Republican Revolt & the Comeback of Common Sense
"The rebels were not whistle-blowers in the traditional sense…They were not downtrodden career civil-servants. Rather, they were conservative political appointees who had been friends and close colleagues of some of the true believers they were fighting against…They did not see the struggle in terms of black and white but in shades of gray…"
Article in Newsweek magazine, "Palace Revolt", February 6, 2006
"This party that sometimes I don't recognize anymore has presided over the largest growth of government in the history of this country and maybe even the history of man….When I think of issues like Iraq, of how we went into it--no planning, no preparation, no sense of consequences, of where we were going, how we were going to get out, went in without enough men, no exit strategy…I'll speak out. I'll go against my party."
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, in a recent cover story for the Sunday New York Times Magazine
"Bill Clinton's fiscal and economic approach produced results conservatives should have hailed…At least on economic policy, there is much to praise and little to criticize in terms of what was actually done (or not done) on his watch."
Conservative analyst Bruce Bartlett, in his new book, "IMPOSTER: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."
"McCain is finding new chums among the same Republicans who invested so much to keep him out of the White House six years ago…even though…his maverick bent has alienated many in his party."
Article in Time magazine, "The Establishment's Pick?", February 20, 2006.
"It's easy for a White House skilled at the art of the permanent campaign to dismiss Democratic criticism as politics as usual. It's far harder, however, to discount the increasingly vocal concerns of those on the president's own side of the aisle."
Editorial, Boston Globe, "A Reassertion of GOP Common Sense," February 14, 2006.
I wondered when it was going to happen, when the winds were going to shift.
Six years ago--really, back further than that, going all the way back to Newt Gingrich's so-called, "Contract With America" and the takeover of Congress by the Republican party in 1996--I had this uncomfortable feeling that has since grown into full alarm, that the Republican party was hi-jacked by the far right and kept hostage for nearly a decade.
With help from right-wing talk-show idealogues, powerful right-wing publishers and media moguls--extremists from the far right set out an agenda and went about bulldozing it through the wall of government and over the prostrate bodies of the American people--a majority of whom really didn't want it.
Both parties have extreme ideological wings who can be very vocal, both on the Internet and the airwaves, howling to the moon about their respective injustices and injuries. And on both sides, there are one-issue voters. On the left are peace activists, abortion rights activists, labor unions, consumer advocates, and environmentalists who will nearly always vote Democratic. On the right, there are religious fundamentalists, energy, pharmaceutical, and insurance-company activists, the NRA, and fiscal conservatives who are nearly always going to vote Republican.
These groups either make the most noise and folderol or spend the most money to get their points across.
But in the vast hinterlands of the American middle, there are centrists. Moderates from both parties, independent-minded thinkers, and those who just don't pay that much attention until a political campaign is underway and then can't seem to make up their minds--these are all people who make up the Big Middle of American political thought.
The far right and the far left will fight to the death to win the votes of that bunch, and starting about eight years ago, the Republicans captured most of those votes. People who were not necessarily all that conservative went ahead and voted Republican because they were either uncomfortable with the Democratic alternative or voted on a single issue, like gay marriage or national security.
Unfortunately, the ideologues on the far right of the party seized control of the Republican party, and through some of the most hammer-fisted bullying techniques I have ever witnessed in politics, they managed to gag and bind anyone in their party who disagreed with them. Those who did speak out were either defeated at the polls by unprecedented amounts of money thrown against them at the primary level, or were either forced out or smeared if they managed to take or keep office.
Many of you may not realize that when Senator John McCain was running for the Republican nomination back in 2000, the Bush-Cheney-Rove smear machine set up a persistent whispering campaign to the effect that his years as a POW in Vietnam had left him crazy. Years later, while appearing on a nationally televised program with the president, McCain flat-out stated how badly those tactics had hurt his feelings. After some stammering and stuttering, Bush, to his credit, did apologize.
Even some conservatives who agreed on the issues, disagreed with the underhanded tactics, and when those who accumulated vast amounts of power grew mad with it, those thinking conservatives were aghast at what was done in the name of that power, such as pork-barrel run amok, or congressional intervention in a painful private matter (the Terry Schaivo case), or the out-of-control deficit. Many felt betrayed by their own party.
This is the atmosphere in which politics has festered and turned putrid in recent years. Long-time politicians on both sides of the aisle say they have never seen a more poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C. At its worst, it has virtually shut down the government.
In that void, and in the name of "national security," this White House has moved swiftly to seize as much power as it can get away with, usually in secret, and often on the outer limits of the law.
For a long time, if members of their own party tried to speak out as a voice of reason, they were either haughtily ignored or brutally punished in ways both public and private, and for a long time, the White House got away with it.
But the winds are shifting.
For one thing, a restless American public is beginning to awaken from its five-year bout of 9-11 post-traumatic stress syndrome, look around, and say….waaaait a minute…What's going on here?
As more evidence comes to harsh light that we were lied into invading Iraq, and as more American men and women die there, people are starting to ask questions and to look past the gigantic flags waving in their faces to demand answers.
As corruption and cronyism from the top down comes to light and the exposed cock roaches run to hide behind plea bargains, people are beginning to ask serious questions of their elected representatives.
As disasters like Katrina and its aftermath are mismanaged and mishandled by the White House to such an extent that a Republican panel's own investigation was titled, A Failure in Initiative, more and more people are growing more and more outraged.
And finally, at long last, common-sense Republicans have squirmed out of their ropes and spit out their gags, and they are saying, enough.
Behind the scenes, a handful of brave and careful-thinking conservative legal minds such as former deputy attorney general, James Comey, and former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, rose up and fought the White House on such issues as torturing suspects, scooping up American citizens and shipping them off to prison without access to lawyers or even criminal charges being leveled, and wiretapping Americans without court oversight.
In Congress, more and more have been willing to speak out, on the record, like Rep. Heather Wilson, Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Mike DeWine, and Sen. Chuck Hagel.
They're not just questioning the administration's policies, but also demanding answers on their actions in Iraq, the Gulf Coast, the budget, and other outrages.
The White House scoffs at these pioneers, pointing out that they're in tight elections back home, or they're "mavericks" who like to criticize the president.
But the winds are shifting.
Elections are decided, not by Karl Rove, but by the PEOPLE. Congressional representatives are questioning the White House because their CONSTITUENTS demand it.
Brave lawyers in the Justice Department are standing up and being counted not because they are running for election but because the CONSTITUTION demands it.
And the American people are starting to ask questions of this administration because COMMON SENSE demands it.
In a powerful piece in Newsweek called "Palace Revolt," about those Justice Department lawyers who refused to give down under relentless White House pressure tactics because they stood firm on the Constitution, one of these heroes, former deputy attorney general James Comer (derisively nick-named "Cuomer" by Bush because he was comparing him to liberal NY politician Mario Cuomo), finally left the Justice Department and took a job with Harvard Law.
In his farewell speech, he thanked the people who, "were committed to getting it right--and to doing the right thing--whatever the price." Some of those people (like himself) he went on to say, did pay a price, when they were forced out of the Bush administration.
So, he goes to Harvard Law--that bastion of knee-jerk liberalism, right? And for a while, anyway, this good man was snubbed and mocked, (here, Newsweek quotes The Harvard Crimson), as "an atrocity-abetting war criminal."
They didn't know, you see, how hard he had worked behind the scenes to stop those very atrocities.
Let this be a lesson to all of us. As mid-term elections approach, extremists on either side should beware of automatic characterizations of anyone in any party as "liberal" or "right-wing." They should think twice about lumping a party member into the extremes of his party.
Instead, they should study carefully his or her actions--not just words, which are cheap in an election year--but get a feel for the candidate's history of common-sense thought, negotiation, compromise, and the other hallmarks of governance that get things done.
Liberals should be careful about dismissing any Republican by painting them with that raggedy old Bush brush, and conservatives should be careful about dismissing any Democrat as a "bleeding-heart liberal," and see, instead, if this person stands on sound personal principles and is capable of governing with pragmatism.
As a person whose convictions flamed into outrage during what I like to call the "Clinton Crucifixion" years, I would have liked to have seen more of these brave Republicans bare their teeth at the extremists who ramrodded their policies onto the rest of us…but as a political realist I understand the nature and machinations of government.
I salute all of them who speak out now, who fight for right no matter what the consequences, and who hail the comeback of common sense.
Article in Newsweek magazine, "Palace Revolt", February 6, 2006
"This party that sometimes I don't recognize anymore has presided over the largest growth of government in the history of this country and maybe even the history of man….When I think of issues like Iraq, of how we went into it--no planning, no preparation, no sense of consequences, of where we were going, how we were going to get out, went in without enough men, no exit strategy…I'll speak out. I'll go against my party."
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, in a recent cover story for the Sunday New York Times Magazine
"Bill Clinton's fiscal and economic approach produced results conservatives should have hailed…At least on economic policy, there is much to praise and little to criticize in terms of what was actually done (or not done) on his watch."
Conservative analyst Bruce Bartlett, in his new book, "IMPOSTER: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."
"McCain is finding new chums among the same Republicans who invested so much to keep him out of the White House six years ago…even though…his maverick bent has alienated many in his party."
Article in Time magazine, "The Establishment's Pick?", February 20, 2006.
"It's easy for a White House skilled at the art of the permanent campaign to dismiss Democratic criticism as politics as usual. It's far harder, however, to discount the increasingly vocal concerns of those on the president's own side of the aisle."
Editorial, Boston Globe, "A Reassertion of GOP Common Sense," February 14, 2006.
I wondered when it was going to happen, when the winds were going to shift.
Six years ago--really, back further than that, going all the way back to Newt Gingrich's so-called, "Contract With America" and the takeover of Congress by the Republican party in 1996--I had this uncomfortable feeling that has since grown into full alarm, that the Republican party was hi-jacked by the far right and kept hostage for nearly a decade.
With help from right-wing talk-show idealogues, powerful right-wing publishers and media moguls--extremists from the far right set out an agenda and went about bulldozing it through the wall of government and over the prostrate bodies of the American people--a majority of whom really didn't want it.
Both parties have extreme ideological wings who can be very vocal, both on the Internet and the airwaves, howling to the moon about their respective injustices and injuries. And on both sides, there are one-issue voters. On the left are peace activists, abortion rights activists, labor unions, consumer advocates, and environmentalists who will nearly always vote Democratic. On the right, there are religious fundamentalists, energy, pharmaceutical, and insurance-company activists, the NRA, and fiscal conservatives who are nearly always going to vote Republican.
These groups either make the most noise and folderol or spend the most money to get their points across.
But in the vast hinterlands of the American middle, there are centrists. Moderates from both parties, independent-minded thinkers, and those who just don't pay that much attention until a political campaign is underway and then can't seem to make up their minds--these are all people who make up the Big Middle of American political thought.
The far right and the far left will fight to the death to win the votes of that bunch, and starting about eight years ago, the Republicans captured most of those votes. People who were not necessarily all that conservative went ahead and voted Republican because they were either uncomfortable with the Democratic alternative or voted on a single issue, like gay marriage or national security.
Unfortunately, the ideologues on the far right of the party seized control of the Republican party, and through some of the most hammer-fisted bullying techniques I have ever witnessed in politics, they managed to gag and bind anyone in their party who disagreed with them. Those who did speak out were either defeated at the polls by unprecedented amounts of money thrown against them at the primary level, or were either forced out or smeared if they managed to take or keep office.
Many of you may not realize that when Senator John McCain was running for the Republican nomination back in 2000, the Bush-Cheney-Rove smear machine set up a persistent whispering campaign to the effect that his years as a POW in Vietnam had left him crazy. Years later, while appearing on a nationally televised program with the president, McCain flat-out stated how badly those tactics had hurt his feelings. After some stammering and stuttering, Bush, to his credit, did apologize.
Even some conservatives who agreed on the issues, disagreed with the underhanded tactics, and when those who accumulated vast amounts of power grew mad with it, those thinking conservatives were aghast at what was done in the name of that power, such as pork-barrel run amok, or congressional intervention in a painful private matter (the Terry Schaivo case), or the out-of-control deficit. Many felt betrayed by their own party.
This is the atmosphere in which politics has festered and turned putrid in recent years. Long-time politicians on both sides of the aisle say they have never seen a more poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C. At its worst, it has virtually shut down the government.
In that void, and in the name of "national security," this White House has moved swiftly to seize as much power as it can get away with, usually in secret, and often on the outer limits of the law.
For a long time, if members of their own party tried to speak out as a voice of reason, they were either haughtily ignored or brutally punished in ways both public and private, and for a long time, the White House got away with it.
But the winds are shifting.
For one thing, a restless American public is beginning to awaken from its five-year bout of 9-11 post-traumatic stress syndrome, look around, and say….waaaait a minute…What's going on here?
As more evidence comes to harsh light that we were lied into invading Iraq, and as more American men and women die there, people are starting to ask questions and to look past the gigantic flags waving in their faces to demand answers.
As corruption and cronyism from the top down comes to light and the exposed cock roaches run to hide behind plea bargains, people are beginning to ask serious questions of their elected representatives.
As disasters like Katrina and its aftermath are mismanaged and mishandled by the White House to such an extent that a Republican panel's own investigation was titled, A Failure in Initiative, more and more people are growing more and more outraged.
And finally, at long last, common-sense Republicans have squirmed out of their ropes and spit out their gags, and they are saying, enough.
Behind the scenes, a handful of brave and careful-thinking conservative legal minds such as former deputy attorney general, James Comey, and former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, rose up and fought the White House on such issues as torturing suspects, scooping up American citizens and shipping them off to prison without access to lawyers or even criminal charges being leveled, and wiretapping Americans without court oversight.
In Congress, more and more have been willing to speak out, on the record, like Rep. Heather Wilson, Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Mike DeWine, and Sen. Chuck Hagel.
They're not just questioning the administration's policies, but also demanding answers on their actions in Iraq, the Gulf Coast, the budget, and other outrages.
The White House scoffs at these pioneers, pointing out that they're in tight elections back home, or they're "mavericks" who like to criticize the president.
But the winds are shifting.
Elections are decided, not by Karl Rove, but by the PEOPLE. Congressional representatives are questioning the White House because their CONSTITUENTS demand it.
Brave lawyers in the Justice Department are standing up and being counted not because they are running for election but because the CONSTITUTION demands it.
And the American people are starting to ask questions of this administration because COMMON SENSE demands it.
In a powerful piece in Newsweek called "Palace Revolt," about those Justice Department lawyers who refused to give down under relentless White House pressure tactics because they stood firm on the Constitution, one of these heroes, former deputy attorney general James Comer (derisively nick-named "Cuomer" by Bush because he was comparing him to liberal NY politician Mario Cuomo), finally left the Justice Department and took a job with Harvard Law.
In his farewell speech, he thanked the people who, "were committed to getting it right--and to doing the right thing--whatever the price." Some of those people (like himself) he went on to say, did pay a price, when they were forced out of the Bush administration.
So, he goes to Harvard Law--that bastion of knee-jerk liberalism, right? And for a while, anyway, this good man was snubbed and mocked, (here, Newsweek quotes The Harvard Crimson), as "an atrocity-abetting war criminal."
They didn't know, you see, how hard he had worked behind the scenes to stop those very atrocities.
Let this be a lesson to all of us. As mid-term elections approach, extremists on either side should beware of automatic characterizations of anyone in any party as "liberal" or "right-wing." They should think twice about lumping a party member into the extremes of his party.
Instead, they should study carefully his or her actions--not just words, which are cheap in an election year--but get a feel for the candidate's history of common-sense thought, negotiation, compromise, and the other hallmarks of governance that get things done.
Liberals should be careful about dismissing any Republican by painting them with that raggedy old Bush brush, and conservatives should be careful about dismissing any Democrat as a "bleeding-heart liberal," and see, instead, if this person stands on sound personal principles and is capable of governing with pragmatism.
As a person whose convictions flamed into outrage during what I like to call the "Clinton Crucifixion" years, I would have liked to have seen more of these brave Republicans bare their teeth at the extremists who ramrodded their policies onto the rest of us…but as a political realist I understand the nature and machinations of government.
I salute all of them who speak out now, who fight for right no matter what the consequences, and who hail the comeback of common sense.
posted by Deanie Mills at 11:10 AM
2 Comments:
It's great of you to try to change the poor Republican Party into a pale reflection of the hate filled Democrats, (witness the outrage over the manufactured Chaney issue), but why don't you spend your time coming up with some positive issues for the Democrats that resonant with the red states.
The answer is you can't.
Instead your blog goes on and on with the same tired blather about how evil the Republicans are.
"Instead your blog goes on and on with the same tired blather about how evil the Republicans are."
-anon
Your sense of irony is a saving grace, have you ever been published?
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