The GOP Brand is Broken, Republicans Say “Not Me”
Republican have been sighted admitting, after their defeat in the special election in the First District of MS, that their brand is broken. But they don’t get it, and nobody has stepped forward admitting why it is broken, that THEY BROKE IT! They’re instead walking around still saying “Not Me” like a small child who just broke his mother’s lamp.
Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse have an article of election analysis in the New York Times today. They detail, quite well, the implications of that Childers win in the overwhelmingly Republican District in MS on Tuesday. As you all know, that’s the third special election loss by the Republican Party in a row, and all in Republican leaning districts. I like these reactions to that loss from the Nagourney/Hulse article:
“This was a real wake-up call for us,” Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues. We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.”
Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.
“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”
. . .
“The Republican brand is down, and it is going to be hard to get it back,” said Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California.
Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said it appeared that lawmakers might have to fend for themselves. “You are going to have to run on who you are and establish some independence, and that is going to be tougher for some than others,” Mr. King said.
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, did not go as far as his predecessor, Mr. Davis, in advising members to step away from Mr. Bush. But Mr. Cole, facing growing restiveness among Republicans about the party leadership, acknowledged the tumult in his party’s ranks and suggested that his committee would look for a change in strategy.
“When you lose three of these in a row you have to get beyond campaign tactics and take a hard look and ask if there is something wrong with your product,” he said.
Robert Duncan thinks the Democrats stole GOP issues. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP abandoned its issues on the side of the road these last seven years, and those issues have been found and adopted, some of them, by Democrats. While Tom Davis notes that the GOP canaries are dying, indicating a toxic electoral atmosphere in November for the GOP, it isn’t surprising he doesn’t assess blame. It sure seems like “Not Me” is the one who broke the Republican brand. Hey, kids can get away with blaming an imaginary ghost, but aren’t Republicans supposed to be adults? I particularly like Tom Coles’s comment, saying they’ve got to take a hard look at what is broken in the Republican Party.
I’m here to say that what is broken is that not one of these guys is willing to assess blame. To them it’s always someone else’s fault. But unless they find out who is at fault for sullying the Republican brand, these guys are going to founder (which doesn’t upset me all that much). It might be useful to look to the “Contract with America” from fourteen years ago, and compare what it promised as Republican ideals to what the Republicans have given us over the last seven years. The plain fact is they’ve broken every little clause in that “Contract,” sometimes in spectacular fashion. It’s real live Republicans, from Bush to Cheney to McCain to the GOP Senate to the GOP House that broke every tenet of that contract, too. Here’s a discussion of a few of the clauses of that contract (there’s a nice discussion of the “Contract with America” at wikipedia, and also at house.gov).
The Contract with America called for fiscal responsibility, and it seems clear from all of Newt Gingrich’s statements since that he meant moderate spending and balanced budgets. They called the measure the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and it was number one among the promises of the Contract with America proposed in 1994. We now know that when the Republicans get their hands on a couple branches of government at the same time they spend money like a drunken Yale cheerleader, and they won’t stop spending until they get kicked out of office. We’ll hear whiney excuses for their runaway spending, which has led to the biggest deficits in US history. They’ll claim they had to spend because of 9/11. Whine, whine, whine. The examples of endless earmarks that went to Republican districts are all there, like a Bridge to Nowhere, to tell us who is responsible for this runaway spending in the Bush years. GOP President + GOP legislators = deficit spending on steroids. And no personal responsibility, of course.
Yeah, the Contract with America contained The Personal Responsibility Act, which was really aimed at unwed mothers. Their point was to withdraw what they saw as incentives for girls to get pregnant out of wedlock, the old AFDC system. They were going to force personal responsibility on those girls, whether they liked it or not. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has lost any sense of personal Responsibility itself. Look at those quotes up there. Those party leaders sure seem scared, and some even recognize that their brand is broken, but not one single one of those guys is ready or willing to find out who broke the lamp. Dammit a CHILD answers with a “Not Me,” and we expect that. For these grown men to ignore that it wasn’t an accident that broke the Republican Brand, but that it took the concerted efforts of George Bush and the RNC and a whole crop of GOP Senators and Congressmen to shatter every single principle the Republicans tried to present as their brand.
I’d say it is a moral responsibility to take personal responsibility, and the Republicans ran roughshod with immoral actions as if they were at a frat party these last seven years. (Abramoff, Foley, Craig, Stevens, Doolittle. . . need I go on?) But it isn’t only scandals and lawbreaking by Republicans, then the whiney excuses they use when caught, that shows the GOP abandonment of any notion of personal responsibility for themselves. This issue was the underpinning morally of the entirety of the GOP’s Contract on with America. Sure, the National Security and Restoration Act they promised was meant to assure the “restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world,” and Bush’s bumbling in Iraq has assured that Republicans will never be known for their foreign policy stature ever again. To completely destroy our nation’s reputation is a moral failing on Mr. Bush’s part, and not just a massive failure of policy after policy cooked up by the neocons who advised Bush. These guys quoted after Tuesday’s election will never lay that responsibility at Bush’s door, any more than they will blame themselves for following like GOP sheep in allowing bush to sully our country’s good name.
Oh, the Republicans surely need to take credit for destroying themselves. I’m here to say that their only way out of this electoral cesspool they crashed their party into is to admit long and loud that the Republican Party failed in the last seven years. Then they’d have to ask forgiveness and hope upon hope that they can keep some of their Senators and Congresscritters in their jobs. After that, it’s down the straight and narrow fiscal road for them, or else they will fail to be a national party anyone other than the Bush 28% will ever respect.
Hey, and they need to do a few other things, but this entry is too long already. Were I the adviser to the Republican Party I’d disassociate wherever possible with those who have been called the “most influential” Republicans, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity and the like. America has come to see these people and the loudest voices of the religious right to represent the Republican Brand, and that means they are that brand now, a bunch of divisive souls whose sole purpose is to divide America as a way to the questionable reward of being elected. The strategy of the right-wing radio, TV and talk show might of the GOP, the name calling of the Limbaughs and Coulters, is broken. Every time one of those folks speaks they make throw mud at the GOP brand.
Of course, I have no fear of any on the GOP listening to this advice. They’ll continue to limp along, lie to themselves, avoid taking responsibility for the mess they’ve led us into. I have no fears there will be a healthy Republican Party any time soon.
Spin Dentist,
When you use your example of scandalous and law breaking Republicans (”Abramoff, Foley, Craig, Stevens, Doolittle. . . need I go on?”), please don’t forget that there are just as many holier-than-thou, hypicritical Democrats, such as former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Lousiana Rep. Bill Jefferson, and former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann. Need I go on, too?
I respect your blog and agree with some things that you say. But if you’re going to make a wholesale generalization about the GOP, please be prepared to defend the same kind of behavior by people within your party.
John Featherman
“Proud Republican”
The truth is that both parties have good people and bad people.
There’s a difference, John. Republicans campaign often, and boast of it, on the basis of moral values. Ergo my use of the word “hypocritical.” Sure, there are people on both sides who slip, but if you can’t see the massive moral slippage on the Republican side over the last seven years, far dwarfing that on the Dem side, then you’ve got elephant glasses on.
How does a libertarian-leaning Republican such as you square with the abandonment of almost every principle that aligns with that end of thr Epublican spectrum?
such as former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer
John Featherman
“Proud Republican”
But! But! But!
Bill Clinton got a blow job!
Lemme see, what was that thing Ann Coulter to Brian Lamb back in August of 2002?: “There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats.” Lets turn that around on ya. There are a few bad Democrats, but there are NO good Republicans.
Your team has been in control of the Senate since that whole BS Contract with America gave you the majority up until two years ago and then you’ve been obstructing the Democrats every move since. You’ve been in control of SCOTUS since Bush got into office and with Bush in office that gave you control of all three branches of government. You took that control and ran the country into the damned ground with it all the while proclaiming the rest of us morons, traitors and terrorist appeasers if we didn’t fall in line with the way you wanted to do things.
You even had your mouthpieces like Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck and the rest threaten us to try to keep us in line. At the same time your party was condemning the rest of us as criminal amoral degenerates despite that your party was going after congressional pages, anonymous bathroom sex, and prostitutes like tomorrow wasn’t coming. Not to mention the fact that your party started a war for fun and profit and then couldn’t manage it to save your own behinds. Untold billions pissed away while the hurricanes roll in and the infrastructure collapses around us.
Sorry chum, you’re not going to spin away the epic criminality and malfeasance of the Republican party. We’re not going to forget about it and you’re not going to distract us from it by pointing out a few petty dalliances on the other side like that makes it all ok. “But they did it first” is the excuse a 5 year old makes when his mother catches him smoking in the back yard. It is not the excuse the American people want to hear from a party that has let their sons and daughters die and sell away their future to make sure the Exxon CEO gets another gold plated diamond studded island in the Carribean. For every person you point the finger at on the left I can point ten fingers at on the right. For every William Jefferson you can point out I can give you a Jack Abramoff. For every Spitzer I can give you a Giuliani. For every Al Sharpton I can give you a John Hagee. You guys have been running on a platform that only you know morality and law and order and the truth is you’re not and you’re not even very good at hiding it.
The only way you’re going to save your party is if you step up and actually DO something about the corruption and malfeasance. Impeach your own President and Vice President and send them both to prison for the many felonies (FISA, torture, kidnapping etc ) they have committed while in office. Start putting your criminals in prison instead of very publicly letting them walk ( ala Scooter Libby ) and then maybe in one or two generations when people have forgotten the time when your boys stripped everyone of their rights and property… maybe then you’ll have a chance to bring back your party.
Until November, call up your Representatives and tell them to enjoy their time on the unemployment line. American people are finally woken up from the stupor you had them in and have noticed what you’ve been doing while they were cowering under their beds with duct tape and plastic wrap on their windows.
And they’re not happy.
Reguards,
E
Oh…and the lies.
People really hate being lied to. Like how Fox News is supposedly fair and balanced but is basically the Republican propaganda channel? Or how Bush said we do not torture. Or how he said whomever leaked the identity of a CIA agent would go to prison. Or how he claimed that the NSA wasn’t spying on Americans. Or how immunity for Telecoms is about protecting us from terrorists. Or how there is ‘mounting evidence’ that Iran is feeding the insurgency in Iraq.
They also hate when the people they put into power to represent them could care less what they have to say. Such as when Dick Cheney responded “So?” to all the protests going on.
Your team seems to have forgotten that this is American and in our government we have civil servants, not masters and kings.
Really should have thought about all that before you put a bunch of power hungry wanna-be Emperors in charge of your ‘brand’.
Oh well.
What I really love is how they are calling Republican(ism) a “brand.” They’re so up the ass of corporate America, they think they can redirect American attention by equating their bullshit to some shrinkwrapped-made-in-China consumer carrot on a stick, and that the peons will all line up to buy in to the Neo-Neocon line like it’s a fucking iPhone.
Spin Dentist,
I agree with you 100% that Republicans have often campaigned on “moral value” issues. And a small percentage of rogue Republicans have been hypocritical in what they practice vs. what they preach. And as a libertarian-leaning Republican, I don’t generally support any politician trying to legislate morality. That’s why I’m happy that *Republican* Gov. Schwarzenegger now supports gay marriage in California.
However, I respectfully disagree that the moral slippage of the Republican side “dwarfs” that of the Democratic side. Former Gov. Spitzer prosecuted prostitution rings and made a name for himself by being tough and appearing as if he was protecting consumers. He was ultimately living a double life, and his betrayal of the public trust was far worse than practically any Republican you can name. It was worse because people not only elected him — they truly believed in him. That’s why I and many other Republicans were in complete shock. I took no happiness in seeing him fall.
Moral values — let’s see. Who talks about moral values more than Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Do I really need to talk about the hypocrisy of two Democratic reverends who literally preach for fairness — while their personal and professional conduct is reprehensible? Do I need to provide examples? I still have a photo of Jackson embracing Arafat in the 70s. I still remember the perjurycharges against Sharpton for Tawana Brawley. Jackson’s referred to NYC as “Hymietown” and Sharpton has referred to Jews as “diamond merchants.” I can go on.
Obama and Rev. Wright. Do we need to go there and talk about moral values?
Point is that neither party has a lock on morals or the lack thereof.
As to my party abandoning its principles, I and other good Republicans are trying to reform our party the way that good Democrats like you are trying to reform the Democratic party. Just remember that every party has LEADERS that deviate from its principles. The leader of Senate — Harry Reid is pro-life and anti-gay marriage, having voted for the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.”
So look … both parties are equally guilty of double standards and not representing what their parties should stand for.
I have no problem with you criticizing my party, but, when I have time, I will always try to offer a spirited and respectful response. We’re all in this together, and we need to stop the partisan bickering. I don’t knock Democrats, but you enjoy knocking Republicans. We should work together.
John Featherman
Jon Featherman
John, Jackson and Sharpton aren’t listened to anymore. Not a good example.
As to my knocking Republicans, please note it is entirely Republicans I quote in the article. I can find five other articles like it today, with prominent Republicans doing the “woe is us” thing, but none of them are taking responsibility. The are the ones who left their principles behind, and they are the ones paying for it. There’s nobody else to blame here. It’s gonje so far, and so many Americans distrust the Republican brand that they really do need a few major mea culpas before they’re going to be able to repair things. Hey, a good start on that might be cutting Bush off at the knees legislatively, demanding some kind of timetable for Iraq, and further, demanding that he actually go full bore after bin Laden.
E in MD, I sure wish you’d not hold back so much. It’s not good, repressing and all.
Spin Dentist,
Respectfully, I disagree with you about the impact of Jackson and Sharpton. They were instrumental in the Jena 6 case getting attention, as well as the Duke Lacrosse team incident. Jackson also pressures companies to give to his Rainbow Coalition, or he targets them. They both wield incredible power and can easily take down a company, a school or a politician. So I do believe that people listen to them.
As for other exmaples, Harry Reid is a leader, but his social views are generally more socially conservative than every other Democratic Senator, with the possible exception of Bob Casey.
Look, we will continue to respectfully disagree. On a very specific point that you make about Iraq: I don’t think a specific timetable is realistic any more than one on having troops stationed in Germany, South Korea or Japan is realistic. WWII has been over for 63 years, but we still maintain high levels of troops in Germany and Japan. The cease fire between the Koreas — technically, the Korean war has never ended — is over 55 years — but we still haven’t brought the troops home. People in favor of a time table should remember that it probably makes sense for the troops from the other wars to come home first.
As for going after Bin Laden, if you believe Bush should go after him, what resources would you use, and which countries would you invade to find him — as many of the countries who might be harboring him might not cooperate?
Sounds like a started a spirited discussion. This is the longest thread you’ve had here in a while!
John Featherman
Yeah, Spin … I went to “E’s” blog and there’s an adult content warning! There are more “FU’s” on his page than Republicans reading this blog! E certainly believes in expressing his views!
what the hell? the duke lacrosse team was found innocent. now i’ve lost my train of thought, from the original post. as for bin laden, i’d start with our supposed ‘ally’, pakistan. and i don’t believe we should have troops permantly stationed overseas. it’s damned stupid, and a huge expense, to have troops in germany, okinawa, and maybe korea. the koreans actually want us there, tho, and north korea is crazy. notice japanese don’t allow troops wholesale on their mainland…and germans probably only put up with it, because of how much they spend. jesse jackson and al sharpton are rabble-rousers, only in it for the money. ann coulter would be funny as hell, as a parody, if so many ppl didn’t listen to her. sorry, i’m rambling a bit.
He was ultimately living a double life, and his betrayal of the public trust was far worse than practically any Republican you can name. It was worse because people not only elected him — they truly believed in him. That’s why I and many other Republicans were in complete shock. I took no happiness in seeing him fall.
You mean more than Rudy Giuliani, who had the emergency services center put close to his office so that he could spend time there with his mistress and had the city police ferrying her around on the public dime? You mean more than Newt Gingrich, who put the security of the free world in jeopardy to pursue his impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about an affair all the while having an affair of his own? More than Mark Foley, who penned the very legislation that made it illegal to talk naughty to minors that busted him? More than George W. Bush and his violation of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans, which evidence suggests started BEFORE 9/11?
You’re kidding.
Spitzer was obviously an criminal asshat. Personally I don’t believe that prostitution should be illegal in the first place because I believe that what a person does with their own body is their own business, but that’s not the point. But whether I like the law or not, the law is still the law. He broke the law and betrayed the public trust and for that he deserves prison time. So does William Jefferson and everybody else in the public eye. But when you put Jessee Jackson on a scale on one side and George W. Bush on the other side unless Jackson has been eating deep fried infants you’re not going to get them to balance out.
Obama and Rev. Wright. Do we need to go there and talk about moral values?
I honestly don’t give a rats ass about Reverend Wright’s links to Obama any more than I give a damn about McCain and his pursuit of fanatical religious right figures ( like Hagee) to endorse him even after he called people like Fallwell agents of intolerance. Obama is not responsible for the words that come out of anyone’s mouth but his own. It’s besides the point that if Reverend Wright is of the opinion that his deity is damning America for things like the torture that has gone on under the Bush administration then he has just as much right to say it as Pat Robertson did to blame Hurricane Katrina on gays, pagans, the People for the American Way and the ACLU. You and I don’t have to agree with it. Do you agree with every single word that comes out of your preacher’s mouth? ( assuming you have one, I’m an Atheist so this is all BS political card tricks to me )
Point is that neither party has a lock on morals or the lack thereof…..As to my party abandoning its principles, I and other good Republicans are trying to reform our party the…
Precisely the reason why we all need to watch the Democrats closely when they take power in November. Because your team just handed them the powers to arrest anyone they feel like, torture the crap out of them, steal all their property and disappear them into a legal black hole on the sole authority of one person without the possibility of a review by any court. That’s far more beyond the realm of what is acceptable than whether or not Clinton got a hummer and yet your Team is still standing back and letting Bush run with it rather than taking him down.
He’s broken Federal law. He’s violated the Constitution. He’s laughed at any attempt to rein him in and YOU GUYS the ones that claim to be the moral authority are sitting there with your thumbs up your back side. I’m curious as to where these ‘good Republicans’ have been hiding all this time while people like Ann Coulter was out there saying that we needed to execute people to intimidate liberals so that we wouldn’t turn into traitors. I dunno I would think being a traitor is revoking clauses in the Constitution without any debate or law when they become inconvenient and then dragging your feet behind state secrets when you get busted at it.
Just remember that every party has LEADERS that deviate from its principles.
I agree. Except in the case of the Republican party it hasn’t been the leaders deviating but rather the party deviating. For example, The Republicans used to be for small government. Yet you guys are responsible for creating the biggest bureaucracy in the history of the nation. You used to be for fiscal responsibility yet you created the biggest deficit in the history of the nation. You used to be the ‘pull yourself up by your own boostraps’ yet you want to give out the biggest handouts ever to big business and tell the average citizen that he’s on his own. It’s not just the leaders that are doing all this. It’s the rank and file members that are going along with the party because they think it’s what they should do to continue to ’sell the brand’ rather than thinking for themselves. You campaigned on a promise of truth and promise and moral authority and that all went straight out the window when you saw a change for a power grab. It’s actually a good thing you did though because if you would have continued your agenda slowly as you had been we might not have noticed. But because your party over-reached people noticed.
Talk to me again about reform when you kick Larry Craig out on his ass. Or when AT&T’s CEO is made to stand trial for listening in on American phone calls without legal authority to do so. Or when the Republican sponsored laws that prevent the challenging of elections are removed from the books. Or when you look into the legitimate cases of voter fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections without a partisan eye.
So look … both parties are equally guilty of double standards and not representing what their parties should stand for.
Personally I’m thinking that in 2012 it’ll be the first time that an independent really has a shot because I’m sure people will be fed up with both parties. But we’ll just have to see. But, no, I don’t believe this spin you’re going with about how “both parties are equally guilty”. Republicans are guilty of deceit for power. Democrats are guilty of not having the courage to stand up and stop them. These are not moral equivalencies.
I will always try to offer a spirited and respectful response
Have at it… I’ll admit that I get passionate over things that anger me. So don’t be surprised if you see nostrils flaring. I don’t have anything personal against Republican voters, just the crooked politicians they keep voting for. You just got duped that’s all. You fell into the idea that patriotism was the same as nationalism and that anyone who didn’t agree with the doubleplus goodthink was working for the wrong side. The fact that this country was founded on the right to disagree didn’t occur to you.
What matters now is that Republican voters are seeing that fact and are starting to take action. In truth I’ve only had two conversations with a Republican that were worth the time and energy expended. Both of them were with the same person in Florida. Maybe you two can save your party, but personally I think tossing aside the brand and starting over with a fresh crop of people who haven’t been corrupted by years of petty and not so petty criminals.
We’re all in this together, and we need to stop the partisan bickering.
I love how NOW that the Republicans have scorched earth the nation, NOW we’re in things together. When just a few years ago anybody who spoke up against the Madness of King George was a traitor and a terrorist who should be hanged. I also love how the Republican idea of non-partisan in both House and Senate is the Democrats shutting up and doing what the Republicans want. Personally every time you threatened a filibuster for example I’d make your butts trot out the mattresses and do it and I told our guys that. Either make them put up or shut up, I said. Only one that had the stones was Dodd. We need more like him.
I don’t knock Democrats, but you enjoy knocking Republicans.
You’re right. I fully admit that I do. Why? Because for the last 7 years I have been spit at, I have been called a traitor. I have been told that I have no place at the table. I have been told that I should be a good little sheep and let the criminals run the jail. I’ve been told that letting one man decide if I can be taken in the middle of the night from my own house and be indefinitely arrested is for my own good. I’ve been lied to about global warming and condom effectiveness and abstinence only education all for political gain. I’ve been told that I’m only allowed to speak out in a Free Speech Zone. I’ve sat here and seen the best things my government was founded on tossed into the trash can ‘for my own good’. I’ve seen my nation sacrifice liberty for security and lose both. So, yes I talk a lot about the failures of Republican politicians. But it isn’t knocking them to point out their incompetence and criminality and truculence and malfeasance and obstructionism. But I will admit that I enjoy Because I enjoy when people who think they’re the infallible fail end all be all come crashing down and I love rubbing their noses in it. It’s the same amusement I felt when Paris Hilton’s judge sent her skinny backside to jail instead of letting her walk. What is unfortunate that when your team failed it took the rest of us down the toilet with them when they fell.
And in four or eight years, if the Democrats are the ones up to their eyeballs in legitimate scandal not just stuff your party invented for political gain, I’ll be enjoying rubbing their noses in it as well.
We should work together.
How about your team starts a show of good faith by publicly taking down some of the criminals your team hang out with. When Karl Rove is sitting behind bars. Then we’ll talk about working together. Until then we’ll get the work done around the obstructions thrown up by your team. Under, around, over or through. Sorry, we the people just don’t trust you anymore.
Comment by E^2 in MD — May 15, 2008 @ 2:55 pm: “What I really love is how they are calling Republican(ism) a “brand.” They’re so up the ass of corporate America, they think they can redirect American attention by equating their bullshit to some shrinkwrapped-made-in-China consumer carrot on a stick, and that the peons will all line up to buy in to the Neo-Neocon line like it’s a fucking iPhone.”
Yes! The form-over-substance approach of the GOP is America’s loss. The Republicans have turned politics into a cynical game of marketing. Their approach is to shape people’s perceptions with speaches, advertisements, talking points, etc. (often distorting or ignoring truth).
Now the GOP is the victim of their own success. They’ve done the “branding” and people know all about what the GOP “brand” stands for. Just like in the commercial realm, when a “brand” is both well known and well believed to be inferior, you can’t give it away.
• Yeah, Spin … I went to “E’s” blog and there’s an adult content warning! There are more “FU’s” on his page than Republicans reading this blog! E certainly believes in expressing his views!
Comment by John Featherman — May 15, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
The adult content warning was something livejournal put in when they were bought by the Russian company ( who’s name escapes me at the moment ) who currently owns it. I voluntarily put this flag on my blog not because I cuss a lot or because I’m talking about sex or what have nudie pictures or whatever but because the topic I address are in fact adult topics. Topics requiring an intellect level beyond the usual ‘OMG DOODZ’ crap you see all over. The average 15 year old isn’t going to understand half of what I’m talking about. So warning him about it ahead of time seemed like a good idea. They’d be bored. I’d be frustrated and I hate wasting my time.
As far as my views, to be honest the time for sugar coating and beating around the bush past around say, the run up to the election of 2006. Maybe I got called traitor one too many times or saw one too many pieces of Freedom Toast. Who knows. But at some point got tired of being treated like I don’t matter and I’m not gonna just sit back and take it.
E in MD, I sure wish you’d not hold back so much. It’s not good, repressing and all.
Comment by Steven Reynolds — May 15, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
lol.. I’m from Philly. We use cursewords like punctuation, especially when we’re angry about stuff. Believe it or not I try to tone it down when I’m not on my own blog. In my blog though, all bets are off.
Tthing is that there is this public perception that ‘liberals’ are just a bunch of pantywaists and that isn’t the case. I’m not going to sit still and be bullied or pushed around without striking back. o’Reilly bullies a 20 something kid and tells him he’s insulting his father’s name and then cuts off his mic because he didn’t agree with what the kid has to say…nobody on the right bats an eye, but give a Liberal a mouth and balls enough to fight back and suddenly it’s an issue.
To be honest I’m not actually a liberal, I’m a left leaning centrist. The right sees anyone left of Ann Coulter as a liberal so I get lumped in. Real conservative ideals aren’t evil. Neo-con ideals however, such as what has taken over the Republican party over the last decade or so however, are and that’s really what’s taking down the brand.
E in MD, Featherman is from Philly, too. He should have figured this out. Alas, he went for the cheap shot.
On a very specific point that you make about Iraq: I don’t think a specific timetable is realistic
On that we agree. There should be no timetable. The troops should be withdrawn, NOW. Not tomorrow. Not in November. Not in 2013 and not 50 or 100 years from now. We should start a withdrawal now and bring our people home as quickly and safely as possible and I for one will accept nothing less than that. I am long since tired of my tax dollars flowing into the endless and hungry maw of Blackwater and Haliburton. I’m tired of all the money I bring home in my paycheck going to Exxon and Chevron. I am long since fed up with my fellow Americans coming home sans arms and legs or mental stability for some hell hole in a foreign country. Whether or not We ( *ahem* Republicans ) created it, it is up to the Iraqi people to put their nation back together again. Nobody can give another person freedom and have it work. You have to WANT it. If the Iraqi people want to be free of things like the Hussein government ( like we set up ) they will be the ones that act. If they want to be free of suicide bombers they will act.
We invaded their country on false pretenses. We’re the aggressor. We’re in the wrong. And I am terribly and deeply sorry about that. Afghanistan was the right thing to do and we should have stayed to finish the job. But instead George W. Bush wanted to make sure that he stayed in office. So we invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to us because somebody thought it would be an easy victory to ensure another 4 years in office despite the incompetance shown by the administration. Whoever it was, he was right, and now we’re suffering because of it. But you don’t fix what’s broken by continuing to do the same crap over and over again. We are no safer than we were before the invasion and that’s not going to change. The money we’ve pissed away on this war could have gone to secure our sea and airports and even build that border fence you Republicans are so fond of. But it didn’t. It went to raise Dick Cheney’s haliburton stock from $10 a share to $43 a share. We’re wasing resources, we’re waisting money and we’re wasing lives and it has to stop now. Right now. As much as I feel sorry for the Iraqi people through all this this war isn’t worth another single drop of American blood.
any more than one on having troops stationed in Germany, South Korea or Japan is realistic.
You can conflate this war with WWII all you want. There is no comparisson. Saddam Hussein was a threat to nobody. We went into his country and took him out in as showy a way possible. WWII was a fight for survival. Hitler was running out of shit to conquer so the only place left to go was Russia and the West. Hussein wasn’t a threat to anybody except his own people and while I feel sorry for all the people who died as a result of his regime that we put in power, it should have been up to Iraqis to overthrow him. Not us.
As for going after Bin Laden, if you believe Bush should go after him, what resources would you use, and which countries would you invade to find him — as many of the countries who might be harboring him might not cooperate?
Bush guaranteed us that he would search to the end of the earth for Bin Ladin. He said that any country found to be haboring or aiding terrorists would be treated like the terrorists. We’ve seen how well that worked out. Special forces and CIA resources could have been devoted to bringing him down. We could have send two or three thousand troops specifically to find him during the prosecution of the Afghanistan war. But Bush has refused to even bother. Meanwhile there’s a six foot Arab with a dialysis machine sitting in a cave somewhere plotting his next big attack. Because Bush dropped the ball. I can tell you what the right thing wasn’t, and that was to invade a country and pour resources down a bottomless pit weakening</I. us against future attacks. FOr example, what the hell are we gonna do if China ( who has a standing army larger than our population I might add ) decides to attack?
Sounds like a started a spirited discussion. This is the longest thread you’ve had here in a while!
John Featherman
It’s good to debate with someone who’s not a right wing partisan hack. Unfortunately I’ve run out of time so this will probaly be my last post on this thread. Hope to see you around on the blog.
Bush warned the Republicans that he wanted the Republican Party to NOT CARE what Americans think of their policies
Thank you for taking the time to respectfully express your views, E. I find many of them reasonable, although I don’t agree with all. I respect the passion you have.
Thank you for taking the time to respectfully express your views, E. I find many of them reasonable, although I don’t agree with all. I respect the passion you have.
Comment by John Featherman — May 15, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
It’s cool man. You are not required by any stretch of the imagination to agree with my views. As long as you don’t start trying to come up with your own facts we can have a dialog. Truth is truth and opinion is opinion. It’s a sad state of affairs when people on both sides can no longer recognize the difference between the two. I like to think that my views are reasonable, I come by them through long periods of research, reflection and analysis but they are not always written in stone.
Unfortunately for too long Democrats have remained silent in the face of Republican grasping for power because they thought it would be best to hold the country together or because they were too cowardly to make a stand. But I contend that it is in the worst and most difficult times that we need to stand by our system of laws and our belief in the guiding principals of our nation even stronger than when we’re all safe, secure and well fed. Because it’s in those times that people get abused, forgotten and treated like animals instead of being treated like human beings. I will never forgive the Democratic party for their capitulation with the Bush regime and I will never forget either. But I don’t think that allowing the Republican politicians to continue on their current course is the best idea for this nation. Were it up to me, I’d impeach Congress, remove them all from office, try them in the courts, and start over. There’s blood and dirty money on everybody’s hands from Bush down through Pelosi. Even if they didn’t ‘do the deed’ they stood idly by while it was done and that is something Americans should never forget.
As far as your comment on passion. I’ve always been mouthy and opinionated. It was the cause of many a butt kicking I got as a kid no doubt. I learned very early in life truism that has stayed with me: The strong will step on the weak because the weak won’t fight back. The moment you start fighting back you cease to be weak. What was true in my childhood and high school years is true in politics as well. But something changed in me a after 9/11 and something changed again about 19 months ago when my daughter was born. I might sound kitschy but before 9/11 I was generally apathetic about politics. I voted twice for Clinton even though there was some things he did that I didn’t like.
I looked at the political arena like some giant monolith that no matter what I did there was no way that I could make the slightest change and evil misguided men would continue to do evil misguided things. When the 2000 election came down the pike I looked at Bush and realized he represented nothing that I wanted and looked at Gore and realized neither did he. Neither candidate ‘blew my skirt up’ as they say so I stayed home and didn’t vote. I’ve always blamed myself for that. I had a voice and I tossed it away.
The moment I saw those planes hit those buildings I knew that I had a finite number of seconds left in my life and that any second some asshole could snuff me out without a second thought. It was something I knew much like everyone else on earth knows only peripherally. Much in the way that I know that directly behind me there is a book case full of books and a beige-ish ( tan? whatever ) colored wall behind that. It’s there and solid as… well… a wall. But it’s not something i pay attention to. At that moment it hit me that I was mortal. Odd thing to have happen at age 27 I suppose. But when you start thinking about mortality you also start thinking about your ‘legacy’ as it stands. I did a lot of soul searching after 9/11. I did a lot of investigation and I realized that what happened to us was a direct result of our policies around the globe going back years. I put myself in the position of other people and thought: Would I be happy if some asshole kicked me out of my house or off my land and gave it to some random other person? Would I be happy if some foreign power came along and replaced my government with a bunch of religious fanatics? The answer was emphatically, no and with that realization a lot of the propaganda melted away. ‘Those people’ didn’t hate us for our freedoms, they hate us because we’re constantly meddling in their affairs and propping up evil men in order to secure wealth. Those realizations led to other realizations and so on and so forth. I realized that change was needed.
I don’t know who said it, in fact I can’t even find the quote anywhere but somebody said: You are not truly alive unless you have something you are willing to die for. I didn’t really have that before 9/11. I realized that, yes, I would die for the ideals my country represented. But the country was not behaving in accordance with those ideals. Stripping a man of his guaranteed right to contest imprisonment, for example, is not one of our ideals. So I found myself loving my nation but hating the government that was destroying my nation. George W. Bush has in two terms as a President managed to do what no foreign power or rebellious states has managed to do in 232 years - he’s gotten us to step away from the founding ideals this country was built upon and accept something that is not freedom and is not safety and is not prosperity - and he’s gotten us to do it out of fear and hatred and misunderstanding and ignorance and deceit. Our nation deserves better than this. We deserve better than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sneering at us from the television and telling us that they are the deciders. WE are the deciders and it’s something that we should never let them forget and we should not forget it ourselves. When Dick Cheney went on TV and responded to a question about Iraq war protests with the word “So?” that was a slap in the face to every man and woman in this country. YOU don’t mean anything, is what that said. YOU will do what you are told and WE will make the decisions on what is best for you whether you like it or not and if you don’t agree we’ll trick or persecute you into stepping in line.
That is unacceptable to me and it should be to every American.
I look at this nation from the perspective of a new father.I look at what is going on and I think “Do I want my daughter growing up in a nation like this?”. I love my country and I love the Constitution of the United States though I currently detest what the current regime has done to both. I resent anyone who calls me a traitor because I don’t agree with them and I refuse to remain silent, meek and cooperative when my government does things that are so morally outrageous that the nation in general should stand up and shout “NO MORE” at the top of their lungs.
On the day I found out I was going to be a father some chemical switch flipped in my head and I realized that would fight my way through any obstacle to protect my daughter. She is the source of my passion. Everything I do. I do for her. Every asshat politician I call to task. Every would be pundit that I argue with. Every post I make pointing out the maladministration and lawlessness in government. Every phone call and email and letter I send to Congress. Every time I turn on the news and some talking head tells me a lie I analyze it with her in mind.
So while it might sound overly melodramatic, I found what I was willing to die for, and that made all the difference in the world.