Frank Rich, American Idiot

Would you trust someone whose job is to write about the two party system who always gets one party, their people and their philosophies always wrong? Well, someone fire Frank Rich, the man has no understanding of Republican party politics.

It was the post on Memeorandum this morning.

How many ways was Rich wrong? Let me count them....

1) First, by Rich: "The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.
Sure enough, bloggers trashed her as a radical leftist and ditched her for a third-party candidate they deem a “true” conservative, an accountant and businessman named Doug Hoffman. When Gingrich dared endorse Scozzafava anyway — as did other party potentates like John Boehner and Michael Steele — he too was slimed. Mocking Newt’s presumed 2012 presidential ambitions, Michelle Malkin imagined him appointing Al Sharpton as secretary of education and Al Gore as “global warming czar.” She’s quite the wit."

If Rich actually knew any Conservatives or tea-partiers, he would have known that support of President Obama's stimulus package by any Republican means their job was in danger. And if Rich needs to know about the different branches, he can read this.

Since the loss of November 2008, the fiscal Conservatives have gauined ground within the party. Newewt's idea of taking any or all people with an R by their name is Old School. if you have an R next to your name, know what issues are important. Hoffman did.

2) More Rich: "The right’s embrace of Hoffman is a double-barreled suicide for the G.O.P. On Saturday, the battered Scozzafava suspended her campaign, further scrambling the race. It’s still conceivable that the Democratic candidate could capture a seat the Republicans should own. But it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will redouble its support of primary challengers to 2010 G.O.P. candidates they regard as impure. That’s bad news for even a Republican as conservative as Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose primary opponent in the Texas governor’s race, the incumbent Rick Perry, floated the possibility of secession at a teabagger rally in April and hastily endorsed Hoffman on Thursday.
The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.
The same could be said of Beck, Palin and their acolytes. Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode. They drove out Arlen Specter, and now want to “melt Snowe” (as the blog Red State put it). The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp."

I don't think Rich and the Democrats remember 2006 where they kicked out Senator Joseph Lieberman of CT over foreign policy. In fact, when the Democrats were in the wilderness, I do not remember any policy they proposed over Iraq other then the Neville Chamberlain option (which they are proposing for Afghanistan).

In fact, since December 12, 2000, the Democrats moved Left and threw out the old rules of engagement by Tip O'Neill. Witness the rise of Firedoglake, Daily Kos and Huffington Post. Would Tip be pleased? I say, NO.

If Rich wants to complain on how the Conservatives are treating the GOP, maybe he should put Robert Stacy McCain, Dan Riehl, the lovely and talented Pam Geller, Jim Hoft, and yours truly in his Rolodex.

But if you want to meet closed minded people, look at the Manhattanites. They think they are better then you. And they work in all manners of the media (to be discussed soon). If Rich cannot take the time to know and understand his fellow Americans (that goes for most Democrats too), then they should lose their privileges.

When the Conservatives and Republicans take over Congress in 2011, the Commerce committee should subpoena "Pinch" Sulzburger and see if he puts his paper in tandem with the Democratic party. There might be some RICO issues involved as well.

And Rich? May he lose his apartment on the Upper West Side (or wherever he lives) and be forced to work among Republicans. Who is up for shorting NYT Stock on 1/20/10?