Monday, December 13, 2010

So, what's in the can? Peas or tomato sauce?

When there aren't any labels, you can't tell - with respect to food, anyway. As to David Frum's new exercise in the virtues of "moderation", No Labels, it's all too clear that the product is opportunism, seasoned with good, old fashioned liberal transfat.

I mentioned this new organization in a post last week, and the movers and shakers have now convened in New York to get this balloon in the air.
A mishmash coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents came together here Monday to launch a political organization that the members hope will change behavior in what they decried as an increasingly hyperpartisan system.

The group, No Labels, is not a third party, its founders say, but rather a home for Americans who have felt homeless amid the recent growth of the liberal netroots and tea party movements, as well as the deepening partisan divide in Congress.
And who turned out to be the key speakers? Why, you'll never guess!
High-profile elected officials were scheduled to speak at Monday's launch event to endorse the group, including New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I); Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.); Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.); Democratic Reps. Bruce Braley (Iowa) and Joe Sestak (Pa.); Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I).

In addition, two Republicans who were ousted in contentious primaries this year - Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.), who lost reelection, and Rep. Michael N. Castle (Del.), who lost his Senate race - came to voice their support.
I figure that this thing will be a total bust. I don't think most Americans want business as usual, and their chief concern right now is restoring limits to the growth of government, not sustaining a good old boys club in which kleptocrats from both parties join together in anesthetizing the electorate with rhetorical opiates about the importance of "bipartisanship", while continuing to loot the taxpayer. What we need is not "No Labels", but "Truth in Labeling".

With Democrats, for the most part, permanently chained to an ideology of incremental socialism, and far too many Republicans simply "not getting it" when it comes to the public's rapidly diminishing appetite for big government, I've got some radically different ideas about bipartisanship, which can be neatly summed up as follows:

14 comments:

richard mcenroe said...

Hang one Democrat and one RINO for bipartisanship?

Paco said...

That's the plan.

Michael Lonie said...

Aristos aux lanternes!

JeffS said...

Where do independents fall in your plan, Paco? I'm thinking of Charlie Crist here. He labels himself as an "I", but that should be "Me!"

PS: As far as I'm concerned, Crist gave this "No Labels" organization the kiss of death. He's not the biggest political opportunist in the country, but he darn sure is the most blatant.

Paco said...

Jeff: Crist became an "independent" more or less by default - i.e., the Republicans refused to have him. So, technically, he's no longer a "RINO", just an opportunist without portfolio (pretty much the same thing with Bloomberg, except, as I recall, he opted out of the Republican Party on his own, probably to position himself as a future "independent" presidential candidate). The fake bipartisanship I'm talking about involves liberals - de jure and de facto, Democrat, Republican or Independent - reaching across nominal party lines to continue their hornswoggling of American voters under the rubric of pursuing moderate policies that are, in fact, a herd of legislative Trojan horses that only serve to disgorge more spending, more regulations more government control.

JeffS said...

True, Crist was never bipartisan, and never pretended to be.

So, yeah, save the ropes for the con artists. We can always put Charlie into the stocks on a rainy day.

bruce said...

Frum is not fit to shine Stanley Kurtz's shoes.

Kurtz was first a brilliant Indologist who did a case study in a small village in India and wrote:

Stanley N. Kurtz. All the Mothers are One. Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis. NY: Columbia University Press, 1992

A book which impressed me 15 yrs ago when I first read it. Frum's documented response to Kurtz's new book is despicable. Not merely 'RINO', Frum is behaving like a demagogue and charlatan. I wonder if he actually earned those letters after his name or just bought them? In any case his behaviour is unscholarly. 'F' for 'Fake'!

bruce said...

Frum quoted on Wikipedia has him bragging that in college he didn't actually read assigned books, only footnotes. Then he connected the names and surfed the arguments. This is not scholarship, he should hand his degrees back in shame. He is to Harvard what Elmer Gantry was to religion.

Paco, I propose we consider another problem, apart from RINOism. I'll dub it The Music Man weakness, where good decent conservative folk get taken in by fast-talking snake oil salesmen. It saddens me how many good solid folk were taken in by this Frum. We need to insist on character and substance - qualities which I'm sure Stan Kurtz possesses.

(His India book, btw, sets a foundation for conservative thinking by showing the importance of western culture, as Stan kindly pointed out to me in an email once!)

Boy on a bike said...

No drawing and quartering? You're getting soft.

Paco said...

Bruce: Very interesting about Kurtz's writing background.

Frum may be built along the lines of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but he's turning into an intellectual thug.

B on a B: Quartering? I'd be afraid the limbs would each grow into a new congressman.

JeffS said...

The Other McCain has a glorious, righteous smackdown of these "No Label" con artists.

Brett L said...

I'm firmly with JeffS. When I heard Crist was on board, I knew the No Labels group had no ideology other than keeping unelectable politicians and kowtowing columnists collecting a check. That such breathless, knicker-twisted, unprincipled morons can pretend to relevance leaves me feeling that there is more work for 'throw the bums out' party to do.

JorgXMcKie said...

Paco, Bloomberg left the Democratic party when he figured out he couldn't buy the Mayoral nomination. He became a Republican because they would let him.

He's a worse opportunist than Crist. And about as decent.

Paco said...

JXM: Ah, is that how it was, then? I didn't know Bloomberg was originally a Democrat. This is opportunism on stilts.