Sunday, May 24, 2009

If The GOP Has A Soul, There's A Big Battle For It Right Now

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Yesterday, and again this morning, former Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Ridge pushed back against the extremists who have captured the Republican Party. His special target: Pig Man. Bush's former Secretary of Homeland Security, was a guest on John King's CNN show where he chastised Limbaugh for his "shrill" vicious attacks on people instead of ideas. He's concerned that the GOP needs to restore itself as a national party and that the way Limbaugh is going about it is counterproductive.
Rush Limbaugh has an audience of 20 million people. A lot of people listen daily to him and live by every word. But words mean things and how you use words is very important... It does get the base all fired up and he's got a strong following. But personally, if he would listen to me and I doubt if he would, the notion is express yourself but let's respect others opinions and let's not be divisive."

This morning a much larger audience watched one of the last nationally popular Republican leaders, Colin Powell, who has been harshly criticized by the far right, try to move his party back towards the mainstream, pointing out that Limbaugh is nothing more than a well-paid entertainer who has used his own contemptible racism as a tool to attack his (Powell's) ideas. It was a very powerful appearance and I suggest you give it a listen if you missed it:



Powell didn't mention that Limbaugh and Cheney were both selfish and hypocritical draft-dodgers and phonies-- but he got the point across pretty well. He did mention that “Rush will not get his wish, and Mr. Cheney was misinformed; I’m still a Republican.”
Powell, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who identified himself as a Republican only after leaving the military, said he felt that the Republican Party should be more inclusive than it has been. Noting the party’s substantial losses in last fall’s elections, he said: “You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on it.

“In almost every demographic indicator, the Republican Party is losing. North, South, East, West. Men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics.” “Are we simply moving further to the right,” Mr. Powell asked, “and by so doing opening up the right-of-center and the center to be taken over by independents and to be taken over by Democrats?”

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7 Comments:

At 10:12 AM, Anonymous Bil said...

RUSH is da man man.

Cheney needs to start practicing the FROGWALK!!!

These lessons are conducted for Republicans by experts Ohio Bob Ney and Top Gun Duke Cunningham.

 
At 11:27 AM, Anonymous me said...

"If the GOP has a soul..."

We know the answer to that one.

 
At 1:05 PM, Blogger PJ said...

The irony is that incendiary rhetoric like the balderdash that Limbaugh perpetually spouts is really a turn-off to the conservative right (I know; I'm a card-carrying Republican).

Particularly when it's aimed at level-headed, respected statesmen like Powell.

 
At 1:55 PM, Anonymous me said...

"level-headed, respected statesmen like Powell"

He might be "respected" (more like lionized) by the MSM, but he is hardly level-headed. By his own admission, he voted for Reagan (twice), Bush, and Bush (twice), the three presidents who, along with Nixon, have done the most to destroy the United States.

He's still very, very conservative, and despite his weak and very tardy expression of regret for his presentation of an utter fabrication in front of the entire world at the UN regarding Saddams' purported WMD, he has neither issued a sincere apology, nor forcefully condemned those who put him up to it.

Like Cheney's purported "gravitas" and Scalia's "intelligence", Powell's "moderation" and "level-headedness" is just an act. It's all bullshit.

 
At 2:08 PM, Anonymous Pug said...

The irony is that incendiary rhetoric like the balderdash that Limbaugh perpetually spouts is really a turn-off to the conservative right (I know; I'm a card-carrying Republican).This may be how you wish things were, it is not how things are. The Republican base and, especially, the conservative right loves Rush Limbaugh. Everybody know it. Why deny it?

It is refreshing that you can comment on a liberal web site and not use the word "lib" once.

 
At 8:38 AM, Anonymous The Peoples Program said...

Powell stopped being Republican a long time ago. I do commend him on speaking his maind. The party has to be inclusive to some extent but if it were a true Republican delivering this message it would carry more power.

 
At 3:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's the truth about the "family feud" in the GOP: it's been going on since 1960. "Conservatives" began their long campaign to take over the party since then. Actually, conservatives had infiltrated the Eisenhower administration and ran several covert operations without the president's knowledge. Moderates and liberals in the GOP saw the danger and worked to suppress conservative influence over the party.

During the 1970s, consrevatives began a grassroots campaign to take ove the party from local governments up. Groups of specially trained operatives infiltrated social clubs, churches, etc. and preached the gospel that would become known as neo-conservatism. One of these operatives, who was very successful, was a young Karl Rove. By 1980, neo-cons, disguised as traditional conservatives, essentially usurped the ill Ronald Reagan's presidency and ran a shadow government. They set the stage for the next stooge Republican president: George W. Bush. Bush was president only in name - a front man, who did and said only what he was told. Dick Cheney was the de facto president.

The GOP today is really a neo-nazi organization, with a secret agenda to remake the U.S. into a national socialist state and to dominate the word socially, militarily and economically. The manefesto of the Project for a New American Century, which was signed by no less than six Bush administration officials,including Dick Cheney, proves this.

Moderates and liberals in the GOP need to leave the party and form a new one that is based on real Republican ideals. The violent and ignorant "base" of the GOP is now too small to ever win a national election and will slowly fade into oblivion. This is the only hope for the Republian partyParty.

 

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