Fox News Watch--Fox’s ironically named show that pretends to look out for “media bias” in other places besides Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda channel--does a bit of navel-gazing on the recent victory by “Tea Party” candidate Christine O’Donnell. Host Jon Scott isn’t too happy with the headlines by “liberal” outlets like USA Today, which framed her victory as a “civil war within the GOP” and asks NY Daily News columnist Andrea Tantaros for her take on it.
Tantaros tries to paint what’s happening with the GOP as not a cage-fight between their moderates and conservatives but a fight between “old guard and new guard”. That's how that great conservative sage Michelle Malkin characterized it. I assume she’s talking about that astroturf-funded movement busing retirees out to these rallies against those forty-something “Young Guns” whose great ideas include privatizing Social Security.
Andrea, I hate to break this to you, honey, but there is no "new guard" within the GOP. Their ideas haven't changed for over several decades. They've always been in favor of doing everything to benefit the very wealthy, by sowing fear, bigotry and stupidity among the less fortunate. But after so many years, they're not even trying to keep the mask on what they stand for. The "Tea Party" are just willing to say it out loud what they actually believe in.
Tantaros then points to a column by Peggy Noonan where in typical Villager fashion, she gets things wrong and says that “The populist movement is more a critique of the GOP than a wing of it.”
No, Peggy and Andrea, they’re not a critique of the Republican Party. They *are* the Republican Party. And they--the tea party, the establishment Republicans and the Villagers--are doing everything they can to pretend that Republicans did not govern in the manner that they did for the past thirty years. And they’re also doing everything humanly possible to get the Bush stink off of the Republican brand.
They’re only for small government once a Democrat is in charge. They don’t care about wasteful spending as long as it benefits either the military industrial complex or their cronies. They hate all social programs that help anyone who isn’t rich. They hate taxes on their rich friends. They don’t care how many of our jobs get shipped overseas. And they want to dismantle every social program that makes sure a great deal of our population isn’t starving and on the streets.
There is no space between what these teabaggers believe and what the Republican Party believes. It’s survival of the fittest: if you can’t keep up in that environment, you’re a loser. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And if something happens where you can’t do that, get out of my sight and die. You’re not my problem. I’ve got mine and F-you.
The New York Times' Judith Miller stands up for Karl Rove and points out that KKKarl might have actually spoken the truth for once and this wingnut from Delaware might not actually be electable.
Host Jon Scott asks Jim Pinkerton if the media is just ganging up on Christine O’Donnell. He of course agrees that they are and quotes Roger Simon’s piece in Politico where he claims she could pull this thing out. He also quoted something he read on Free Republic, so that tells you a lot about where his political views are coming from. I don’t disagree with him that she could win the election but I don’t think it will happen without a lot of help from the likes of Fox “News”.
Amid all the arguing over whether the tea partiers are taking over the party and who’s right and who’s wrong, they miss any acknowledgment of how this supposed “grass roots” movement is anything but grass roots, and that this “movement” is nothing but an attempt at re-branding the Republican Party.
