How to Tell Your Party’s Been in Power Too Long
Greg Tinti, official groundlings correspondent of Outside the Beltway, seems dumbfounded that people whose politics lead them to oppose the President of the United States would prefer the Opposition Party select a senate candidate who . . . opposes the President of the United States. More than nominally. The GOP has controlled all three branches of the government long enough now that the very idea of vigorous opposition seems somehow scandalous to its loyalists. The fact that Republican partisans like Greg Tinti are Lieberman’s biggest fans suggests that he’d make a dandy Republican Senator, but - Politics 101 here - the Democratic Primary isn’t about picking a Republican Senator. Just as William F. Buckley and Power Line’s Paul endorsed Pat Toomey over Arlen Specter during the 2004 Pennsylvania Senate Primary for being too liberal - the Power Line item is entitled “Worse Than SMERSH,” which makes Specter a goddam commie; there’s some “civility” for you - more liberal and antiwar blogs and editorial boards are endorsing Lamont over Lieberman. As Power Line puts it, in what is surely one of the few sensible things to appear on that site, “The time to consider a pragmatic vote for Specter will be in November . . . ”
There’s no mystery to this, unless you’ve mistaken a couple of favorable election cycles for the mandate of heaven, which is what the 30-odd percent of America that remains in the Bush loyalist camp has done.
Comment by Vance Maverick —
July 31, 2006 @ 2:41 am
”for being too liberal” s/b ”on the grounds that Specter was too liberal”
Comment by abb1 —
July 31, 2006 @ 4:43 am
“Worse Than SMERSH,”
Huh? What’s wrong with SMERSH? Wasn’t it the Soviet counterintelligence service created specifically to fight the Nazis in the WWII?
Are these Power Line folks a bunch of open Nazi sympathizers, then?
Comment by Hesiod —
July 31, 2006 @ 8:03 am
Hey Jim.
I’m surprised you haven’t blogged about the attack on the Jewish Federation in Seattle last week by an angry Pakistani muslim who said he hates Israel.
A) It highlights the very problem you have been discussing about trying to prevent domestic terrorism from sprouting in the US.
B) The total lack of national obsessive coverage about the attack, as compared to the over-hyped ”terrorism” plot by that scam artist in Miami, makes for an interestiung juxtiposition.
Comment by Hesiod —
July 31, 2006 @ 8:14 am
What I find most interesting is the, well-Commist/Fascist like devotion that 30-35% of the public has to George W. Bush.
I mean, even Tony Blair, who is otherwise very effective as British Primei Minsiter, is currently at 23% in the polls!
So doe sthis mean that the British publis is:
A) Smarter than the US public?
B) Better INFORMED than the US public?
C) That the British Public had much higher expectations for Blair than the US public has for Bush
D) Blair is objectively a worse leader than George W. Bush? [Although, admittedly, Bush’s approval rating in Britain is probably in the single digits right now]
I have to say that I would be far more sanguine about this country’s future if Bush were conmfortably scoring in the 20’s in opinion polls. In the US, each percentage point equates to about a million adults! Most people kind of look at public opinion polls in the abstract. But they represent actual opinions of actual, you know, people!
So, if Bush were at 25% rather than 35% that would be about 10 million less totally insane zealots sympathetic to fascism living amongst us. The current situation should make George A. Romero cower in fear.
Comment by Barry —
July 31, 2006 @ 8:48 am
I’m not sure of that particular guy (I’ve not read OTB for a while), I figured out the lie of the main guy pretty quickly, after Katrina. He compared FEMA’s Real Soon Now attitude to efforts in Bangladesh. There were at least two hurricanes striking Florida (i.e., Swing State) during 2004 (i.e., election year), and FEMA was not only on the ball, but was set up beforehand.
So, I saw a poli sci professor ignoring an intra-country comparison for a first-to-third world inter-country comparison, and smelled a rat. Nothing since then has changed my view.
To be honest, I had already smelled a rat, since ’outside the Beltway’ was a favorite phrase of the WSJ editorial page. There are very, very few people in the USA who are more ’inside the Beltway’ than the editors of the WSJ editorial page, no matter that they live in NYC.
Comment by abb1 —
July 31, 2006 @ 8:56 am
…Commist/Fascist like devotion…
I think it’s quite typical for an empire at its height. Glorious leader is the symbol of an imperial nation, like Bonaparte or Stalin; and who cares about Blair, what is he a symbol of - a part of the EU?
Comment by Hesiod —
July 31, 2006 @ 9:20 am
In Bonaparte’s case, he was actually, well. commpetent. The Gvt’s he imposed in the countries France occupied were actually more a product of the enlightenment than before of just after the French control.
And in Stalin’s case, he had a massive state terroro apparatus, as well as comlete control of the media and culture to enforce devotion to himself.
What the hell explains Bush?
Comment by Steve —
July 31, 2006 @ 9:49 am
Glorious leader is the symbol of an imperial nation, like Bonaparte or Stalin…
You know, I’ve been reading more about the Dreyfus Affair with an eye towards the current state of things. Nothing new under the sun, etc.
Comment by abb1 —
July 31, 2006 @ 9:49 am
Bush acts decisively, drops bombs on people, invades foreign countries, talks tough, everyone in the world is afraid of him, ’shock and awe’ and so on. To many people it’s a sign of greatness, great leader’s quality.
Comment by Jennifer —
July 31, 2006 @ 10:46 am
”What the hell explains Bush?”
I think it’s ”the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Let’s see, I hate gay-rights people, and gay-rights people hate Bush, which means Bush MUST be doing SOMETHING right, and secular humanists also have a low opinion of the man which means he’s now two for two. . . .