One voice of reason

In a column in today’s Washington Post, Norman J. Ornstein addresses some of the wildly off-the-mark nonsense being bandied about concerning President Obama’s policy initiatives. These gobsmacking commentaries come not just from the usual radio crock-jocks but from the reputed leaders of the Republican Party:

“The most extravagant rhetoric has come out of the gathering of Southern Republicans in New Orleans, led by former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who called Obama ‘the most radical president in American history’ and urged his partisan audience to stop Obama's ‘secular, socialist machine.’

At the same conference, Liz Cheney, the former vice president's daughter who is often mentioned as a possible Senate candidate from Virginia, fiercely attacked Obama's foreign policy as ‘apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.’ And last week the ubiquitous Sarah Palin said of the arms-control treaty Obama signed with Russia, ‘No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step,’ likening it to a kid telling others in a playground fight, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate.’”

Orenstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, begs to differ:

“Looking at the range of Obama domestic and foreign policies, and his agency and diplomatic appointments, my conclusion is clear: This president is a mainstream, pragmatic moderate, operating in the center of American politics; center-left, perhaps, but not left of center. The most radical president in American history?”
He concludes with a paraphrase of a conservative Southern Senator’s question about Strom Thurmond’s defense of segregation some fifty years ago: “Does Newt Gingrich, a PhD in history, really believe that [expletive]?”

The expletive here being, let me guess, “shit.”

It’s good to hear a few conservative voices begin to call out their brethren on the ridiculous spew that passes for political discourse these days. Here’s just one more example; he quotes from “Mark Levin, who manages to make Limbaugh and Beck sound like calm voices of reason:

[Speaking of Oklahoma’s conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who dared to call Nancy Pelosi “nice”] ‘We don't need you hack, detestable politicians telling us a damn thing. Most of you are a bunch of pathetic, unethical morons. And so, no, Mr. Coburn, we won't be told to sit down and be quiet. We won't be told by you to watch CNN to balance off Fox. You got that, pal? Who the hell do you think you are? You sound like a jerk, to be perfectly honest about it. You, the jerk, who backed John McCain.’”

I swear, I’ve heard kids having a supermarket tantrum scream more cogently than Newt, Rush, and Sarah. The difference is that, at the least, you would expect a harried parent to look embarrassed and take the kid out of the store.