Who said this?
…Republicans should understand that when self-described conservatives such as Malzberg [or Trump]voice question-rants like the one above and Republicans do not recoil from them, the conservative party is indirectly injured. As it is directly when Newt Gingrich, who seems to be theatrically tiptoeing toward a presidential candidacy, speculates about Obama having a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” mentality….
To the notion that Obama has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview, the sensible response is: If only. Obama’s natural habitat is as American as the nearest faculty club; he is a distillation of America’s academic mentality; he is as American as the other professor-president, Woodrow Wilson. A question for former history professor Gingrich: Why implicate Kenya?….
So the Republican winnowing process [for the Presidential nomination] is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.
A)Ex-MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann?
B)John Oliver of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show sarcastically skewering Republicans yet again?
C)A Republican breaking Ronald Reagans 11th Commandment -Never, ever nay say the GOP?
D)All of the above?
Surprise, surprise! … it is C) George Will, Republican columnist for the Washington Post yesterday. This is a blunt and telling assessment of the Republican candidates vying for the GOP party leadership and Presidential nomination. It shold be no surprise that the group is currently being lead by Donadl Trump whose Birther and Populist rhetoric has rocketed him to the top of the polls. Such is the price of kneeling at the altar of Populist dysfunction and embracing semi-truths plus outright distortions of the truth. It also helps to explain why the GOP has yet to produce a serious and respectable candidate for President.
Ye Editor has been waiting a long time for some Republican TruthSpeak. As a long lapsed Republican, the misery and pain has been great. And there have been numerous opportunities for the Republican intellectuals and pundits to set the record straight on a number of important topics. NYTimes David Brooks on Following the Money took one truth to miss completely 4 equally important others. Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer has not just completely missed the deliberate and worsening fabrications of Fox News but rather praises the network’s strategy extravagantly . This is particularly debilitating because it raises the question if Fox News jerry-rigs the news all the time., then this implies that all the main news media, like Krauthammer’s Washington Post, must do it too. And so all the media suffer for one very rotten NewsCorp/Fox News apple. And to cap the argument, Washington Posts’s George Will is an infamous global warming denier [ it is very hard to refute the following, George]. Thus all news is just a matter of opinion if not outright fabrication or infotainment.
So getting the truth out of the Republican Intelligentsia has been a mixed proposition to say the least. Thus, George Will’s TruthSpeak raises the question – how deep and long will this trend continue given the Republican Anti-intelligence Approach to politics. As long as half-truths and deliberate fabrications are an increasing part of American media and political debate, dare one guess at the consequences? The whole deficit reduction debate is keyed on the Republicans ignoring a)the last 3 GOP Presidents and their policy of “Starve the Beast” who have been responsible for all of the growth in deficits over the past 30 years and b)forced budgeting irrationality. Republicans are refusing to consider any tax reforms or tax increases , particularly for the wealthy.The GOP are adamantly trying to take tax reform and taxes out of the balanced budget equation. Yet the very wealthy owe the American people so much as they have gained so much from the bailout where their banks, hedge funds, and very livelihoods were sure to fail without $trillions of public monies. It is the lack of spine in the Republican intelligentsia to challenge this deliberate irrationality and hoodwinking by blame-gaming that is so disheartening. How can Republican intellectuals live with themselves?This is the same moral question of how could Republican Presidential adviser Ken Mehlman, a gay, could countenance supporting President Bush’s anti-gay policies before and after the 2004 elections. Andrew Sullivan did not – and he moved his allegiances away from the GOP.