Government shutdown panic gives American mainstream media hacks an opportunity to combine laziness and hyperbole in ways that are extraordinary even for a profession that’s become known for both. In the media telling of the story, Earth will spin off of its axis if the United States federal government is out of commission for even mere moments. I wrote a VIP column last week (use promo code KRUISERMB here to subscribe at a discount) that went over how many of these shutdown freakouts I’ve been through. The prophesies of gloom and doom never materialized.
As I pointed out in that column, the gist of the media shutdown hysteria is just another reason to whine about Republicans. In the Democrat orthodoxy, thou shalt not oppose federal spending of any kind. Any conservative who does is guilty of trying to kill grandma, make THE CHILDREN ignorant, and, as always, racism.
I can prove that I’m not a racist because the effort it takes just trying to kill grandma and making the children ignorant leaves me no energy for anything else.
This recent shutdown brouhaha provided an extra special opportunity for the Dems and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media, as it was filled with an added dose of Republican infighting and the GOP primary season is already heating up. This gives them more opportunity to trot out Republicans of yesteryear to shake a stern finger at those who won’t roll merrily along with their preferred agenda. For example, the nation’s Newspaper of Record dug up a former GOP congressman named Bob Inglis, who has been out of office for more than a dozen years, all so he could tell the Republicans in Congress to “grow up.”
Inglis served two different stints in the House, and his second go-round tells you everything you need to know about him.
In 2005, I returned to Congress for six more years, until the Tea Party criticized me in a Republican primary in 2010 for various heresies: voting for President George W. Bush’s rescue of the banks, supporting comprehensive immigration reform, voting against the troop surge in Iraq out of conservative concern over nation-building and, most enduring of all, saying that climate change was real and proposing a revenue-neutral, border-adjustable carbon tax to solve it. (My son had gotten to me on climate change. A House Science Committee trip to Antarctica had shown me the evidence. And on another Science Committee trip at the Great Barrier Reef, an Aussie climate scientist had inspired me with his desire to love God and love people by making conservation changes in his own life.)
Any squish who was rightly outed by those of us in the Tea Party movement and is still complaining about it needs a therapist, not a bully pulpit sponsored by the MSM.
The common theme that runs through every concern trolling lecture like this from a failed Republican is that Republicans need to be more like Democrats. Inglis was run out of office because he decided that sucking up to the Democrats on immigration and climate change was a good idea. In fact, Congressman Failure here spends more time in this column pompously lecturing about climate change and lamenting the fact that Republicans like him didn’t jump to the left sooner on the issue.
Inglis misconstrues his lack of fortitude as a sign of maturity. He oozes unearned arrogance because the New York Times pumped him full of a sense of usefulness that he’s too stupid to understand is fleeting. The MSM regularly collects and chews up the likes of Inglis. There’s always a nice paycheck waiting for any failed Republican who is willing to give a verbal knife in the back to his or her own party.
Another common thread that runs through stories like this is that the Republican doing the lecturing is no longer in office, usually because voters prefer it that way. The only other way for a Republican to get a pat on the head from the media is to be dead.
We’re going to see more of this kind of posturing than ever before because the Democrats desperately need to gin up the tension between Trump and non-Trump Republicans. There will be plenty of that developing organically, but the MSM needs to make sure that an 11th hour détente doesn’t develop between the two factions.
Your advice, Mr. Inglis, has been duly noted and will be rejected by any Republican in office who is, in fact, grown up. Crawl back into your den of irrelevance and get to work on aiding and abetting the people who want to destroy the country.
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