A pox on both houses, when only one is necessary

August 9, 2005

Roll Call Executive Editor and Fox News contributor Morton Kondracke wrote a half-good column this week, asking whether moderates will ever be able to exert influence in the Republican Party again. Kondracke, who is reliably right-of-center, didn’t sound optimistic about the GOP’s future.

In the Republican Party, [moderates should rise up and assert themselves] by defending Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) against right-wing attacks for bucking President Bush (and Christian conservatives) over embryonic stem-cell research.

Republican moderates also ought to start speaking up for “emergency contraception” before the right makes banning it a litmus test of party loyalty.

Someone in the GOP ought to tell Bush that “intelligent design” is not a true scientific theory on a par with evolution. And moderates need to fight at the state level to prevent “ID” from being required teaching in biology classes.

Except for Log Cabin Republicans and the Republican Unity Coalition, does anyone in the GOP dare to come out for civil unions for homosexuals and to resist the party’s reliance on gay-bashing to win elections?

So far, so good. Kondracke accurately noted that the GOP is “captive” to its base. This is hardly a startling revelation, but it’s nice to see Roll Call put it in print.

But because it’s considered impolite in DC circles to cast a pox on only one house, Kondracke felt it necessary to go after the Dems. Here’s where the column goes awry, not because he criticized the Dems, but because the criticisms didn’t make any sense.

There’s no question that the Democratic Party is just as much captive of the left as the GOP is of the right. Unions, pro-choice feminists, trial lawyers and civil rights liberals call the shots.

America-basher Michael Moore was lionized at the last Democratic convention. MoveOn.org is a major party mouthpiece. Leftists dominate the Democratic blogosphere. And Howard “I hate Republicans” Dean is party chairman.

One wonders if Kondracke is looking at the same party as the rest of us.

I don’t care much for the fight over whether the party is liberal enough (feel free to call me a liberal moderate), but for Kondracke to insist the left-wing base calls the shots for the Dems the way the right does for the GOP is absurd. Did Kondrake not see a half-dozen presidential contenders wooing the DLC a couple of weeks ago?

The Dem leader in the Senate opposes abortion rights and gay marriage. When women’s groups suggested Kerry announce a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees during the last campaign, he demurred. The unions insisted Dems put up a united front against CAFTA, but plenty of Dem lawmakers in both chambers didn’t listen. Trial lawyers opposed the class-action bill passed by Congress earlier this year, but Dems didn’t stick together on that either.

Michael Moore has literally no role in the party at the national level, neither does MoveOn, and the fact that a number of leading political blogs are liberal has nothing to do with the left holding the Dem Party “captive.”

There is simply no comparison between the two parties. None. Grover Norquist, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and the executive boards of the Heritage Foundation and the NRA have Karl Rove on speed-dial. When the Bush gang put together the party platform a year ago, anyone resembling a centrist was told not to bother making any requests.

Kondracke was grasping at straws to even draw the comparison.

I wish the left did have more power with the Dems. It’s been a centrist party for 15 years.

What planet is this Kondracke on?

  • Sometimes I like to accentuate the positive. Both Krondrake and Charles Krauthammer support stem cell research. That is a good thing. Kondrake wrote a book about his wife, Millie, who lost her battle with Parkinson’s disease. The book was made into a TV movie which was very touching. I can understand why he and Krauthammer, who is in a wheelchair, would support stem-cell research.

    Jonathan Alter has a good article in the current issue of Newsweek where he says that the Pentagon is spending money to promote scientists to write screenplays. Why? Because, under this administration and the RR, science has sunk so low that it is causing a brain drain which threatens national security. They are trying to make science “sexy� again.

  • “Grover Norquist, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and the executive boards of the Heritage Foundation and the NRA have Karl Rove on speed-dial.”

    Actually, it’s the other way around: it is ROVE that has Grover Norquist, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and the executive boards of the Heritage Foundation and the NRA on HIS speed-dial. And that is much more disconcerting and accurate concerning the sell-out that BushCo has made to the radical fringes of its right-wing base.

    Kondrake is simply continuing the lazy AND mendacious practice that passes for “journalism” today by the CCCP (Compliant Complicit Corporate Press), and that is the “he said/she said stenography” or “a pox on both houses lecturing” rubbish we see almost without fail. It’s even more egregious when it comes from people like Kondrake, whose Roll Call is a barely muted part — the “so-called Main Stream Media” part — of the Rethug’s Noise Machine. The veneer of respectability that is accorded to Roll Call, to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, to National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, etc., makes them very dangerous. And this doesn’t even come close to discussing all of the think tanks and other “stealth” or beneath the radar groups (such as most of the state political blogs, e.g. PoliticsPA and PoliticsNJ) are ALL operated by, funded by, and are part and parcel of the RWNM (RightWingNoiseMachine).

    We as progressives are starting to get there, to have our own political/party infrastructure, if you will, but have a long way to go. In the meantime, Mr. Carpetbagger has called it exactly right: there is NOTHING approaching unanimity of goals let alone message discipline on the left that even approaches that which is achieved daily by the RWNM.

  • Analytical liberal,

    There is some hope that Liberals will get their game together. It took Conservatives 20 years to build their machine, but I’m hoping that was just because they had that huge pile of mendacious hatred to crawl through on the way to crafting an even slightly believable rhetoric.

  • I used to work at Roll Call so I remember Mort – nice guy… but I wish he would stop buying into “Democratic party is controlled by the far left” meme. While that may have once been the case, I have yet to see anyone control the Democratic party for several years. There is no overweaning message – and isn’t that the problem with the party more than Michael Moore (who is not the party structure or party activit).

    Second, Frist is not moderate. He takes positions that put him in the “middle” but is forced to conceede because he is a wuss who wants to run for president.

    And another thing – the Mort’s and moderates of the GOP are part of the problem. They wanted power/influence and were willing to make a faustian bargain with the ultra-social consevatives to get it. Now they don’t like the way the party is going. Me thinks he needs to look in the mirror.

  • People like Kondracke that have no familiarity with the Democratic Party have no standing to criticize.

    Apologist “journalists” like Kondracke think that their bogus criticism of Democrats somehow makes them objective or unbiased. It doesn’t. It just exposes their ignorance.

  • Eadie,

    I agree that progressives WILL get their act together (as I stated near the end of my Comment #3 above), and was more addressing the maturity of the RWNM AND simply bellyaching that we are so far behind.

    Also, Eadie,

    This is OT for this thread, but last week you posted some long, thoughtful comments regarding John Roberts’ SCOTUS nomination in response to (lots of) links I had posted to a TCR post on August 5 entitled, “A forgetful Supreme Court nominee.” I had posted a late reply to you, clarifying my current thinking on the Roberts nomination. You likely did not see it. If you care to view it, I hope the following will link to it: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4906.html#comments

    I wasn’t sure that you were understanding my comments on Roberts in the way I intend them to be understood, so I took the opportunity to distill them just a little bit. I’d like your thoughts, as even though (I perceive) your tendency is to trust “what you see is what you get” with Roberts and I don’t trust him because I don’t trust Bush (and his track record for mendacity and allegiance to his radical ideology), I think we do agree that we don’t yet have enough data with which to make an informed and persuasive — if not conclusive — judgment right now. Anyway, maybe you can check out my thoughts and, if so moved, give me your reply too!

  • ” ( feel free to call me a liberal moderate)”

    Would that be “liberal-lite,” or would it be
    slightly to the left of that?

    Anyway, after a good start, it’s simply back
    to the party line. The Repugs have to constantly
    repeat the message about all non Repugs being
    extremist, liberal, socialist, commie, atheist,
    America hating, baby killing, draft dodging
    girlie men (in the case of us guys) etc., so the
    mindless masses they need to stay in power
    have their convictions reinforced on a regular
    basis, lest they forget who they hate, and turn
    against their true tormentors.

    They are masters at this. Really, really good
    at preaching the message to their choir.

    “America-basher Michael Moore . . . ” – See
    how he slipped that in so seamlessly? They
    are so good at this.

  • One wonders if Kondracke is looking at the same party as the rest of us.

    Stop wondering. Kondracke and righties look at the Dems and see a caricature, which is immediately visible if you just go to right wing blogs and start reading the comments. It always gives me pause to see criticism of the left almost identical to the left leaning blogs’ criticism of the right (but in a Throught the Looking Glass sort of way, of course). It’s almost eerie. It’s like if you just substitute a few words the rants could be from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Liberals are dumb, liberals vote against their own interests because they’re hornswoggled into it by the liberal media, and they’re too naive/moronic to know the difference. Liberals will destroy our economy, etc ad nauseum. And there’s every indication that these things are believed as sincerely as many liberals (including me) believe similar things about Republicans. Frankly I still feel that the evidence is overwhelmingly in liberals’ favor on virtually every such point, but the dittoheads aren’t exactly the sharpest tacks in the box when sorting out evidence (see creationism). But hey, there you go again, I’m resorting to my elitist liberal judgement.

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