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Feature
Guitar Man
Thaddeus McCotter steps out as an unlikely Republican leader.
(Page 2 of 2)
It would also be a mistake to classify McCotter’s conservatism as Buchananite on the basis of these observations. There are circumstances in which he would back more legal immigration from people fleeing tyranny and oppression, as opposed to adding cheap labor to the available pool of workers. “We’re not looking for workers,” he says. “We’re looking for Americans.” While McCotter is not a free-trade absolutist, he did call for lifting President Bush’s steel tariffs (many of his constituents work in steel-using industries).
NOWHERE IS THE DISTINCTION CLEARER than on foreign policy. McCotter is a staunch proponent of showing a firm hand to tyrannical governments abroad, though he was not a knee-jerk supporter of the Bush administration’s handling of international affairs. While he favored regime change in Iraq, he does not believe the war was handled entirely correctly. “You can’t just drop a Green Zone in the middle of the country to administer the Great Society,” he says. In June 2006, McCotter voted “present” on a Republican resolution expressing support for the war and rejecting a timetable for withdrawal because it did not offer a full assessment of the “situation, stakes, and strategy for victory in the battle for Iraq and the overarching War on Terror.”
“In the Cold War, President Reagan had the moral courage to call Communist Russia an ‘evil empire,’ ” McCotter said at the time. “In the War on Terror, the U.S. House must have the moral courage to call al Qaeda our enemy.” He blasted the resolution as “strategically nebulous, morally obtuse, and woefully inadequate.”
There is nothing nebulous about McCotter’s impassioned denunciations of the “misogynistic, murderous regime” in Tehran after the disputed Iranian presidential election. “Your referendum has been held and you have failed your test…You have no legitimacy either in the eyes of the Iranian people or in the eyes of the civilized world. You are doomed by your own hands, and it is but a matter of time until your regime collapses and the Iranian people breathe free.”
Taking a page from the anti-Communists who called attention to the Soviets’ victims, McCotter has often given his House floor speeches denouncing Iran while standing next to pictures of those slain by Tehran — victims who tend to be young women. One was Taraneh Mousav. “She was arrested near Ghoba Mosque, where she was on her way to attend hairdressing college,” McCotter recounted in a floor speech. “After her arrest, she was raped, sodomized, and tortured by her captors, taken to a hospital in a coma, and it was there that she died. Upon her death, her body was removed to the outskirts of Karaj Qasim where, to prevent an autopsy, it was burned.”
Taraneh Mousav isn’t alone. McCotter gave a moving presentation on the House floor about another young woman. “Her name was Neda. In Farsi, it means ‘the voice,’” he said. “True to her name, she loved music; sought freedom; and she’s dead — shot down in the streets by the Iranian regime’s state-sanctioned murderers. She must not have died in vain.” McCotter then turned his ire toward the head of his own government.
McCotter blasted President Obama’s “contradictory statements of support and appeasement” and “ ’post-American’ foreign policy.” He continued: “As for the claim that American ‘meddling’ in support of the demonstrators plays into the mullahs’ hands, the Iranian regime will claim this regardless, for as our president noted, ‘That’s what they do.’” McCotter said emphatically, “what matters is not what the regime says about America, but what the demonstrators think about America.” He concluded: “As Americans, we must seize this moment and help Iranians seize their freedom. That’s what we do.”
“There weren’t a lot of Republicans down there giving those kinds of speeches either,” McCotter acknowledges. “There’s a lot of focus on the economy and domestic issues right now. I’m from Michigan — I get that. But this is an area where we need to show leadership too.” He points out that Ronald Reagan was a leader who could make this message clear to the American people, while also drawing a stark dividing line between our Russian friends and our enemy in the Soviet government.
CONGRESSMAN PAT TIBERI of Ohio says that McCotter represents an important part of the Reagan coalition that the GOP is going to have to win again to be a successful national party. “When my dad voted for Ronald Reagan, it was the first Republican he ever voted for,” Tiberi says. “He was a Catholic, a union worker, an immigrant. We need to reach voters like that who share our values but identify with the Democrats for demographic reasons.” McCotter, he says, “clearly and confidently communicates what he believes” in a way that “speaks to them.”
One reason, says Congressman King, is that unlike some other Republicans he is one of those voters. “Thad has a strong religious compass,” King explains. “But that doesn’t keep him from being understanding of other people’s day-to-day human failings.” McCotter’s sense of voters who might not agree with every item in a conservative think tank white paper “really gives us an opportunity to win in the industrial states.”
McCotter is not without conservative critics. Though he was the first Republican to come out against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, calling it “American socialism,” stricter free marketers have panned his votes for aid to the auto industry. John Zmirak, author of Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist, thinks the congressman would benefit from paying closer attention to some of his intellectual heroes. “Wilhelm Röpke wrote during the Cold War, and favored a policy of firm containment of the Soviet Union, whose ideology he referred to as a ‘pseudo-Islam,’ ” says Zmirak. “However, he was never aligned with the advocates of ‘rollback,’ who were willing to risk nuclear war rather than wait out the slow, inevitable collapse of an economic system that violated human nature.” In today’s strategic situation, Zmirak contends, a “Röpke-style response” to radical Islam and Communist China would focus more on limited counterterrorism, border security, and restoration of the Afghan monarchy rather than the Bush Doctrine.
But McCotter is unapologetic. “I’ve seen the game of trying to purge Republicans of those who are ‘RINOs’ or not pure enough,” he says. “I have one question: How’d that work out for us?” In an article for Human Events, McCotter sounded the same theme: “All Republicans must work within the party to unite, expand, and renew it; not work outside it to purge, deplete, and ‘recreate’ it in one’s arbitrary image.” Asked his opinion of the Club for Growth — which has supported primary challenges against GOP moderates — McCotter says simply, “They are an interest group doing what an interest group is supposed to do. A political party is different.”
Democrats hope they can purge McCotter in the next election. He has been reelected by solid but not overwhelming margins against underfunded opponents — with 51.4 percent of the vote, he won by six points in 2008 and has yet to break 60 percent. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has claimed to be targeting McCotter in 2010. The Swing State Project ranks him fifth on its “vulnerability index,” behind Republicans representing such Democratic districts as Joseph Cao’s in Louisiana. For his part, McCotter considers it “presumptuous” to predict the voting behavior of the “people I work for.”
McCotter’s admirers see him not as an endangered species but a harbinger of things to come. “Here’s a guy who’s bright, funny, and refreshing,” says Tiberi. “He likes rock music, he’s well read, he can relate to people you don’t think of as being Republicans. It challenges people’s perceptions of what a Republican is supposed to be.” A rock-n-roller stuck in a Republican’s body, McCotter seems to relish the challenge. Before our interview ends, he turns the tables by asking me why I never learned to play guitar. Not getting a satisfactory answer, the congressman says, “It’s not too late.”
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
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Pingback| 12.8.09 @ 7:01AM
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Bram| 12.8.09 @ 10:05AM
Unlike many of the old, stiff, Republican dinosaurs, McCotter is knowledgable of current American culture, has a quick wit, and a great sense of humor.
His "Red-Eye" interviews are great. He gives great conservative analysis on the issues - then goes into a discussion of Canadian Power Trio's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
Pingback| 12.8.09 @ 10:21AM
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Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.09 @ 10:26AM
Bram,
Thank you.
I had only seen one short glimpse of him on video.
...Seems like a good man. Anybody here know him better?
Pingback| 12.8.09 @ 11:06AM
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William Fleming| 12.8.09 @ 11:07AM
McCotter is an intriguing fellow. I found him on his website, McCotterRocks.com, when I was looking for guitars. Since then, I've seen him on RedEye, been to a couple of his speeches - I must admit - being apolitical in the past - he has me politically hooked. The GOP should serve up a bit more of his ilk - a mix of hip and intelligent. It would serve us well.
Tom Rapp| 12.8.09 @ 11:13AM
Every name mentioned, McCotter, Miller, Gutfeld, are examples of the modern day conservative. There is much reason to optimistic about the future.
Martin| 12.8.09 @ 11:40AM
Great article on an extremely thoughtful and deliberative Member of Congress. He not only has an excellent understanding of his district, but he has one of the best policy and political minds in Washington. After only a few years in office, he was successful in being elected by his peers as Chairman of the House Policy Committee. Enough said! Definitely one to watch in the future of the Republican Party.
Pittsburgh Pete| 12.8.09 @ 11:42AM
The experiences of total freedom that come from the edge-of-the-bed gutiar playing cannot ever be completely articulated. It is no coincidence that McCotter is both a guitar lover and freedom lover.
Pingback| 12.8.09 @ 12:47PM
Learn Guitar » Blog Archive » The American Spectator : Guitar Man links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
albert constantine, jr.| 12.8.09 @ 1:36PM
The American Spectator truly represents diversity in viewpoints. An article praising Ronald Reagan and critical of McCotter's stated (and/or presumed ) viewpoint on how Republicans can achieve or return to power; posted alongside of the Antle article on McCotter, highlighting how his style can help Republicans achieve or return to power. Whoever says that conservative (or Republican) views are monolithic is not paying attention.
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Alan Brooks| 12.8.09 @ 1:45PM
But it is becoming predictable, in a dreary way. A GOP Speaker of the House will preside in '11, then fizzle out a couple years later.
Another Dole-McCain will run in '12, be defeated by Obama. Then Jeb wins in '16, followed by eight years of anti-conservatism. Welcome to the 21st century.
Michael Tomlinson| 12.8.09 @ 9:50PM
This is the type of logic that gave us Obama. Need to go back and discover the real Reagan and not the faux Reagan being trotted out by conservative pundits to push agendas he'd despise.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.09 @ 1:47PM
Let's make one thing perfectly clear: optimism is no longer justified.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.8.09 @ 5:13PM
Ah a true sunny day patriot.
go sit in the corner and play quietly.
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philfl63| 12.8.09 @ 2:13PM
Please, enough already with the quirky politicians who might lead a resurgence of the Republican party. We have Huckabee and his bass. That is nauseatingly enough. The congressman is entitled to his opinions, but his state is dying and he is quoting Kierkegard. This guy is a RINO, for all his "artistic and philsophical sensitivities", and thus he is of no use to the conservative movement. He has been in office eight years to go along to get along.
Michael Tomlinson| 12.8.09 @ 9:47PM
Not sure he's a RINO, but what we really need is solid candidates like McDonnell in Virginia and not former beauty queens, pastors without pulpits and quirky rock star wannabes. Isn't Obama's ego enough.
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Carpenter| 12.8.09 @ 2:42PM
This kind of giddiness from the other guys got us stuck with Obama.
My personal take is that anybody that can play blues on a Telecaster can't be all bad, but in Congress? Hmmmm...
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Alan Brooks| 12.8.09 @ 5:01PM
At least he's no Jimmy Hendrix.
Oh, but wait, today that is a racist jest. Today if you say "the sky looks dark", the NAACP chides you.
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Northern Rebel| 12.8.09 @ 7:17PM
THADDEUS!
Funny, brilliant, articulate, The king of dead-pan humor, My favorite RED EYE guest that doesn't sit in the leg chair!
And he plays guitar too?
Give this man a Presidential seal!
Old Tex:
This is a good man, and a true conservative. DVR Red Eye. It's one of my guilty pleasures!
wjn| 12.8.09 @ 8:34PM
This article tends to suggest McCotter is a conservative. I'm not sure I agree. His support for the liberal Dede Scozzafava in NY23 suggests otherwise. As a member of the Republican House Leadership wouldn't McCotter have been responsible for channeling campaign funds to Scozzafava? I would need further evidence before I conclude that McCotter represents mainstream America's desire for limited government.
Michael Tomlinson| 12.8.09 @ 9:44PM
How amazing a politician voting for "pork" in his district. One man's pork is another man's bacon. That's why all the punish Republicans who gave us Obama need to be careful what they ask for when voting. Oh well it really doesn't matter the blue lapdogs will "save America."
DNC| 12.8.09 @ 9:50PM
Off subject but relevant - what in the h_ll is this "Pingback" comment that one has to deal with to read the real comments? Take 'em off!
somnolence| 12.8.09 @ 10:08PM
Glad he's in the GOP camp but he needs to listen to Kenny Burrell, Grant Green or Chet Atkins more.
Alan Brooks| 12.8.09 @ 11:13PM
John McLaughlin.
And no, not the guy who did the McLaughlin report.
Holdsworth, anyone?
Yosemeti Sam| 12.8.09 @ 11:23PM
Like, ah - lose the guitar, man.
What - a Spruce Strumsteen in the making
whom voters will stampede towards for
the answers blowing in the wind; er, strings.
poptoy| 12.9.09 @ 12:22AM
Rep. McCotter is one of the finest people in our U.S. Congress. I have been following this gentleman for some time now. I pray for the day this man becomes President. I am from Louisiana and I just wish we had the likes of him down here. However I have Dr. Charles Boustany as my Congressman and he is every bit the man Rep. McCotter can be. I thank GOD everyday they are Republicans. Both of them are good men. We need more of them.
Barrett Root | 12.9.09 @ 12:23AM
Has anyone heard him play? I hope he's better than (Bill) Clinton was on the saxophone.
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GringoBob | 12.9.09 @ 7:37AM
this guy does NOT have very impressive record as conservative - not even quite moderate - check his rating at National Taxpayers Union or American Conservative Union - not so good !!
don't know about his guitar ability and don't much care
http://Group912.org
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