When Karl Rove says the Tea Party should keep distances from the GOP*, what he actually means is that the GOP should stay away from this political dead end.
But if the Architect knows a few things about winning and losing elections, I don't think he is familiar with French Poujadism, the movement which inevitably comes up to my troubled French mind each time I hear about this laughingstock of a Tea Party.
During the early 1950s, Shop owner Pierre Poujade defied the French tax system and founded a party that surfed on a collapsed political system to claim 400,000 members and more than 50 seats in the National Assembly... where the absence of program of the movement became an embarassment for everyone. Charles de Gaulle's comeback put an end to the doomed IVth Republic, and Poujade's Union de Defense des Commercants et des Artisans left for ever the political centerstage.
Pathetic indeed. But one can worry a bit more about what could happen in a country where a certain Joseph Stack III just crashed his plane on an I.R.S. building in Austin, TX**... Furthermore, among UDCA's law"makers" was Jean-Marie Le Pen, who later founded the extreme right party Front National... I wouldn't be surprised to find this kind of "great democrats" within the Tea Party's dream team.
Hardcore taxophobes are not comfortable with the very concept of a state, and such platforms never bloom in healthy democracies because they are, fundamentally, anti-democracy.
Populism and tax breaks sell well in the short term, but only simple minds stick to it whatever happens. For instance : the same voters who followed G. W. Bush on that path are now mad at Obama because he doesn't know how to reduce Dubya's abyssal deficits with more tax reductions.
Unlike Poujadism, the Tea Party is purely grassroot and lacks a leader. Ron Paul might fit the job, but Sarah Palin proposed to take the helm at the inaugural National Convention in Nashville, TN, reading from her Palm Pilot (actually a low tech model counterfeited by John McCain). Sarah Tea Party Palin... what a match.
We already saw how Palin represented the no-future of the GOP ("Sarah Palin and the Segolene Royal Syndrome - The GOP on the same path as the French Socialist Party"). So a Tea Party Spin Off with Mrs Theocon on board would definitely leave some space for Republicans who actually respect the republic (see "GOP : time to split").
Anyway, instead of following the ones who yell and destroy, GOP leaders would better sit down and think. Even if it means losing the upcoming elections - actually, THAT could come as a blessing : they decently cannot postpone their own reforms any longer.
But Democrats shouldn't rejoice too soon : if the popular success of the Tea Party unmistakably corroborates the ideological collapse of the GOP, it also is a gorilla-sized canary in their own coalmine. And they must prevent the most liberal aisles to stretch beyond the limits of the republic. Obama took the blame and seems to be correcting communication to restore some of the truth : OK, I didn't deliver the goods, but I had a few bads to take care of first.
blogules 2010
* "Where the Tea Parties Should Go From Here" (WSJ 20100219)
** At least, a political crash of the GOP wouldn't cause much damage.
Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WSJ. Show all posts
20100220
20090522
Memo : the case is about abuses in Gitmo, not about closing Gitmo
In an unsigned tribune ("Bush's Gitmo Vindication" - 20090522), the Wall Street Journal accuses President Obama of vindication against President Bush's Pristine Heritage in his great speech delivered yesterday. According to the unknown author, closing Guantanamo was a mistake.
"Obama still hasn't said where the worst terrorists will go".
=> Well. After seven years of outrages, Guantanamo still hasn't said whether detainees were terrorists or not. Obama just took office a few months ago, remember ?
To Jim Webb, who said "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law", the courageous author adds "That was the Bush Administration's point all along."
=> First, a reminder : Bush's Amerika spent hundreds of billions of dollars building an inappropriate war in favor of terror instead of an appropriate war on terror.
=> Second, what Obama and the World point all along is this : of course terrorists are against international law ! But Gitmo abuses were against international law, the Bush Administration was against international law, Bush's Amerika was against international law. The case is not about closing Guantanamo but about what went wrong there.
"Mr. Obama called all of this a "mess" that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He's the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers".
=> It's like the economy, stupid. You need to stop the wrongs but it's not that easy because the mess is really deep and nasty. What did you expect Obama to say in front of the collapse of the World economies last autumn ? "Good job ! Keep Going" ? Same here : we first say this must stop, and then we work on a solution.
=> "Haphazard design" is not deciding to close Guantanamo. "Haphazard design" is deciding to promote torture, committing Abu Ghraib abuses, and giving a boost to worldwide terror in the process.
"Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?"
=> my pleasure, dear unknown fascist coward : "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".
"Obama still hasn't said where the worst terrorists will go".
=> Well. After seven years of outrages, Guantanamo still hasn't said whether detainees were terrorists or not. Obama just took office a few months ago, remember ?
To Jim Webb, who said "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law", the courageous author adds "That was the Bush Administration's point all along."
=> First, a reminder : Bush's Amerika spent hundreds of billions of dollars building an inappropriate war in favor of terror instead of an appropriate war on terror.
=> Second, what Obama and the World point all along is this : of course terrorists are against international law ! But Gitmo abuses were against international law, the Bush Administration was against international law, Bush's Amerika was against international law. The case is not about closing Guantanamo but about what went wrong there.
"Mr. Obama called all of this a "mess" that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He's the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers".
=> It's like the economy, stupid. You need to stop the wrongs but it's not that easy because the mess is really deep and nasty. What did you expect Obama to say in front of the collapse of the World economies last autumn ? "Good job ! Keep Going" ? Same here : we first say this must stop, and then we work on a solution.
=> "Haphazard design" is not deciding to close Guantanamo. "Haphazard design" is deciding to promote torture, committing Abu Ghraib abuses, and giving a boost to worldwide terror in the process.
"Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?"
=> my pleasure, dear unknown fascist coward : "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".
20070814
Whale Hunt at the White House
"You've got a bunch of people up on Capitol Hill auditioning for Captain Ahab, and I'm Moby Dick."
Karl Rove is a big fish all right. But he is not a victim, and certainly not the idea I have of a noble specie worth preserving from Capitol Hill sharks.
The Architect announced his resignation in The Wall Street Journal, as if it were business as usual, not the last throes of a controversial mastermind under subpoena... Instead of a beautiful whale, an ugly rat* abandoning the ship to save the actual Captain.
* what's in a nickname... "Turd Blossom" isn't as cute as Ratatouille.
Karl Rove is a big fish all right. But he is not a victim, and certainly not the idea I have of a noble specie worth preserving from Capitol Hill sharks.
The Architect announced his resignation in The Wall Street Journal, as if it were business as usual, not the last throes of a controversial mastermind under subpoena... Instead of a beautiful whale, an ugly rat* abandoning the ship to save the actual Captain.
* what's in a nickname... "Turd Blossom" isn't as cute as Ratatouille.
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