By Mr. Curmudgeon
Boy do I love the British press! They cover American politics in a more dispassionate and unbiased way. Who would have thought that the firing of “compassionate conservative” David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute for his piece condemning Republicans unwilling to help President Obama socialize American medicine, ala Britain, would get more ink across the pond than here in the good old U.S.A.
The Times of London’s headline said it all, “Republican elite in disarray after David Frum is sacked by think-tank.” Ah yes, the Republican elite; the reach-across-the-aisle, Democrat-Lite blue bloods that so ravaged the Party of Lincoln. Those elite thinkers, like Karl Rove, who triangulated political strategies that passed such legislative wonders as “No Child Left Behind,” attempted to pass “immigration reform,” and gave America a foretaste of ObamaCare with George W. Bush’s “prescription drug benefit” – all the brainchild of the late Senator from Chappaquiddick, Teddy Kennedy. In short, the geniuses that worked tirelessly to blur any distinction separating Republicans from Democrats. The geniuses that now must convince tea partiers not to add their soiled names to the bums-list for the tossing.
“In Arizona yesterday” reports the Times, “Senator John McCain hit the campaign trail with Sarah Palin, his old running-mate, in an effort to head off a primary challenge from John Hayworth, a talk-show host who considers the Senator too soft on immigration, same-sex marriage and health reform, even though Mr McCain led Republican demands this week for the Bill to be repealed.
“In Florida Charlie Crist, the once-popular Republican Governor, has been attacked relentlessly by Tea Party bloggers since supporting the Obama stimulus package last year. He faces defeat by Marco Rubio, a firebrand of the hard Right, at the midterm elections in November.
“Among potential 2012 Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney has been forced to condemn the health reforms as an ‘historic usurpation of the legislative process’ even though it is based largely on a Bill he shepherded into state law as Governor of Massachusetts. Mike Huckabee, until recently a favorite of social conservatives, slid back to also-ran status three months ago when a prisoner he released nine years ago went on a shooting spree.”
You won’t see this kind of reporting in the New York Times, or Fox News for that matter. The liberal Times and the Republican-leaning Fox News are still operating as though the political fight between incumbent Republicans and Democrats is an epic death struggle by leftists and conservatives. As the Times of London story accurately states, as things stand in today’s Republican Party, the struggle between many incumbents, Republican and Democrat, is over which party gets to ride the nanny-state pony for a spell.
“No senior Republican has dared to criticize Mrs. Palin for urging her supporters to ‘reload’ and take aim at vulnerable Democrats, whose districts are identified with rifle crosshairs on her website,” reports The Times of London. “This may be because, as Mr. Frum said yesterday, ‘the elite isn’t leading any more; it’s trapped.’”
And the only way for Mr. Frum’s Republican elites to extricate themselves from the Tea Party snare will be to gnaw-off their legs.
The reason the British press gets what American media misses is that no one in this world knows better how potent a tea party movement can be than the subjects of England’s Imperial Crown.
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