Shaking Off The Fatigue
By Mitch Berg
My blog child, Doug Williams, notes in a long and essential post that’s chock-full of good stuff you need to read, (and not just because it links back to me) that…:
[Republicans, as opposed to Conservatives] don’t nominate Ronald Reagan every 4 years. We only nominated him twice… and he was personally available before that and rejected. We USUALLY nominate someone like Gerald Ford, George Bush (either one), or Bob Dole.
Considering that is our OBVIOUS habit, what the hell is so shocking about the current slate of candidates?!
I’ll go one step further; given the “choices” we’ve had to put up with in the past – George HW Bush, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford – this year’s slate might, by some measures, be a big step up from the usual fare we get.
I don’t care why you disagree with them or where… Romney, McCain, and Giuliani are all WELL within the mainstream of the Republican nominations of the recent past. So many people are acting like something is SOOO special about not getting a perfect candidate this year. Hell… when has that EVER happened? Even Saint Ronald had crap he endorsed as California Governor AND as President which the current generation of chucklehead voters would apparently find disqualifying because such things are evidence that someone is not a “true conservative.”
One of my most special possessions is a book of George Will columns from the eighties.
Guess what he said about Reagan?
My advice to all involved is to step back juuuust enough to embrace the notion that our system of government has ALWAYS been one in which movements have to deal with compromise and the lesser of evils. That’s not new. It’s not a crisis. It’s just the way America’s government works. Blame your teachers if you find your expectations dashed coming to grips with this reality, because it’s not remotely new.
You will never get a 100% perfect candidate – at least, not from a party that every has to govern, anywhere (get outta here, Libertarians). The goal is to find one that’s better than the alternative.
As I said on Wednesday – is there any rational doubt that any of the current crop of Republicans, whatever their imperfections as first-principle conservatives, wouldn’t be better than Ms. Putin, Silkypony or Obie?
If you’re not sure (and by “you”, I mean this blog’s conservative audience), consider the following:
- Associate Justice Michael Moore
- Associate Justice Sean Penn
- Associate Justice Markos Moulitsas.
Have I made myself clear?
January 25th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Hey Mitch, how many gears does that bike of yours have?
January 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Now that Fred’s out, I have finally narowed it down to…Romney. I was an early Guiliani supporter, but somehow not so much anymore. He’d be fine, but Romney it is.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Good choice, Colleen. Massachusetts liberals seem to do really well in presidential elections.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I’m not entirely sure of how compitent all of the Republicans in the race will be at appointing justices to the court. Three of the liberal justices were nominated by Republican presidents, lest we forget.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Three of the liberal justices were nominated by Republican presidents, lest we forget.
Ford hardly counts as a conservative. Bush Senior, either. Reagan? Well, he screwed up.
But let’s say Rudy, Mitt or JMac has a 50-50 chance of appointing a *good* justice. That’s better than the roughly 0-100 chance you get with Silkypony, Obie or Madame Putin.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
In one hand Sean Penn holds a Bible over a Bic lighter, with the other he sautes the Second Amendment in a nice white wine sauce…
January 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
With fava beans?
Gotta have the fava beans.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Massachusetts liberals seem to do really well in presidential elections.
Especially in 2004.
But there’s been SO many presidents from Massachusetts. I mean you’ve got Adams, Coolidge, Kennedy and.. and…
Oh, and Coolidge was a republican who inherited the presidency when Harding died, so I guess “Massachussetts liberal who did well in the election” is only 33% correct.
*ahem*
January 25th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Crap, must have typoed the close tag. Sorry.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Three of the liberal justices were nominated by Republican presidents, lest we forget.
Romney may do as well in 2008 as Dole did in 1996. 40% of the popular vote. Dole got 159 electoral votes vs 379 for Clinton.
If Romney is the candidate, you can work your ass off, donate lots of money. He will still lose. If McCain is the nominee, you can work your ass off, donate lots of money and he might win — but he will negotiate with Schumer and Kennedy before nominating a federal district judge or an SC justice. Not worth it.
On the other hand a strong showing in the congressional elections this November will make it difficult for Hillary or Obama to drive the country into the socialist abyss.
Assuming Rudy drops out, conservatives can do the best for their country by spending their time and effort on getting conservative senators and congressman elected.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Fixed now?
January 25th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
How about now?
January 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I’m not entirely sure of how compitent all of the Republicans in the race will be at appointing justices to the court. Three of the liberal justices were nominated by Republican presidents, lest we forget.
Judicial nominees are now and always have been a crap shoot because (a) no one knows in advance who the judicial nominee will be, (b) there is no predicting what cases (which are based on specific fact patterns) will come before the Court and (c) judges are prohibited the judicial canons from saying in advance who they would rule on an issue that might come before them.
What you’re ultimately voting for is whether you want the judicial nominees of the next President to be drawn from a pool of Republican talent or a pool of Democrat talent. That’s it. You’re not voting for a specific judge and (much as this might rankle some of the rank and file), you aren’t voting for an outcome on a case or issue either.
Frankly I think conservatives waste far too much time talking about judicial nominees. It’s not something that you (or even the President) have much control over which is why they fall back on ambiguous and ultimately meaningless platitudes like “strict constructionist” or “originalist” or “judges who will follow/interpret the law rather than make up the law.” They’re nice convenient terms because they don’t really mean anything but you can count on the base reading into them some implied promise that the judges will vote the way they want on the relatively few hot button cases that come before the court each term even though of course there is no way of promising any such thing.
So what happens is conservatives (particularly social conservatives) will think they’re being promised something because they’re somehow voting for “judges” when the reality is that if you’re concerned about what the state of the law is in the country and whether it will be made by elected legislators or judges, we’d worry more about the quality of people who we (re)elect to Congress who write poorly drafted legislation full of ambiguous terms and expect the courts to “fix it” for them. Or who vote to systematically strip of us of our liberty in the name of the “public good” or whatever the polls the polls them the public wants this week.
But trying to correct the real problem is hard and difficult work. It’s not easy to find out what bills your legislator sponsored or voted for or why they did (even though the information is relatively easily available on the internet). What is easy – and this is why you see a lot of party officials fall back on “are you happy with Justices Roberts and Alito?” whenever we question the support of our Congressional candidates – is to distract (and that’s what it is – a distraction) the base with a handful of controversial cases and blame “the judges” or “the courts” who are ultimately not only still the weakest branch of government, but the one least blameworthy for the problems we have today.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Thorleywinston-
This is why I say that it is a waste of time for conservatives to expend time and energy trying to elect McCain or Romney.
The best hope conservatives have this year is to control enough congressional seats that they can put the brakes on Hillary or McCain.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Sure Mitch,
More hyperventilating and fear mongering.
Let’s weigh some candidates, shall we:
Thurgood Marshal vs. Clarence Thomas
Loius Brandies vs. Antonin Scalia
Warren Burger vs. William Rhenquist
Earl Warren vs. Samual Alito
When the die of history is cast, I can assure you, the firsts in those comparisons will and have gone down as paragons of judicial wisdom, the latter, most likely will go down as legal dunce cap recipients.
Why don’t we phumper and fear monger some more. Do you REALLY need to stoop to pure fiction, are your facts so weak that you can’t even argue from a postion of reason?
January 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
1) Why not compare Thomas to Brandeis? Or Burger? Or Warren?
Oh, right.
2) Phumper?
January 26th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
When the die of history is cast, I can assure you,
Oh. You assure me.
I guess it must be true, then!
January 26th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
2) Phumper?
From a community theatre production of Bambi starring a guy with a bad speech impediment?
January 27th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Lileks smeared: “1) Why not compare Thomas to Brandeis? Or Burger? Or Warren?
Oh, right.”
Cause Thomas took over the seat held by the guy who argued Brown v. Board of Education and became the first black man on the Supreme Court, big fella. Kinda like how people frequently compare Bush – unfavorably – to Clinton sted of, say, William Henry Harrison.
If you like the game of implying racial bias with Peev, without taking any position of your own, why do you suppose Bush’s dad appointed an unqualified, far out of the mainstream right-wing black guy to Marshall’s seat?
Oh, right.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:36 am
why do you suppose Bush’s dad appointed an unqualified,
Untrue.
far out of the mainstream right-wing
Anyone who doesn’t call for nationalized health care and abortion-as-civil-sacrament is “out of the mainstream right wing” these days.
black guy to Marshall’s seat?
Hm. Why, indeed, would the most “moderate” Republican president since Gerald Ford appoint a “far right conservative”?
Hm.
Hm, Hm, Hmmm.