Beware Of Flaks Bearing Gifts
By Mitch Berg
If there’s someone who qualifies as “The Lori Sturdevant of the NYTimes” – the Gray Lady’s most reliable Tic flak – it’s Frank Rich.
So when he Mcomes out and admits the Times’ great nemesis, Rush Limbaugh, is right, conservatives would do well to keep the exits to that Trojan Horse covered with machine guns and artillery.
BEFORE they were sidetracked into a new war against The New York Times, the Rush Limbaugh posse had it right about John McCain. He is a double agent. Some Democrats do admire and like him. So does Jon Stewart, and so do many liberal editorial boards and card-carrying hacks in the mainstream American press. So, in fact, do many at The Times, including myself. As long as I don’t look too hard at the fine print.
Rich’s “fine print” must be on the contract he signed, obliging him to be a mindless flak – but I digress.
You’ve got to love a guy who said a few years ago that he regretted likening Mr. Limbaugh to “a circus clown” because of all the complaints from circus clowns insulted by the comparison. “I would like to extend my apologies to Bozo, Chuckles and Krusty,” Senator McCain told a rather startled Neil Cavuto of Fox News.
What’s more, Ann Coulter and Tom DeLay aren’t entirely wrong when they bluster that a vote for Mr. McCain amounts to a vote for Hillary Clinton (or, for that matter, Barack Obama).
Oh, puh-leeze.
When Frank Rich “agrees” with Ann Coulter or Tom DeLay, start looking for the punch line. Or the whammy.
The Arizona senator’s otherwise conservative record is closer to the Democrats on immigration, campaign-finance reform, stem-cell research, global warming, oil drilling in Alaska, waterboarding, Gitmo and, until a recent flip-flop, the Bush tax cuts.
Which are, in order; lamentable, a travesty for which conservatives will need to get their pound of flesh, an important but not critical issue, something we need a Republican Congress to countervail, not really the President’s turf, understandable, ditto, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if someone “flip flops” if they “flip flop” in the right direction.
In The New Republic, Jonathan Chait concluded that Mr. McCain’s Senate votes made him “the most effective advocate of the Democratic agenda in Washington” during the first Bush term.
If you leave out the war, spending, taxes (mostly) – y’know, the things that matter for presidents.
The good news for the Democrats so far is that whatever Mr. McCain’s sporadic overlap with liberals, he is emulating almost identically the suicidal Clinton campaign against Mr. Obama. He has mimicked Mrs. Clinton’s message and rhetorical style, her tone-deaf contempt for Mr. Obama’s cultural appeal, and her complete misreading of just how politically radioactive the war in Iraq remains despite its migration from the front page.
Frank? Slapnuts? He’s been running for the endorsement. Republican primary and caucus voters aren’t really looking for Obama’s “unicorn in every garage” message.
Hence, he won. And beats Obie and Madame Putin in hypothetical polls.
Which is why, naturally, Frank Rich is writing this noxiously disingenuous article.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
So let me get this straight.
If a liberal columnist like Rick says a candidate is a rock-ribbed conservative then conservatives should vote for that candidate. And if Rich says the candidate is a liberal in conservative’s clothing that’s reason for the conservatives to vote for the candidate, too?
March 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
And apparently McCain is supposed to roll over and play dead in order to be judged a “man of honor” by liberal pukes. If he fights to be elected against two untouchable members of the victim class (women and blacks), CLEARLY he will not be judged a man of honor. The fair, nay, the honorable thing to do is just let one of them win.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:46 am
It really doesn’t matter. What’s the option(s)?
Neos, Paleos, Paulites, all are going to vote for McLite come Nov. You really don’t have a choice, do you?
March 6th, 2008 at 10:01 am
My option is to skip that box on the ballot.
Republicans in Congress act more conservatively when they’re opposing the President. See, years of Clinton versus years of Bush.
I’d sooner see Republicans gridlock Washington for all four years of the Obama administration than see them be “team players” who “support the President as the party’s leader” no matter where he wanders.
.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:12 am
You really don’t have a choice, do you?
Given the future of the Supreme Court if a Dem wins? We really don’t.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:53 am
What’s wrong with jackscrow?
If the neos, paleos, and paulites all voted for McCain in Nov. he wouldget elected. The Paulites won’t vote McCain (to do so they would have to become moderate Republicans) and the Paleoconservatives won’t vote for them either. How can you vote for McCain when you want to end the war and you don’t want amnesty for illegal aliens?
March 6th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
McCain will get the neos. There aren’t enough paleos to matter. Ask Pat Buchanan how many votes he got last time he ran. And do you think the Paulites really want HRC or Obama to be elected?
March 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I think Mitch’s point was that Republicans in general and conservatives specifically shouldn’t and generally don’t take their cues from Frank Rich anymore than they should or do take their cues from his drag alter ego Lori Sturdevant.