The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Cretinous B*$*@**$

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Jim, to answer your question about the disconnect between the RNC and the conservative movement, the answer is that the RNC has been controlled since 1988 by cretinous b$^#$*^#s. It's all about thinking themselves "the right sort" of people, not about building a party in order to advance certain principles of government. This is what the first Bush administration bequeathed to us, and it has been thus ever since.

When my father was Louisiana's Republican National Committeeman from 1988-1993, he and Morton Blackwell repeatedly tried to pass a resolution urging the Bush administration to codify the "Beck decision" that allowed workers to withhold (or get back) union dues taken from them and used for purely political purposes, rather than for benefits or collective bargaining services. The Beck decision was one of the greatest advances for worker rights in years (oddly, just this past week Barack Obama issued an executive order rescinding the younger Bush's Beck-related orders), but the first Bush administration, cowered by the unions that never were going to support the administration anyway, absolutely refused to do anything to implement Beck -- and the lickspittle, pathetic, obsequious RNC refused to let the Hillyer/Blackwell resolution even see the light of day.

The real test for Michael Steele is whether he will shake things up, tell the hangers-on to get lost, kick out two-thirds of the consultants, and get aggressive with technology and on-the-ground organization, which absolutely requires an outreach and coalition-building with conservative movement organizations -- or whether he will ignore the movement, pay consultants for lots of useless TV spots, and spend most of his time trying to go on TV himself and talk a good game. If all he does is the latter, it won't matter how good he is on TV (and he usually is, to his credit, very very good), because he will have continued the same moronic trends that have helped drag the party down.

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Sebastian B. O. Buniontow V| 1.31.09 @ 6:07PM

Quin, I bet you think your sh+t is Post Toasties too.

It's morons like yourself who believes that the "Big Tent" is purely additive. The logic goes, well we have the base (many of which are conservatives) sown up, so we just add some NE moderates and we are home free. Wrong!

Even ole Nancy Pelosi is questing for her value voters and here the GOP is interested in handing DNC an opening. You are so cavalier about social conservatives who have donated and campaigned for GOP candidates for decades. Who says the NE moderates are going to enter the "Big Tent?"

As for technology, sure you got your arse handled to you in the last election. But it is wonks like you who are stupid enough to put circuit boards over substance. It isn't the media but the message that matters to the electorate.

Steele is a joke as were the other contestants. Like Obama he is all fluff. His favorable position on the Holder nomination is but one of the strange decisions he has made.

He ran for Senate against an inferior Democrat candidate and lost. Now he promises to do the same for other Republican candidates.

Alan Brooks| 1.31.09 @ 6:14PM

"right sort of people"? whats wrong with that? better aristocrats that dumb proles.

Bush '41 was right, God i miss him now that life is prole and 'bro and in the 'hood.

Ran| 1.31.09 @ 8:59PM

"[Right] sort of people"? [What's] wrong with that? [Better] aristocrats [than] dumb proles." [chuckles] Res ipso loquitor.

Mr. Hillyer,
I'm positive. Here's why:

I am related to one of those Greenwich Republicans [of the type the good Mr. Frum's Bold Pastels movement hopes to attract.] The Hon. relative had served a handful of Presidents - numerous hand-shake photos framed in evidence - as a Republican. Better, RINO. He and his Posh-CC Republican cluster are about as Left socially and fiscally as any center to left-of-center Democrat. [He'd openly supported McCain, but admitted in the end that he had voted Obama... as a protest against Palin. To save face at The Club, methinks.] It has always been about being seen as the "right sort" for him.

That, ah, gentleman isn't the future. It's been discussed around the dinner table at our home that this is Ohio, not Connecticut. Our Conservative involvement here will have great leverage if we engage and put our hearts into the effort.

Conservatives can wrest control from the cretinous b*$*@**s and reconnect the GOP the old-fashioned way... Peter Ferrara has offered the prescription. RNC Chairman Michael Steele will need support - and coercive, corrective pressure - from the Conservative base to be effective. The "Right" sort - rabble rousers such as I - can lead from the roots by getting in on local Republican action.

Cheers.

Mary| 1.31.09 @ 10:52PM

We couldn't be more fortunate than we've been this past week. Let's face it, the democrats are not about much more than the politics of genitalia, if their stimulus/syphilis (see Mark Steyn) package is any indication. If we could have cherry picked our luck, we couldn't have sorted better than this past week delivered for us.

Republicans cannot and should not take the blue bloods too seriously. It's not that they don't make some good points or have little to offer, it's that they're inbred. They really lack weight and they lack the ability to impassion. Without passion, no movement can proceed.

I like Mr. Steele. He has a beautiful smile. And I hope that he understands that conservatives of a slightly different stripe than he are not going to close their eyes and think of England. Either they're going to participate or they're going to just fall asleep, and I don't think Republicans can afford to add to 2 million to the 4 million who slept rather than close their eyes and think of Maverickland.

Mr. Steele has a wonderful opportunity here for himself, his future, and the future of the party.

I'm convinced that Obama is an ideologue. I'm also convinced that he doesn't have what it takes to be a competent leader. His campaign success cannot necessarily be translated to effective governance. He sees the United States as congenitally defective and he sees himself as the dissector-in-chief. Above all else, we have to thwart his aims here. He's no renaissance man.

It's up to Republicans to remind the American people that piecemeal advance is what is needed here and now. It's up to them to make the case that Democrats are the same irresponsible, cotton-headed, liberals that they have always been.

Obama is self-smitten , and smart Republicans will take advantage of that. He's a boy yet and not a fully formed man, and they should take advantage of that too.

Rush is right about not bending over for Obama. Even "Puddles" Parker felt compelled to compare Obama's hubris with that of Bush's in terms of what he has claimed to be his mandate.

If Republicans are responsible they will offer against Obama's perfunctory evocation of the Father of our Country, the following reminder: "Government is not eloquence, it's not reason, it's force."

Again, they need to stake their claim on the sanity of well thought out, piecemeal advances relative to whatever problems plague the Country, and they need to continue to talk calmly and self-assuredly, and paint Obama's plan as recklessly naive.

Republicans could do a lot worse than remember Machiavelli's pride in the Florentines who "in their struggle against the Pope and his excommunication had held love of their native City higher than the fear for the salvation of their souls."

Alan Brooks| 1.31.09 @ 11:03PM

better Aristocrats than dumb proles. you're aye.

i want proles to do v. well financially, what with all the latest gizmos.
but give them little power.
they have influence, but what does the maddening crowd need with power?
good for blue bloods like Bush 41. i'd much rather have pantywaists running my life than the maddening prole crowd who are today clawing up the post-Buckley/postgenteel ladder.
cripes, have you looked at 'culture' lately? do you have the stomach?

Interloper| 2.1.09 @ 12:47AM

The first African-American president is " a boy"? He is "all fluff" i.e. unintelligent? Steele, being black too, "has a beautiful smile." What's next? You can't wait to hear them sing spirituals? Never have people earned their irrelevancy so completely.

ron| 2.1.09 @ 4:27AM

@Interloper - you nailed it.

I don't care about the genealogy of the politician. I do care about the ideas and passion. You want people to vote for you? Offer them something they want. People that work want lower taxes, safety, and a government that stays out of their way. That's it.

Mary| 2.1.09 @ 10:02AM

Interloper, quit bringing race into play. If he was white and he held the same resume, I'd still think of him as more boy than fully formed man. Not fluff, but not a man like both the Roosevelts, Reagan, etc.

George Bush was still a boy too. He proved himself by keeping the Country safe. If Obama can do the same, he'll be Bush's equal in that regard. But I'm afriad he's Bush's equal in other areas that may not bode so well for him.

Obama's garnered a lot of good will, if he's smart he'll keep it.

And since we're talking about smiles, I just said that Mr. Steele had a beautiful smile, as oppossed to you who wrote of Chip Saltsman's cancer-looking cheeks.

You're a chump.