The Pink Flamingo :: How Conservatives Morphed into Marxists Over Immigration

IS NOONAN A WOMAN SCORNED?
On Sunday Harold Hutchison (Called As Seen) (Kudos for a nifty career break!) emailed that he had a fascinating commentary on a recent Red State editorial. Erick at Red State is referencing yet another Peggy Noonan hit job on GWB. I know I’m not the brightest person in the world, but Noonan’s 10/12/07 column doesn’t make sense.

“…I suspect the Republican establishment knows all this, but I am not sure it concerns them overmuch. Why should it? If you are an absolute Bush partisan, you probably don't really want a Republican to follow him and potentially, in decisions if not in words, rebuke him. That would be the worst thing, not being followed by Hillary or Obama. If the latter happens, the outgoing administration can--and will--blame the loss on lax candidates, on a party that wasn't sufficiently inclusive, on congressional scandals, on immigration. "If only they'd followed our lead!"

They'll be fine. The party may be defeated, the conservative coalition that raised them high sundered, but they'll be all right. Which is important, because more than the president's legacy is involved. Their very personal legacy is involved. No one wants to have worked for the biggest embarrassment in modern American political history. You won't be burning up the public speaking trail with Terry McAuliffe that way.”

A MINI RANT
My next comment, why is this woman in such a snit with GWB. As a member of the female race, I reserve the right to pass judgment on women. Peggy Noonan has had a bee in her bonnet about George W. Bush for several years now. It’s starting to sound like the old adage, “Hell Hath No Fury…” She’s after him like an irrational woman, plain and simple. Something GWB either did or didn’t do put this woman in a pure, female snit. She’s mad at him. I’m not sure why.

I wish I were one of those really annoying Kos or Huff bloggers so I could make the comment I want to make but I’m not. The woman sounds like she has this just plain weird infatuation with conservatives and maybe with GWB as the second-coming (RWR). Evidently GWB isn’t as RWR conservative pure as she had hoped he would be, so she’s now after him like a dumped woman staking some man she once thought was her suitor. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t GWB specifically, but any GOP POTUS who is conservative and starts out reminding her of RWR.

No, it’s a woman thing. The worst part of it is I think this is a sad commentary on most conservatives of her ilk. They’ve taken the passion of their conservative longings and values and it is has morphed into something almost psychotic.

Now back to Erick

“…Meanwhile, our side is still licking its wounds from 2006 and our leaders have decided to take a "devil may care" attitude and fend for themselves — working to bring each part of our grand coalition back on an "as needed" basis. In the meantime, we don't have the strength to stand against "colonial reform." None of the parts of our coalition really trust or like each other enough to sit in the same room. And even if they did, the Bushies are only about the Bushies and the GOP leadership is only about avoiding more FBI investigations while they dole out the earmarks.

Friends, we need to bring our coalition back together. I don't expect Dick Armey to apologize to Dr. Dobson. And I don't expect Dr. Dobson to back down from his Rudy comments. But the rest of us need to work together again. We need to get out of the "policy is a game" mantra that we, at some point, started living and return to "policy is life."

If we cannot reconnect, we won't get back in the majority. And we start where Peggy Noonan's points leave us. We don't rely on the Bushies to get us where we need to go. And we don't look in Washington; we look outside Washington. We look to leaders leading in the states. We look to activists making differences in the states. We look to ourselves. We're not in the policy as a game. Our pocketbooks, our children's minds, our lives know what their policy victories mean….”

ANOTHER MINI RANT
Does this make any sense to you? I’m wondering if ‘red state’ conservatives have been infected with some sort of virus that substitutes reason and rational thought for some sort of quasi cult style religion? Nothing else makes sense. There is another very serious aspect to all of this. I go back to my theory that many of the people who are conservative today have absolutely nothing to do with the GOP and are only mucking up the bath-water.

Harold’s column

“…In essence, you racked up three strikes your own. Strike one, conservatives managed to look hypocritical on a signature issue that I agreed with you on (judges), and then got sanctimonious with those who disagreed. Strike two, conservatives viewed disagreement with them as treason, when the real thing was there for people to plainly see. Then, strike three, the conservatives' actions - in essence, you decided to bench George W. Bush as the play-caller, despite his electoral success - led to a shellacking at the polls.  Conservatives have managed to dig themselves quite a hole with their absolutism and strategic incompetence, and quite frankly, I have better things to do than to politically empower those who view me as a "party hack" who has sold his soul and/or a traitor to this country. In case you didn't notice, non-support or outright opposition is what happens when people do that sort of thing. …”

Then read some of the comments at the end of the post. Conservatives have made a mess of things. I truly wish we had another word for these truly unhinged conservatives. I agree with Harold. I am right of center most of the time. But the way things are now, the way conservatives are acting, their behavior and current mind-set has very little to do with “Reagan conservative”. Let’s face it, these people have fled the GOP ages ago. ..."

TURNING CONSERVATIVES INTO MARXISTS!
America’s Majority

“…The Senate’s failure to pass S. 1639 most obviously affects border security. Congress will enter 2008 without funding for additional fence, border agents, or holding beds, and a without a system of tamper-proof employee identification. The policy of the United States remains what it was: de facto amnesty along an uncontrolled border.But the collateral damage to the conservative movement, largely self-inflicted, is also severe.   Morally, the popular and formal organs of the political Right invoked the civil infraction of crossing an unenforced border as the rationale for mass punishment of illegals and their employers – a punititve overkill of monumental proportions.   Economically, the popular and formal organs of the political Right invoked such Marxist canards as Ricardo’s iron law of wages and the fictitious decline of the middle class. The interests of the employers of illegals -- farmers, ranchers, food processors, service industries, high tech, and small business – were disregarded at best, deprecated at worst.  “Politically, the popular and formal organs of the political Right comported themselves as if 32 million Hispanic American citizens could be disregarded when discussing the fate of 12 million Hispanic illegals; and as if the demographics of the West and South were irrelevant.   A substantial portion of the political Right fell prey to the talk-radio-fed delusion that support for deportation of illegals exceeded support for their amnesty among the general public. The truth is precisely opposite, as polling by the Americas Majority Foundation has confirmed. By a margin of two-to-one, the American public prefers to amnesty illegal aliens, either as guest workers, or as eventual citizens….”

WHY REPUBLICANS LOSE
From Richard Nadler’s WSJ piece

“…Mr. Hayworth lost his election advocating not what he shared with other candidates, but what distinguished him: the goal of mass deportation. Aside from Tom Tancredo, there has not been a single elected official more publicly associated with the deportationist point of view than J.D. Hayworth. I included an analysis of his district not because it was rich in Hispanic votes -- it is not -- but because if the widely touted anti-illegal backlash of non-Hispanic whites were to materialize anywhere, Scottsdale and Tempe were prime candidates. Mr. Hayworth, who carried Arizona District 5 against his Democratic rival 59% to 38% in 2004, lost by 46% to 50% in 2006. The negative reaction of Hispanics to a deportationist platform was swift and measurable. The "positive" response of non-Hispanic whites was not. Neither Rep. Hayworth, nor any of my other critics, have grasped the central point of my study: What the GOP lost where it ran deportationist candidates can be measured in actual votes cast by Hispanics. Over a single election cycle, a shift of three or four percentage points within a major voting block is considered significant. The anti-deportationist backlash I measured among Hispanics of 20-plus points signals a major realignment, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the GOP….”

HAVE ‘CHRISTIAN’ CONSERVATIVES MISCALCULATED?

James Dobson and his assortment of little conservative friends claim that they’ve not been happy with the GOP since Ronald Reagan. (They weren’t happy with Reagan so why stop there). It has little to do with conservative and “Christian” and conservative values and everything to do with POWER, abject, total quest for power.

From The Politico

“…Just how powerful Christian conservatives are within the Republican Party, however, is a matter of some dispute. They certainly do not always get the nominee they want. In fact, they have probably not gotten the nominee they wanted since Ronald Reagan.

They did not want George H.W. Bush, who once referred to the far right wing of his party as the “extra-chromosome set.” They did not much like Bob Dole, who refused even to read the Republican platform and its very strong anti-abortion language, and they were not that thrilled with George W. Bush, who refused to back a constitutional amendment banning abortion when he ran for president in 2000.

Still, if they can’t choose the nominee, they have the power to influence a close general election, either by bolting to a third party or staying home. Speaking on “Face the Nation” Sunday, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said: “If, among all of the options that are available to Republicans, if they advance a pro-abortion-rights candidate, we simply cannot go with them. If the Republican Party decides to retreat from its defense of the unborn, we are not going to go with them.”
Perkins then cited a poll that, he says, “suggested that if it were a head-to-head election between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, and there was available a third-party pro-life candidate, 27 percent of Republicans would vote for that pro-life candidate.” Which would elect Hillary Clinton. And why would pro-life voters do that? To punish the Republicans, some say….”

Then there is the Eye on 08 commentary which puts it all back to money and power.

“…So you get a hodgepodge. Some people pick the purists. These people seem to be state level family group type of people. Some people make compromises. For example, yesterday Gary Bauer endorsed Fred Thompson. (not the first time that Bauer has done this. He also endorsed McCain in 2000) A friend on the religious left but political center talked to Richard Land the other day about Thompson, and Land was not so happy with his earlier statements of such strong support. Others, like Lou Sheldon, pick Romney. (although, again, the word on the street is that Sheldon is getting some money. To quote a friend of Sheldon, "Lou doesn’t do anything if money isn’t involved.") So, back to the original question. There are interest-group internal reasons for not picking a candidate. There are also questions of how the interest groups maintain power. These combine to make it very, very hard on interest group leaders. That’s just politics….”

CHECKS & BALANCES
Once upon a time, conservatives waxed poetic upon the merits of checks & balances and one branch of the government not having more power than another. Now, though they are waiting breathless for Chertoff to usurp the powers of the courts and over-rule them, as head of Homeland Security.
I am not an environmentalist, but even I see the importance of the San Petro Riparian Wildlife Area.

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