap by compromises which most of us as seeing as harmful to the country.
It matters whether one sees elections as matters for transfer of power between individuals and parties or as means of settling matters of principle and direction. As the Left has been using the former to advance the latter, we conservatives need to engage, openly, on matters of principle. Now is the time while the general voters are attentive to these questions.
“Bipartisanship”, “Compromise”, and “Intransigence” are all codewords that the mainstream media uses to indicate Republicans and conservatives are not kowtowing to the progressives and Democrats. I’m sad that Jeb has drank the koolaid too.
Rick Moran is conservative like Andrew Sullivan or that Spanish guy who used to write here about allowing illegals into the USA (forget his name). He is the confused one.
If you haveto explain the Bushman’s words, then you might get the point that many heard him differently. Maybe we heard him correctly and you are filling in his blanks to make him seem like he is misunderstood. Wanna know why millions of us have had it up to here with the entire family? Because they are the closet thing to American royality and elitism on our side that American has. Forget the Kennedys. The Bushes know that if you really want to get things done you go about it quietly. The people with the real serious money are the ones you would never suspect because they don’t brag. They just accumulate. And it just seems every time there might be a real right wing resurgence, up pops a Bush to stop it dead in its tracks. Why’s that? Too much money at stake for the Bushes? They effectively skewered Sarah Palin. Nothing too harsh. Just a condescending couple of remarks said with the proper air of amusement and dismissal. You might be a water carrier for the Bush family but when Jeb opened his mouth you bet the other side was thrilled to hear what he had to say. And that is the real test of whether or not his “message” was misunderstood. Baloney.
“For his trouble, Jeb has now been branded a RINO, having angered that perpetually outraged faction of right wingers whose self-appointed duties include keeping party members on the straight and narrow — and unthinking path — of “true” conservatism. This, despite the fact that many of these same Guardians of the Sacred Chalice of Orthodoxy were begging Jeb to run for president just a few months ago and save them from the scourge of Romneyism.”
Loser, Loser, Loser, with a big, fat, “L.” Jeb is speaking just like a RINO. Whenever a RINO talks about “accommodation,” it usually means how much a Republican is willing to cave so that the Democrats can steamroller them even more. Bush #41 learned this lesson the hard way on taxes and it cost him his re-election. Remember the “No new taxes” pledge? That’s what you get when you try to get an “accommodation” with a Democrat. You usually get screwed.
Problem is, RINOs like George W. Bush and John McCain would rather have the fig leaf of “bipartisanship” rather than actually stand for conservative principles. Reagan may have negotiated on some things, but on his core beliefs, reduced taxes and smaller government, there were no negotiations. Obama, whether you agree with what he did or not, at least got some things done in his first two years in office. It proved to be a disaster for the nation, but he followed his agenda and got it done. Think of how successful the conservatives would be if they could implement their own agenda for two solid years (or four). Lower taxes, smaller government, less government spending, and entitlement reform plus the full repeal of ObamaCare would do wonders for the country. You really think the Democrats, let alone the liberals (well, what’s the difference, really), will buy into any of this? Give me a break. They would never allow you to attack their sacred cows without a big fight. Even when Clinton got welfare reform I think it passed by a very, very, narrow margin. And Clinton was a Democrat. See how far a Republican would get trying to push an agenda like that.
No, we are rapidly approaching a parliamentary form of government, where in order to get anything of substance done one party will have to control all of Congress and the White House. The bitterness is so strong on both sides that trust has vanished and “bipartisanship” is a punch line you usually hear on the campaign trail. The only way Romney will be a successful president is if the Republicans also control Congress. George W. Bush had a golden opportunity to govern like a true conservative and he blew it, with spending skyrocketing during his presidency. And Obama showed you what an uncontrolled liberal Congress will do to this country. This is no time to go “John McCain” on us. Stick by our core conservative principles and we will win. America wants a real change in direction and I’m sure if Romney wins, the Democrats will do everything in their power to block him every chance they get. So much for group hugs and “accommodations.”
FALSE.
When Reagan came into office, liberal Dem House Speaker Tip O’Neill told Reagan that his Dems would NEVER allow ANY of Reagan’s proposed cuts to domestic entitlements and other domestic spending. Reagan was forced to cut a deal with O’Neill in which the Dems went along with Reagan’s tax cuts and military buildup but punted on domestic spending cuts.
That had the unfortunate effect of increasing the Federal deficit. But it’s what Reagan had to do to get his military buildup through. Reagan was determined to stop Soviet aggression and domestic spending issues had to take a back seat–the same tough decision that FDR had made in 1942 to stop the Axis powers.
Reagan continued to *believe* in small government. But we never actually got small government under Reagan.
“No, we are rapidly approaching a parliamentary form of government, where in order to get anything of substance done one party will have to control all of Congress and the White House.”
This is a very bad comparison. In a parliamentary system, there is no proper equivalent to the American President. For instance, in Britain, the Prime Minister is the leader of one of the parties in the House of Commons, typically the one that got the most votes in the last federal election. The Prime Minister is an elected Member of Parliament and is _not_ elected by the entire British population in a separate ballot. Just like all the other MPs, the Prime Minister is simply the person who got the most votes in their riding (the equivalent of a Congressional district). Individual political parties elect their leaders by a vote of only party members, not of the British population at large. The party leader is typically chosen before the election. (However, if a British Prime Minister dies in office or resigns his seat, his party can choose a new leader by simply holding a party convention that does NOT involve a general election). Furthermore, the British equivalent of the Senate is NOT elected at all; it is the House of Lords which is appointed; the seats in the House of Lords are held for LIFE, not just a six year term. A significant proportion of the seats in the House of Lords are actually INHERITED by the son of a Lord who passes away.
Ask yourself this one thing. Do you hear Democrats speaking of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and Bill Clinton in such horrible terms as the commenters you see here today speaking of “the Bushes”? In case you haven’t noticed President Obama is using “the Bush Bat” to beat Republicans over the head. Why, because it works. Why does it work? Because Republicans like the commenters on this board help him do it.
Do you think that thinking Democrats really liked what all the Presidents and presidential candidates did? Do you think that Democrats were thrilled with Bill Clinton’s affairs or the Welfare Reform Compromise?
Do you really think that George W. Bush was worse than Bill Clinton as President of the United States? Do you as a Republican feel anymore betrayed by Medicare RX drug Reform than Democrats felt about Workfare Welfare?
Want to know why Jeb Bush is disappointed in the Republican Party as it is today? His family has been bashed and trashed. He can’t run for any office. His son probably won’t be able to run for any office. Why? Not because of Democrats; because of his fellow Republicans. I think you would be a little mad, too. The Democrats didn’t abandon the Kennedys over murder.
So, put the Bush Bat down. Not for Jeb Bush’s sake, for your sake. Obama is beating you to death with it.
This is stupid emoting
The Bushes deserve their reputation. It is cathartic and long past time for Republicans to concede that some of the things the Dems said about W are true. The Bushes will be just fine and George P. will indeed run for and win some public office. He may even be the first “Hispanic” President.
But he will not get my vote. The Bushes are a hindrance to constitutional government. It would be better if they went over to the Demomcrats with the way they think. If they could influence the Democrat party they would make them less radical. NO MORE BUSHES!
If anything is ‘stupid emoting’ it is is the emotionalism of the comments about the Bushes. What I said was simple and logical. Obama, the media and the Democrats in general are beating Republican candidates over the head with how ‘bad’ the Bushes were. Republicans help them do that with their stupid emoting in comments like those above.
So other things like “Clinton wouldn’t have had a balanced budget if it weren’t for Republicans in both houses” or “The Democrats were in control of both Houses GW Bush’s term when the deficit was run up”….those kind of true statements never get through. It is just so much easier to blame Bush for everything. And it is so much easier to elevate that ‘lovable Bubba’ Bill Clinton.
Blaming the Bushes for everything is easier to emote and easier to spell and takes less air time and word count. But it isn’t the truth. But, just keep on going with the media’s narritive. Keep adding to it. Obama will be more than happy to have that bat to hit you over the head with.
If you don’t like the Bushes….just ignore them.
1. I don’t care what the Democrats do or think.
2. I was beating on the Bushes long before Obama came along. I stopped giving to the GOP in 2001 when I realized that they were going to squander their chance at real reform with temporary tax cuts (not tax reform) and expansion of medicare benefits. I thought they had learned their lesson in the 90′s.
Rino’s have done tremendous damage to the party through the years. Hoover, Nixon, and the Bushes and their many Republican enablers in Congress – they all share the blame.
You have it exactly backwards. Aside from the blame shifting, the Marxist Left’s major use of the Bush Bat is for engaging in moral equivalency: It’s OK to run up a big deficit because Bush did it. It’s ok to increase the regulatory burden because Bush did it. ad nauseum.
Our ‘Bush Bashing’ as you like to call it actually takes the Left’s Bush Bat and breaks it off in their hands.
You obviously have not been listening to any of Obama’s stump speaches lately. “Failed policies of the past”. “We’ve tried it their way, it didn’t work”. Blame Bush, Blame Bush, Blame Bush. Not at all what you discribe. Sorry
“. . . thinking Democrats,” what a giveaway, your post lost any chance of credibility with that statement. The reason the socialists don’t criticize their own while we do is simple; we think, they worship, we revere the Constitution, they revere royalty.
Albeit there are plenty of what to be royalists who pretend to be on our side.
First of all if you are implying that I am not a Conservative Republican you are wrong. Of course that can’t be proved on line, so you will just have to take my word for it.
The fact that you think there are no “thinking Democrats” kind of makes my point for me. I didn’t say you would agree with them politically, I just meant they are not all mindless drones that follow the party line. The thinking Democrats I am talking about are the ones that MAKE the party line. They are smart enough to shape a narative that has a chance in hell of winning elections. They managed to shape a narritive in 2008, by bashing Bush, to allow an inexperienced obviously incompetent, unvetted candidate win an election. If Republicans hadn’t allowed that narative of ‘blame Bush’ for everything including rain on your picnic to develop we probably wouldn’t have a President Obama. But we do.
All I am saying is let it go. Ignore the Bushes if you don’t like them. You didn’t see everyone blaming Clinton for 9-11, when all the planning was clearly on his watch after he gutted the CIA. The first Twin Tower bombing was on Clinton’s watch so was the Cole bombing. Do you see Democrats (or Republicans) blaming him for that? Do you honestly think no one in the Democrat Party doesn’t know? They never let the narative develop. Not us. No, we’re so perfectly pure we bash our people to death and call it righteous and holy. The Bushes are done. They are over. So Jeb had an interview. So what. Ignore it.
First of all, you can call yourself whatever you want and flatter yourself to think I’ve given your “handle” even a momentary thought.
Now, just go along to get along, sing the party fight song for the elites who do no wrong. The rest of us WILL hold elected officials responsible, regardless of the little letter next to their name.
Here’s a fact for you: There are no current “elected officials” named Bush.
In response to the poster below: And there is no statute of limitations on responsibility. Another “fact” for you.
You lousy COWARD.
You are saying nothing less than, “You can’t criticizem ANYTHING about OUR side!”
Too stupid for a substantial response beyond that, Ione.
(your following posts only confirm this)
Mr. Wallis I have dealt with you before. Twisting my words will not defend your tone deaf stupidity.
I didn’t say you can not critisize anyone from our side and you know it!!I did say I think critisizing the Bushes has gone on long enough. None of them are in office anymore.
I did say it is not wise to beat people on our side to death to the point of allowing the other side (Obama and his friends) to turn the weapon on you. The media has played ‘rope a dope’ with you and you fall for it everytime. They want you to keep bashing the Bushes. It serves the media’s and Democrat’s purposes very well.
But, as usual you and your type of blogger can ONLY resort to name calling when you read what you don’t WANT to read.
And yes, I did say you were tone deaf and stupid. But, people like you only understand a certain type of language. As I said, I’ve dealt with you before. But, it’s the last time. No point in talking to a brick wall.
From an earlier post of yours, drivel boy:
“I didn’t say you would agree with them politically, I just meant they are not all mindless drones that follow the party line. The thinking Democrats I am talking about are the ones that MAKE the party line.”
Just like RINO bottom trawlers and their sycophants (you).
Moran: “Ronald Reagan would have come under heavy criticism from the right for much of what he did during his presidency.”
In fact, I recall that a lot of hawks were upset when Reagan negotiated the arms-reduction treaty with Gorbachev. The Committee on the Present Danger refused to believe that the Cold War was actually ebbing. Their attitude was: The Russians are on the ropes; now is our chance to put our boot on their necks by keeping our arsenal while forcing them to disarm.
Reagan wisely understood that only a win-win deal endures, whether with the Russians or with the Democrats. Ram something through on a straight party-line vote, and you’re guaranteeing that when (not if) the opposition party wins another election in the future, they will get their revenge by trashing what you did. Put our boot on the Russians’ necks, and someday some Hitler-like demagogue will come along in Russia itching for revenge. As his successor, Bush Senior, said, we’re not going to plant the American flag on the Kremlin even if we could.
The problem with political partisans is they NEVER plan ahead for the day when they might actually lose an election again. Their attitude is: We’ve got the power, and we’ll always have the power, the opposition party is dead–so let’s overreach as far as we can.
Bush and Moran don’t seem too interested in how those compromises in the name of responsible governance worked out. In the end, who got what? If the Democrats want a 10 to 1 spending cuts to tax raise trade-off, lets have multi-year, verifiable cuts first. Why should anyone object to that?
Republicans should work with Democrats by forcing Democrats to take a position on issues where their voters, on the one hand, and activists and donors, on the other, disagree–driving a wedge between the naive voters who still think that Democrats are for the “common man” and the professional left would lead to responsible governance.
Republican voters are just a little more difficult to scam today, and the con men at the top don’t like it.
As I recall, the attitude among Republicans was: The Dems will never agree to any immediate cuts now, so let’s not even ask them.
How convenient. That avoids the GOP going on record with proposals for specific cuts. (The people affected by any cuts to any programs all vote.)
You want the GOP to act on principle? Fine. Let them own up to specific programs they want cut.
Many fiscal conservatives (like me) believe that agricultural subsidies should be ended. Guess what, so do many liberals! There you could really have had a bi-partisan agreement for immediate cuts. Of course, the good folks in Iowa would blame the GOP for raising the issue, and Obama would win that state in November. But that’s what happens when you stand on principle.
Yes, you’re right. All the more reason to focus on spending cuts first of all. This is a different issue than that raised by Bush or Moran–they want to make things easier for Republicans in power. To pressure Republicans in the direction you suggest would require an even stronger and more uncompromising Tea Party–one that would make it clear that without committing to specific cuts, you won’t survive a primary. (Although I’m not sure why you think liberals would go along with this, rather than using it as a bludgeon against Republicans.) To make this politically viable, the Republicans would have to get even more “radical,” and directly disable Democrat constituencies–above all, the public sector unions, and the leftist crony capitalists. Then we’ll see what the Bushes say ( but by then who would be listening to them?).
Specific programs??… ok, every one that is not constitutionally mandated. Begin with the Dept of “Education”, and then include the EPA… just for starters.. then you can move on to eliminate all duplication in the Dept of “Health and Human Services” (that sould get about 95% of that Dept alone).. need more? Just take a gander at the Constitution and see what really is the function of the Federal Government..leave the rest to the states and restrict all other Federal spending.
The problem with spending cuts is that they have a Marie Antoinette ‘let them eat cake’ air about them:
- Why should I accept raising the social security age when you’e eating $16 muffins.
- Why should I give up my mortgage interest deduction when the GSA is having million dollar parties in Las Vegas?
- Why should I accept a reduction in medicare while the government is serving filet mignon appetizers at its conferences?
- Why should I give up ANYTHING when the government throws away half a billion dollars on Solyndra?
The American people are actually quite generous and willing to sacrifice, but the federal government must lead by example.
Democrats in the 1980′s (and before) and democrats now ain’t the same animal.
There is no “accommodation” with the current grow government, tax and spend, regulate every aspect of human existence crowd.
zip zilch nada
The Democrats are arguing the Republicans are the reason Obama had to run a sharply partisan administration, but that’s nonsense. Obama didn’t even try to entice Republicans to support health insurance reform, financial services reforms, or any other major initiative of his first term. His imprudence guaranteed solid GOP opposition to his agenda.
Obama’s imperious (not to mention rude) words to John McCain during those meetings he held with select Congressional republicans in order to pretend to solicit their input on healthcare sums it up:
“The election’s over John. You lost.”
Now all Mr. “I won, you lost” can do is complain that those mean old obstructionist republicans are thwarting him, thwarting “the recovery” by refusing to throw more taxpayer cash down the drain.
Such an arrogant, all encompassing narcissist will never admit to himself as the obstacle.
Good comments. Moran doesn’t qualify as ‘moderate’ in my book – more like Democratic operative. And I sincerely hope these opinions represented in the comments are shared by the majority of Americans, or I give us about 24-36 months before America resembles something like failed Europe.
Ronald Reagan is exactly the type of representative the Tea Party seeks. There isn’t a Bush that qualifies as Tea Party spokesperson.
Compromise is exactly what got us $16,000,000,000,000.00 in debt.
Seldom do I quote Rush Limbaugh, but I certainly will this time:
“Compromise is for losers!”
Great, another mendacious article by Rick Moran.
The problem isn’t, and has never been, bipartisanship. It’s what they’re “bi-parting” on. If the grand compromise reduces the size and scope of government then it’s well received by the deranged “True Conservatives”. If, on the other hand, the compromise increases the reach of government, advances the Democratic Party agenda and moves us another milepost down the “road to serfdom” then we “Orthodox, rigid, hidebound, unreasoning Conservatives” get cranky.
The question for today is… does this article presage a Romney Presidency? My concern with Romney is that he’s a “Big Government Conservative”. His vision of what the Big Government should do may differ from Obama’s but his vision is still of the Big Government doing when what we need is much smaller government getting the heck out of the way and allowing The People to do. The People built this country and The Government is steadily destroying it.
Another PJ author preparing the ground, inoculating the electorate for the time when Romney’s true and utter progressivism becomes undeniable. That way; He will be seen as the “moderate” and we as the “extremists”.
Party over country, is the single, true unifying point of “bipartisanship” today.
Rick
Not that hard. You know exactly what conservatives are saying. We have been “accomodated” right into the present situation where the country is falling apart and the government is out of control. That’s enough. No more Bushes, no way, no how!
What has changed is the Democrat Party, no longer does Tip O,Neill, Scoop Jackson, even Hubert Humphrey serve to represent the left-leaning center, instead we get Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other self-anointed “best and brightest”…Plus his O’ness.
How do you compromise with someone who wants to cut off both your legs? Agree to let him cut off one leg?
All this ‘compromise’ is what got us to the point of the Feds bursting into Gibson Guitars with machine guns. It’s what got us to the point of the NLRB telling Boeing it can’t build a factory.
The Marxists on the Left fully understand the tactic of ‘Gradualism’. Put the frog into the water and turn up the head a little at a time. Drag the country leftward a little at a time.
You’d better come to grips with the fact that this is a battle of two cultures. One culture will win and the other will die.
Counterfactuals and hypotheticals are such fun. As Lowry, or someone else at NRO put it: If Reagan were alive, he wouldn’t win the Republican nomination today because he’d be 101 years old.
Once he equates Reagan with ol’ squishy bush, he’s lost the argument. Reagan knew what he was about. Who really thinks Bush the Elder would have had the cojones to stick out 1982 and 3, with Tip and the overwhelmingly Dem congress fighting him at every step? All Tip had to do was whisk him away and shove more of that “compromise” BS towards him, and he caved. I’ve had Bush “statesmanship” up to my eyeballs, and how’s it workin’ out?
I must agree, even though it makes me want to puke, with Jesse: Keep out the Bushes! (He couldn’t even get a simple sentence grammatically correct, the lying moron.)
For one, it’s a mistake to compare in such a way for the context is always different. republicans today are not dealing with the relatively moderate Democrats of the early 80′s, rather a polticized, radicalized, jaded, cynical on driven by both virulent Leftist ideology as well as power-mad ambition. A moderate today is not a moderate of then. Today a moderate is one who, when the Left screams “We must burn down ten buildings now!!!!” will sanctimoniously pontificate that we must be reasonable and only burn down five. Bah.
What has accommodation, negotiation, and bi-partisanship gotten us? Under Reagan, we got the promise of tax cuts, yet none materialized. It also got us almost 16 trillion in debt, the fed, and many socialist policies. What ever happened to principle? Standing up for what is right?
It is understandable what Reagan had to do, since for a good portion of his Presidency, he had a democrat controlled congress. The republican congress of 1994 didn’t compromise and they pulled a kicking and screaming BJ Clinton towards center, gave us 4 straight years of a balanced budget, reformed welfare, and actually started paying down our debt.
The main problem with working across the aisle is when Republicans say they want compromise, they truly mean compromise, when Democrats say compromise, they mean do it my way. This has been shown again and again.
The democrats refused to negotiate when they help a majority in both houses and with obama as President and they still had to resort to bribery to pass many of their bills.
This is not the American way, this is not what the founders envisioned when they debated and ratifies the Constitution.
Moran’s role seems to be to unite (incite) the libertarian fiscal-conservative minded readers here. No one likes Jeb or the other Bushes because they are big spenders. Compassionate conservatism is just an euphemism for increasing the role of government. That has got us to the brink of fiscal collapse. Collaborate with the dems. What the hell for? You think being a ‘moderate’ Republican is noble Moran. It is extreme and it is stupid.
Look, Reagan in his era always talked a very straight conservative line, and was always very believable. Conservatives had a lot of affection for him, the same sort of affection that today they have for Sarah Palin. When he was in office and had to compromise, conservative voters by and large believed that was the best action for the conservative cause, the same way they would believe similar compromises by Sarah Palin today.
When someone like Romney talks conservative but sounds off key, which is practically every time he tries it, conservative voters will — because he sounds off-key — tend not believe that his compromises are the best action for the conservative cause. When Jeb Bush talks about how great compromise is ** before ** he is even in office, then you know something’s up that is not going to please conservative voters. At a guess, Jeb is angling for some sort of major media post — perhaps something like Karl Rove’s — and this is how he has chosen to “kiss the ring of the pope”.
The Road To RINO Hell Is Paved With Liberal-Approved “Good Intentions.”
The pushback by Conservatives against the so-called enlighted GOP Elites is the result of creeping capitulation to the extreme left.
Obama & Company are the extremists and mark my word… RINOs are on political notice: Dancing With The Devil Is A Road To Political Hell.
The author’s idea of bipartisanshipyhu equates to the proverbial sheep agreeing with the wolve’s over what’s for dinner.
I hope no Bush could get nominated today, especially Jeb.
Some folks do not comprehend the difference between negotiations and surrender.
Chamberlain and Quisling would be feted by some of these same individuals for their “ability” to “compromise”.
This type of squalid pandering to one’s enemy is pawned off as “moderation”. What sheer and utter bovine excrement.
In order to “negotiate in good faith” one must have a willing partner. Mediation is not any more capable of rational outcome with an intransigent and dishonest party on a macro level than it is on a micro level. I founded/owned a mediation/arbitration firm. I taught mediation. While it has a reputation for giving “half a loaf”, that isn’t it’s purpose, mission or core.
I don’t dislike Jeb Bush. But he was wrong for his statement here and watering it down to make it sound more palatable would take greater skills than Mr. Moran possesses as a writer or a thinker. But not more intellectual dishonesty.
Reagan and Bush would receive criticism from hard liners no matter what era, if the hard liners believed they were giving too much in the “give and take” of politics.
But Reagan never had the image of being “squishy” on Communism. Far from it.
And Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would have both been much more upfront about today’s brand of what Bill Ayers calls “small c communism” than our current politicians and “moderate” pundits are. They run away from it squealing like little girls.
Moran gives independents and moderates a bad name. (see also, Brooks, Frum, Noonan, Parker et al). This particularly noxious brand of writer seems to go out of their way to make cloying plays for currying favor with leftist ideology cultists by slamming conservatives with illogical and unseemly attacks on their integrity.
I don’t know what they hope to accomplish, whatever it is, it doesn’t work…it merely makes them look like sniveling toadies.
If I can accomplish anything here, I would like readers and commenters to make a distinction between the Chamberlain/Quisling crowd and true independents.
Although I do not march in lockstep on every issue, when I see an enemy take enemy action, I come out forcefully against that action. I despise small c communism and I do not shirk from announcing that it exists and that I fervently oppose it with every fiber of my being.
It is easy for a “moderate” to fall into the trap of overstating the case against hard liners, suggesting as Jeb Bush did, that “even a Reagan” would have a hard time in this modern party. That does a disservice to all of us fighting the small c communists and their Propaganda and Lies Ministry.
Jeb Bush was wrong on multiple levels. Dead wrong. Reagan would have won this nomination in a landslide. He just would not have found anyone on the other side with whom to negotiate. And THAT is where Moran and Brooks and Parker and Noonan have fallen down on the job as well.
Here’s ONE reason to “dislike” Jeb Bush:
As Florida Governor, he “nationalized” (i.e. made a private sector service a STATE RUN and CONTROLLED service) home insurance…driving almost all companies out of the state.
What an a§§.
And just how did he do that? Did he do it with an E.O, and, if so, has any one of the “true conservatives” challenged his authority to do it or its constitutionalisty? Did he bind and gag both bodies of the State Legislature and force them to pass legislation? Did he wave a magic sceptre? Or did he sign legislation lawfully passed by a duly constituted legislature?
You “true conservatives” seem often to forget that a state’s governor, e.g., Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush, or even a President, e.g., GWB, CANNOT enact any legislation, can lawfully use Executive or Administrative Orders within very narrow confines, and cannot promulgate regulations except within the scope of the delegation from the legislative branch. But that little stuff like how a government really works just doesn’t mean much to the mighty RINO hunters.
Artless, look up Florida legislative history if you wish to see how it came about. It came about under his stewardship. But RINOs like you can’t come to grips with responsibility (neener neener phhht).
I don’t even care how it came about. I just know that you “true conservative” idiots don’t have a clue how governments work and if your policy prescriptions were followed, you’d maybe hold two or three districts in the rural South or Intermountain West.
I have no idea?!? Art, you’re addressing a former Federal employee who worked as Liaison with Congress under a past President. I PITY YOU, FOOL.
There are three or four million federal employees, a few thousand of them are even competent, so I’m not impressed that you were once a fed – I was too for a very short time – and a legislative liason is merely a messenger boy unless s/he’s the liason between the agency head or the White House and Congress. So, color me unimpressed and you’re still an idiot.
No. Left of center Romney won the nomination, so Reagan would in fact have been rejected as being far too conservative.
By you, among other people.
So tired of Rick Moran. Usually don’t click on his articles anymore. Wish I hadn’t this time either.
Sure, republicans are swell.
And lobotomies are preferable to death by fire.
The way our system works, you don’t get the choice you want. Somehow, the other guys manage to get their fire-breathing extremists on the ballot (pretending to be Mr. Rogers, of course), but what we get are the guys who have made a careeer suckling at their extremists teets.
In a slightly more sane world, Romney would be the big-government, anti-freedom, big-spending elitist we would be ousting from office. But sadly, he is simply the guy who is better than the even worse alternative.
I don’t like the term RINO because it implies there is something sacred about the Republican party. CINO I could go for, or even LINO; but anybody defending Jeb Bush after all that has been revealed about Dubya’s performance is part of the problem, not even close to being part of the solution.
What’s with these Bushes? Like his father and brother, Jeb seems to have a strange disconnect between his speech centers and the rest of his brain. He says things that make no sense. He has no feel for history. Words are just sounds.
Reagan was a superb negotiator. He knew when to walk away from the table and he knew when to make a deal. Even a political neophyte would know that the first two years of the Obama administration was no time to make deals. If they’d breathed a word of that, they’d have been walked all over. Negotiation only works when you can deal from strength. His first term was dedicated to getting to the point where we could negotiate with the Soviet Union from a position of strength.
What a buffoon.
And thus the ‘moderate voice’ of the Republican party spoke.
Mr. Moran showed his true color during the 2010 election cycle. His own preferred candidates lost and he was too busy tearing down whom Republican primary voters chose.
I see that he hasn’t changed. The rubes are just too dumb to figure out what’s good for us. We should all just trust our betters.
I respect Jeb Bush and voted for him twice as Governor, with no regrets. But fear his memory is lacking as to why Daddy lost to WJC, cooperation and eventual back stabbing by Tip O’Neil and the 91 tax hike, Did daddy in.
Once the electorate is driven insane RINO’s will look back fondly on when they were only being ignored rather than shot.
I believe that Reagan would have an easier time being nominated by the current Republican team than FDR would have being nominated by the current Democratic team which is so beholding to public sector unions, an animal that FDR staunchly opposed!
Jeb Bush is okay in what he has done in Florida, but his comments are off the reservation. One can compromise on the means to achieving ones goals politically. One cannot compromise on one’s values. One can either be true to those values or be inadequate and betray them. Accepting the clearly unacceptable marxist statist progressive tilt, and the NWO agenda, and not upholding the clear and concisely stated intent of the Constitution is not compromise, but BETRAYAL. Letting the left and the media frame the argument as necessity for COMPROMISE is incompetence resulting in BETRAYAL. Incompetence of that sort is simply one criterion for rejection of the agent who enables it and espouses it as a virtue.
A little thought experiment: Ronald Reagan is brought back from the dead and given the body and mind he had in the early 1980s, term limits are abolished, and he decides to run for president again. Rick, are you SERIOUSLY arguing that he would be rejected by Republican voters and the Republican Party?
With all due respect, this is the most transparent nonsense I’ve ever read.
The key to truly an efffective compromise as opposed to a spineless sell-out is knowing precisely what is negotiable, and what is not. Reagan was the master of knowing the difference. As he told Tip O’Neill, “You might make me crap a pineapple, but you can’t make me crap a cactus.”
The difference between Reagan’s time and today is that the Democrats of his time consisted of sufficient center/left members with whom he could reach out to achieve workable majorities; today’s Democrats range all the way from left-of-center to batsh*t crazy left. There might be a handful of true Blue-dogs in the mix, but most are simply trained poodles who never wander off the reservation without permission from Madame Pelosi or Comrade Harry.
Interesting that all the first two dozen comments here were devastatingly on point and cogent, When I go the THE BLAZE after a good article all I run into is TROLLS. It is not the Blaze’s fault, but apparently the readership. Anyway, I would have “liked” every comment here that I have read, except there appears no such box to check.
Mr. Moran you are full of RINO Crap, no conservative ask for any Bush to run other than those RINO elites, get over yourselves! Compromising on principles has only brought US huge debt/deficits, dumbed down education system, bankrupt cities/states, and encroachment on liberties and freedom.
You might have asked for the Bushes, but most have more than enough of them.
Moran is a RINO. The last article on PJ, he starts out by bashing Sarah Palin. He bashed her on blogs he writes for American Thinker. Now, he bashes those in the Republican party that are sick of RINOs…Like it or not, Mr. Moron, Jeb Bush is indeed a RINO. We don’t need him, or you, for that matter, pal…
My guess is that those who praise Jeb now were not residents of Florida during his 8 years as Governor.Had they lived through his 8 year term they would know that Jeb did what he felt was right and appropriate and he was well known for his “attitude” – “My way or the highway,” which is why he was one of the most successful governors in the history of the state.
How do I know? I lived here, and still do; supported him; contributed to him and voted for him, twice.
If any one has any doubts they can go to the left wing St. Petersburg Times archives, which will demonstrate that he had the editorial gang apoplectic on a regular basis.
My next guess is that Jeb would never had uttered his comment if he was running for office at this time – bet on it.
It’s called politics.
Rick-
Very thought-provoking post, but I think you are off the mark a tad. “The right” has coalesced around Romney much more quickly than I ever imagined. If this was his way of trying to rally people around Romney, he’s sort of late to the party. His timing, I think, is what has many frustrated with him, and he should know well the liberal media would love nothing more than to cover a supposed crack-up in the Republican party for the next four months rather than the one currently taking place among Democrats. It’s just really curious timing for a discussion on the direction of the party. “Away from Obama, Reid, and Pelosi” will suffice until November, and Romney has another thing coming if he thinks his will be another Republican presidency of “compassionate conservatism”. Republicans owe 90% of any relevance they have today to the Tea Party and they would do well to remember that. I certainly agree with you that trying to destroy a Rubio or even a Scott Brown because they don’t vote in lock-step with what you might believe is counterproductive. Doesn’t mean we can’t hold their feet to the fire to some extent, however. Jeb was a popular governor, but saying nothing would have been more helpful if defeating Obama is anywhere on his priority list.
Whoa there fellow! There is a BIG difference between “working with” Democrats on a bipartisan basis to cut taxes and spending, and working with Democrats to reach agreement on how much to INCREASE taxes and spending.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I dare say there is not a Tea Party activist out there who would not be willing to compromise with Democrats in a negotiation over how much to cut taxes and spending. We say cut taxes by 20%, they say cut them by 10%, we split the difference at 15%, shake hands and go home.
I would ask the author of this column, who seems to be reading from the Democratic dictionary of bipartisanship, one question. How do you split the difference between cutting spending by 10% and increasing spending by 10%? Therein lies the fallacy of trying to compromise with people who hold diametrically opposed views of what the actual problem is. What purpose would be served for Republicans to agree to “only” a 5% increase? They would lose more ground by “compromising” than to have done nothing at all.
Re 62 Sandman:
Amen to all that, though I’m not as charitable as you are. What worries most: what you say ought to be obvious to all, but it clearly isn’t. I’d never heard of Mr. Moran before and this is the first article of his I’ve read BUT… the type is familiar: a stale mix of light content, weak principles and medium-heavy sarcasm, all leavened by a tendency to hop around like a poodle in need of a wee. Especially annoying: the twee attempts in the early paragraphs to tap-dance around Godwin’s law. Perhaps we’re meant to be dazzled?
Many no longer have any long-term interest in the GOP, a simple truth that baffles men like Moran. We do, of course, understand the need to make short-term tactical moves that calibrate dislike for Romney well enough to ensure Obama’s defeat. The hard work, heavy lifting and strategic moves all happen after inauguration, the opening shots in a fight that will last decades. From here on out, the GOP is just a tool to be tossed as soon as expedient.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Romney is elected president.
A powerful close in deathless prose? Nah, just the words of an author without a clue.
I wonder if it isn’t possible that, it isn’t the republican party that has changed.
I think Bush the second, would have compromised with the democrats, and Romney will compromise with the democrats, if the democrats had been/would be more reasonable.
Maybe it isn’t the republican party that has changed in the last 20 years, maybe the problem is that the democratic party has gone so hard to the ideological left that the only way to compromise with them is to convince them to settle on “just left of center” instead of “hard left” (think Bill Clinton vs. Obama) and people on the right see what leftist policies (even those policies just left of center) have done to this country, to our economy, can now see what the policies are leading to – the destruction of our economy, our nation and our way of life – and aren’t willing to give in to that anymore. We’ve been giving in to the left for decades. It’s what created the Tea Parties.
There is some wisdom to what you say.
Once again another ignorant column by Rick Moran. One wonders why he continues to be used. He got whacked mightily at American Thinker and needs to be whacked again.
Rick the party has fully embraced Reagan because of all the Republican presidents in the last 50 years he was by far and away the most successful. It isn’t about compromise and never was. It is about wisdom and knowing when to compromise and when not to. Reagan had that, none of the others did, and it is doubtful Romney will ever be in that position. We have settled in the past hence the reason we got Nixon, ford, Dole Bush I, Bush II, and then McCain. We have settled and compromised ourselves all the way to the precipice of the cliff in the name of democracy. Well not any more especially when it is conservatives that are doing the only compromising out there. Not the RINO’s and certainly not the Progressives.
Not your father’s PJMedia, either.
> For his trouble, Jeb has now been branded a RINO, having angered that perpetually outraged faction of right wingers whose self-appointed duties include keeping party members on the straight and narrow — and unthinking path — of “true” conservatism.
So who appointed you, Mr. Moran?
And hear I thought the “unthinking” crowd just lined up without complaint behind anointed “leaders” like anyone named Bush. . . guess I over-thought it.
So let me get this straight. It was okay for the dems to demonize and reject the immeninently qualified Judge Bork for the SCOUS but today’s Republicans are simply obstructionists and irrational for blocking a number of the ONE’s nominees for the bench. Get a grip!
Reagan wasn’t dealing with a Marxist Democratic party.