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This does seem to be a fine day for glimpses into the wingnut id. Right after I finished a post on the weird but interesting projection of totalitarian imagery onto Occupy folk by anti-choice activists, I stumbled on a long, long cri du coeur from The American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord about the eternal perfidy of Repubican moderates as revealed in their disdain for Newt Gingrich.
Lord, you might recall, got himself into news coverage of the GOP presidential nomination contest last week when he dug around in old congressional speech archives and revealed that neocon warhorse Elliot Abrams had mischaracterized remarks by Gingrich about Ronald Reagan back in the day.
Anticipating his hero’s imminent defeat in Florida, no doubt, Lord got up very early this morning and delivered himself of the definitive blast against his intra-party enemies, who, it appears, have been conspiring to control the GOP on behalf of liberalism since the beginning of the last century, mainly by promoting the infernal myth of “electability.” Showing off the research skills he brought to bear on old issues of the Congressional Record in his earlier screed, Lord gives us very extensive helpings of the utterances of Thomas Dewey, that ancient nemesis of the Old Right. Gerald Ford also comes in for extensive abuse, though I am shocked Lord did not mention Ford’s elevation to the vice presidency of Dewey’s successor as the incarnation of Eastern Establishment Republicanism, Nelson Rockefeller.
What’s really eating Lord is revealed in his citation of Sarah Palin’s complaint about the Establishment’s use of the “politics of personal destruction” against Newt, followed by his own complaint that said Establishment refuses to apply the same tactics to Barack Obama. This is the meme that led Palin-inspired conservatives to disrupt John McCain’s 2008 general election campaign rallies out of fury that the nominee refused go after his opponent personally as a Kenyan Muslim socialist. It’s a clear sign we can expect similar incidents at Mitt Romney’s events this fall.
By the end of his tirade, Lord is extensively quoting William F. Buckley about liberalism even as he gets offended by the contempt he feels from Buckley’s successor as editor of National Review, Rich Lowry (yes, the Establishment conspiracy has reached that citadel of movement conservatism!). But don’t read this remarkable essay for its logic; it’s most interesting as an expression of the rage and frustration of the hard-core Right before it “settles” for Mitt.
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Hedda Peraz on January 31, 2012 10:58 AM:
Name calling leads to pushing and shoving, and then FOOD FIGHTS!
I fear for the future of my party. . .
(anybody notice that over at Benen's new blog Captcha stayed behind?)
T2 on January 31, 2012 10:59 AM:
the final poll numbers today show Romney way ahead....but really what it shows is a dead even tie between Santorum/Gingrich's TeaBag support and the lukewarm GOP support for Romney. Other polls have noted that if Santorum dropped out, all his supporters wouldn't necessarily go to Newt. But the takeaway is that the GOP STILL doesn't want a Romney candidate. And a whole lot of really mad "Take our Country Back" TeaBaggers will be stewing about how 'they was robbed' for a long time. Except this time the were robbed by the GOP. I say wait until the Deep South primaries are finished before writing off Newt.
Anonymous on January 31, 2012 11:13 AM:
What did I just read?
I feel I am a pretty well plugged-in reader but ... I'm totally lost.
Chris Gerrib on January 31, 2012 11:25 AM:
Speaking as a former Reagan voter, I think there's a simple explanation as to where Lord's article goes wrong.
Reagan was not nearly as conservative as the modern GOP is now. Nor, for that matter, was Ike, the other great Republican President of yore.
Even so, in both cases they won the Presidency based on competency more than ideology. Truman was in over his head in Korea, and the man who pulled off D-Day was ready to fix it. Carter was similarly vexed by the Soviet Union and Iran.
Josef K on January 31, 2012 11:49 AM:
From Chris Gerrib at 11:25 AM:
Even so, in both cases they won the Presidency based on competency more than ideology. Truman was in over his head in Korea, and the man who pulled off D-Day was ready to fix it. Carter was similarly vexed by the Soviet Union and Iran.
I'd say in both cases there was more behind Ike and RR's election than just those issues. Ike had McCarthy poisoning national discourse to paranoid fever, and the economy at the end of Carter's term was (put charitably) godsawful. The country was in a mood for something comfortable and familiar, and both men fit the bill at the time.
Okay, that said, Lord's meltdown is hardly surprising. The Republican's lurch into extremes made it pretty much inevitable. Where before it was commies under ever bed, now its liberals, although I doubt the Tea Party can even conceive of what makes a genuine liberal anymore.
As I said earlier, the Republican base seem to have regressed to a tribalistic mindset. Not a good development, to say the least. Lord is just one of the more literate tribesmen right now.
Danp on January 31, 2012 11:51 AM:
What did I just read?
I feel I am a pretty well plugged-in reader but ... I'm totally lost.
I'm afraid I had some trouble navigating all the commas, too.
Ron Zucker on January 31, 2012 12:06 PM:
Ed, bubbie, I can't be the only liberal who's railed against the DLC. I hate how they sacrificed our strongest principles on the altar of centrism. I've been upset that they can't seem to see that, in the process, they win neither victories for said principles, nor temporal victories in the House and Senate. I've tried to explain that, given a choice between a fake Republican and a real Republican, the people vote for the real one every time. And I've tried to figure out why in God's name they seem unwilling to go at the GOP as hard as the GOP goes after my side of the political battle, yet they seem willing to "hippie punch" at will.
In other words, I've said the same things. I think Lord is crazy, but that's because he's wrong on the issues. I don't think he's wrong on the politics. And any lefty democrat who says he is should think twice about how they phrase things.
N.Wells on January 31, 2012 12:13 PM:
He's complaining that establishment republicans AREN'T using the “politics of personal destruction” against Obama????? What universe is he living in?
Gregory on January 31, 2012 12:20 PM:
Right after I finished a post on the weird but interesting projection of totalitarian imagery onto Occupy folk by anti-choice activists
Projection, indeed.
Rick Massimo on January 31, 2012 12:34 PM:
"This is the meme that led Palin-inspired conservatives to disrupt John McCain’s 2008 general election campaign rallies out of fury that the nominee refused go after his opponent personally as a Kenyan Muslim socialist. It’s a clear sign we can expect similar incidents at Mitt Romney’s events this fall."
We can expect no such thing. There'll be grumbling before the election, and arguments after Obama is reelected, but this November is their last chance to Get That N!&&@r Out Of The White House. They'll coalesce.
Besides, whatever else you can say about John McCain, he stood up and didn't participate in that crap. You think Mitt Romney's going to have that kind of integrity?
Daniel Buck on January 31, 2012 12:42 PM:
Ed,
Abram did not mischaracterize Gingrich's remarks. Besides, Gingrich trashed Reagan on more than one occasion:
Here's New Gingrich is 1978, speaking to the College Republicans in Georgia: "In my lifetime, literally,in my lifetime, I was born in 1943, we have not had a competent national Republican leader. Not ever!"
That sweeping condemnation would include everyone from Nixon to Rockefeller, Goldwater to Reagan, Taft to Ford. Everyone except Mr. Gingrich, then in his mid-thirties, but already donning the Napoleonic complex.
At a press conference prior to President Reagan's 1983 State of the Union address: "Really, Reaganomics has failed."
On the House floor in 1983: "The fact is that President Reagan has lost control of the national agenda."
In 1985, likening President Reagan to Neville Chamberlain, seemingly for the effrontery of meeting with Gorbachev without Gingrich's permission.
On the House floor in 1986: "The Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic fundamental change in strategy will continue to fail . . . . President Reagan is clearly failing . . . . The burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan."
Dan
Graychin on January 31, 2012 6:30 PM:
Have we forgotten that it was Newt himself who raised the Politics of Personal Destruction to an art form?
Doug on January 31, 2012 8:52 PM:
You've got a candidate who considers himself a better politician than a man, Ronald Reagan, who was twice elected President. He sees himself, or pretends to, as being a greater visionary than Jules Verne, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford combined. His understanding of economics is deeper than that of ALL economists since David Ricardo combined.
You've got his political base that considers itself to be the rightful rulers of this nation; even if they constitute less than a quarter of the party's members and much less than that of the country's population. A political base that considers winning to be the ONLY thing, yet hasn't forgetten that when the party does "win", for some strange reason, they don't.
Hoover wasn't re-nominated in 1936. Taft wasn't nominated in 1940. Or 1948. OR 1952. McCarthy was censured. Goldwater lost and it's all the fault of the party "establishment". THIS time it's going to be different! Go Newt, go!
A marriage made in Hell...