Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Red State's Open Letter: Political Suicide

A recent rant from Redstate making the rounds on the net shows just how clueless the ever-shrinking GOP minority is getting, and how their entire position relies on denying reality, inventing conspiracies, dodging issues, and of course, making shit up. Dissatisfied with the recent comments from Michael Steele to the “Rush wants Obama to fail” meme, he gives them this advice:

The next time some stupid reporter asks you what you think of what Rush Limbaugh said about Barack Obama you look that guy in straight in the eye and say this:

“Rush Limbaugh is an American citizen and he is entitled to say whatever he wants about Barack Obama.”
Then ask the reporter if they have a problem with free speech.


Oh yeah, dodge the issue by making a bland comment with which everyone agrees, and then subtly accuse the reporter of asking the question because they have a problem with free speech. That gets the public behind you.

Next, when they ask you if you agree with what he said you tell that reporter this:

“I promise to support Barack Obama just as much if not more than the way that Barack Obama,Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and for that matter the entire Democratic party has supported George Bush over the last few years.”

Then you ask that reporter if he has a problem with that.


If the reporter is on the ball at all, he’ll say yeah, he has a problem with that, because you didn’t answer the question, and instead tried to change the subject to be about Reid and Pelosi’s relationship with Bush in a blatant and desperate attempt at a tit-for-tatism, the sort of thing the public is sick of. Why not start yammering about Bill Clinton while you’re at it?

”Since most reporters seem to love to put their own opinion into every story the report they should jump at the chance.
Try it just once.Turn the tables on them and ask them a question.

Ask them who they voted for.
Ask them what party they belong to.
Ask them if they earn more than $250,000 a year.
Ask them what they think of George Bush or if they voted for Bill Clinton.
Ask them what they think about abortion.
Any one of those questions will have them reeling back and stuttering instantly and I doubt they will answer it.


Uh, no, and their audience will be glad, because they don’t care what he reporter thinks. Let’s review the players in this little play, since Mr. Redstate apparently wasn’t paying attention in government class. The reporter’s job is to ask politicians questions, and to try to get them to answer them. It is not the politician’s place to ask reporters questions, and indeed, such would be an obvious dodge of their responsibilities to the public. Imagine for a moment, a professional athlete answering a reporters questions by questioning the reporter on his sports accomplishments. Absurd you say? Exactly, and even more so for a politician.

Ah…but their reaction will answer your question and all who are watching will see it laid bare. Get in their face.Push back.You are not being interrogated for Pete’s sake.
Don’t worry about being polite with them.
Secretly they hate your guts and you need to realize that.


Oh for Pete's sake, how childish. Everybody hates me. So much for personal responsibility, and believing in things greater than yourself. Reporters are supposed to interrogate politicians, and others playing the political game. That’s their job. Anyone in Steele or Cantor’s position who can’t handle that needs to get a new occupation.

You will never get a fair shake from them so don’t worry about ruffling their feathers a little. Put them in their place. They are nothing more than candy ass T.V. models working for the DNC. Make them look like a fool once in a while. How could it hurt?

Right, assume there is some sort of conspiracy going in. That’ll show them! How could it hurt? It would make Steele and Cantor look like fools and crybabies, that’s how.

I have noticed that when they ask you and other Republicans certain questions that you do not have a good answer ready and start backtracking away form core principles of the party.

Gee, one would think that’d make one question those core principles, now wouldn’t it? However, when one’s principles are based on faith (be it in gods, Laffer curves, or lassie fare makes little difference), such corrective introspection is out of bounds.

For example :”Tax cuts for the rich”
Let’s face it.Pundits know that they can tag you with that question at any time and you have no response and they make you look silly.

Try saying this.

“Of course I support tax cuts for the rich you jackass. Who do you think puts people to work in this country….?The poor?“
Then ask them if someone wants a good job should they turn to a wealthy man or go to a public housing project and which may be more fruitful. Wealthy people put this country to work. Poor people do not. Why are you ashamed to admit that?


Perhaps because it is a lot of unsupported supply-side claptrap. There is no evidence that tax cuts for the rich does anything but increase the bank accounts of the rich. The trickle down theory has been repudiated by three straight GOP supply-sider presidents producing 5 straight years of colossal budget deficits. No boom to be found. But why deal with reality when you can just make shit up…

Remember this.
EVERYBODY wants to be rich.
We all do.What’s so bad about that? This is America.It’s the land of opportunity and the land of the free.It’s not the land of the free lunch.
Why are you so ashamed to stick up for rich people?
What is so great about being poor?
Being poor sucks.
Keep in mind that the person asking you about “tax cuts for the rich” is no doubt a millionaire themself or will soon be.
T.V. people make big bucks and it is the height of hypocrisy for them to be criticizing the rich as if they aren’t themselves or rub elbows with them all day long.
You want to keep in mind that the senior leadership of the DNC are ALL MILLIONAIRES!!!!
Some many times over.


Wow, yeah bud, having Michael Steele rant like a loon will sure help the cause. Making up the fantasy that everyone wants to be rich (I’m sure priests, anthropologists living in the field and soup kitchen volunteers would be amused by that claim) and pretending that proposing higher taxes on the rich is an attack/criticism of them will have just as positive an effect as it had in the last election (ie none). Once again, your suggestion is yet another dodge of the issue, and would likely sink Cantor, Steele and the GOP, not save them.

Here is another little tidbit I think may be helpful.
Stop worrying about every little thing that might offend somebody.
It’s a false premise. Those people aren’t really offended but merely pretend to be to push you into a corner.


The problem here is pretending that any of the criticism of the GOP is based on people being offended. That’s yet another dodge. We criticize you because what you say is stupid, not because it is offensive. For evidence of that, people can read the remainder of redstate’s rant, which is even more embarrassing than what I’ve criticized.

Needless to say, if Cantor and Steele are foolish enough to take Redstates advice, it's going to be a long night in November 2010 for the GOP. Again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well of course the Republican conventional wisdom is going to be some variety of "if you can't blind 'em with your brilliance, baffle 'em with your bullshit." It's been working so far. What's left of the party is fast collapsing into a black hole of rhetoric and paranoia. They don't question such ideas as "rich people make the jobs" even for a second or they would realize that markets make jobs, and by undermining the middle class you are wrecking the wide based market system that allowed serfdom to end 400 years ago.

Unfortunately no matter how many times you logically refute this kind of stuff, as long as there is a sizable segment of the American populace who are motivated not by reason but by fear of people who don't share their views and an unreasonable sense of superiority to those people, it isn't going to make any difference.

What concerns me is that more and more that description fits both sides.

ScienceAvenger said...

I think you negate an otherwise excellent point with that last comment. When I hear people making arguments based on an unreasoning fear or baseless sense of superiority, they are overwhelmingly on the right. There's no liberal equivalent to Ann Coulter, and there's no conservative equivalent to Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart. The future may be different, and the past surely was, but right now the right has a big lead in the fearmongering and arrogance.