Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:09:52 +0000 – President Obama's mob normally shouldn't be able to do this. But they can, and are, because when you're in the "business of winning elections" (and can't even manage that) as opposed to being in the business of leadership, it means the enemy can, and will, define you. Here's how Peter Nicholas puts it in today's Los Angeles Times:
"The White House is pushing the message that the provocative radio host is pulling the party's strings.
The Obama White House has begun advancing an aggressive political strategy: persuading the country that real power behind the Republican party is not the GOP leaders in Congress or at the Republican National Committee, but rather the provocative radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh.
Obama himself, along with top presidential aides and outside Democratic allies have been pushing the message in unison."
Part of that push is the orchestrating of the "fight" between Steele and Limbaughwhich simply highlights the rank absurdity of the entire situation. The Obambi Mob, while wrecking the economy, has realized they can define the Dead Old Party (DOP) and distract average Republicans at the same time by pitting Steele and Limbaugh against each other. And both took the bait. They're now talking about each other instead of the leftist in the White House running roughshod over this country. This because of the continued lack of coordinated leadership within the GOP.
Reagan understood this, too. Reagan was a man, however, who did not "lead" us -- he reminded us who are as a people and then cheered us on.
This current public fight between Limbaugh and Steele, two important and influential conservative men, reveals just how deeply in trouble the DOP really is. What happened to the Grand Old Party? Its so-called leadership has been inside the Beltway too long, going to the same cocktail and dinner parties for decades.
They like the money and the decadence and the smell of their own navels. The idea of returning to the principled values of Reagan means hard work, smaller government (read: less money), taking on the tyrants of the world thereby losing Islamist largess for travel, parties, and dare I say, presidential libraries. Worst of all, a return to the Reagan legacy brings with it an expectation of discipline and personal responsibility.
It is also especially frightening to the Republican Elite that a return of the Reagan legacy is represented by one person these days who, like Reagan, hails from the far-side of this nation, away from the increasing stench (and corrupting influence) of Washington. Sarah Palin is a woman who means business when she talks of reform. The one person none of the boys in Washington like, she lives and works west of the Rockies (let alone the Mississippi), was educated at a university without Ivy on its walls, is not of the monied class, and actually intends to confront the corruption and hypocrisy emanating from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Sarah Palin is not "of" them, you see, so the DOP Elite (for the ultimate oxymoron) prepare to toss Reagan Conservatism, best represented by Palin, under the bus lest the loss of Islamist money, parties with boys from the same school as you, and the use of the American taxpayer to fund the greed, excess andconga-lines of the Obama White House as the economy tanks.
What could the Dead Old Party do to become the Grand Old Party once again? Here's my list:
- Stop thinking Americans turned socialist overnight.
- Realize the DOP lost last year because Bush was a liberal masquerading as a conservative resulting in a small majority in this Center-Right Reagan Legacy nation deciding to vote for Real Liberals as opposed to Fake Conservatives.
Unfortunately for all of us, what America got wasn't JFK-style Classical Liberalism but Obama's Socialism-on-Steroids.
What is Steele to do? Remember that 49 of the 50 states voted for Reagan Conservatism in 1984. This included Democrats, Republicans, union members, women, men, gays, straights, Hispanics, blacks, Americans of all stripes.
The singular ideal of personal freedom and empowerment, along with small government and low taxes, appeals to every voting block, including those "one-armed midgets" Steele seems concerned about.
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