Ronald Reagan Is Still Dead
By FRANK RICH
New York Times
CONTEMPLATING the Clinton-Obama racial war, some Republicans were so excited you’d have thought Ronald Reagan had risen from the dead to slap around a welfare deadbeat.
Never mind that the G.O.P. is running on empty, with no ideas beyond the incessant repetition of Reagan’s name. A battle over race-and-gender identity politics among the Democrats, with its acrid scent from the 1960s, might be just the spark for a Republican comeback. (As long as the G.O.P.’s own identity politics, over religion, don’t flare up.)
Alas, these hopes faded on Tuesday night. First, the debating Democrats declared a truce, however fragile, in their racial brawl. Then Republicans in Michigan reconstituted their party’s election-year chaos by temporarily revivifying yet another candidate, Mitt Romney, who had been left for dead.
The playing of the race card by Hillary Clinton’s surrogates to diminish Barack Obama was sinister. But the Clintons are hardly bigots, and the Democratic candidates all have a history of fighting strenuously for inclusiveness. By contrast, the Romney victory in Michigan is another reminder of how Republicans aren’t even playing in the same multiracial American sandbox.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
CONTEMPLATING the Clinton-Obama racial war, some Republicans were so excited you’d have thought Ronald Reagan had risen from the dead to slap around a welfare deadbeat.
Never mind that the G.O.P. is running on empty, with no ideas beyond the incessant repetition of Reagan’s name. A battle over race-and-gender identity politics among the Democrats, with its acrid scent from the 1960s, might be just the spark for a Republican comeback. (As long as the G.O.P.’s own identity politics, over religion, don’t flare up.)
Alas, these hopes faded on Tuesday night. First, the debating Democrats declared a truce, however fragile, in their racial brawl. Then Republicans in Michigan reconstituted their party’s election-year chaos by temporarily revivifying yet another candidate, Mitt Romney, who had been left for dead.
The playing of the race card by Hillary Clinton’s surrogates to diminish Barack Obama was sinister. But the Clintons are hardly bigots, and the Democratic candidates all have a history of fighting strenuously for inclusiveness. By contrast, the Romney victory in Michigan is another reminder of how Republicans aren’t even playing in the same multiracial American sandbox.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Rich writes “ To voters who do remember Iraq, the supposed military success of the “surge” does not accrue to the Republicans’ favor either. Quite the contrary. As every poll shows, most Americans still want the troops home ASAP. Republican declarations that we are “winning” merely lead many voters to a logical conclusion: Why not let the Iraqis take over the remaining triage so we can retrieve the $10 billion a month in taxpayers’ money that might benefit us at home? This is why even the poll-driven Mrs. Clinton, who has been the most cautious and ambiguous of the Democratic candidates about a withdrawal timetable, dramatically changed course to expedite her Iraq exit strategy in Tuesday night’s debate.
Remember Iraq ?
How tragic that this has to be stated. I believe that more troops have been killed in January than the December.
Suggested reading is Andrew Bacevic’s Washington Post OpEd in which he cites many obvious points, but the one salient point is that the military surge was political tactic to ensure that troops would remain in Iraq through Bush’s presidency.
John Boehner gave a speech this week at the Republican National Committee’s winter meetings in which he championed this fall’s election theme … it was the Republicans that stood up for the troops and insured the course to victory in Iraq. Nobody wants to back a loser, so Boehner’s tactic is a winner.
Although Coleman, Bachmann, and Walz may visit Iraq, what did they really see ? Even today, they may have been on what Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) called the "the embassy P.R. tour” as McClatchy reported last week “The official, who couldn't be named because he's not authorized to speak to the media, said that reporters who had recently visited Arab Jabour with U.S. officials had been shown only the safe northern area. "Farther south, near the river, is still an area where there would be insurgent activity," he said. "What you saw is the ideal."
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