Be sure to read the terrific profile of the right wing’s most powerful lobbyist/activist, Grover Norquist, that appeared on the front page of the Washington Post yesterday. Fascinating stuff.
The article did a particularly good job of demonstrating Norquist’s unparalleled influence in conservative circles. DC’s other most powerful conservative was even singing his praises.
“He is an impresario of the center-right,” Karl Rove told the Post. Rove said Norquist’s activists helped President Bush push trade promotion, tax cuts, judicial nominees and tort reform, among other items. “They’ve been out there slogging for us in the trenches.”
Even more on point, GOP consultant Gary Maloney described Norquist as “the engine that empowers us all.” Maloney added, “I call him up and say, ‘What should I think?'”
My only complaint about the piece is that it didn’t truly capture Norquist’s penchant for lunacy. There was only a hint of it.
In explaining why he doesn’t get angry at Democrats, Norquist said, “Do you get mad at cancer? We’ll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We’re not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover’s world. I feel about the left the way Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis.”
That’s more than a little nutty. When Democrats call Bush a liar, the GOP says we’re hate-filled fanatics. But the Republicans’ top lobbyist/activist compares Democrats to cancer and that’s acceptable political discourse?
And that leads me to wonder why, exactly, this detailed profile of Norquist in the Post left out so many of the guy’s “greatest hits.” People who follow politics closely already know about his extremist rhetoric, but most people probably have no idea that Norquist has built up quite a portfolio:
* In May 2001, he said his goal as a lobbyist/activist is to “cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
* In March 2003, Norquist said he is working “to change the tones in the state capitals — and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship.” He added, “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.”
* In October 2003, Norquist compared the Estate Tax to the Nazi Holocaust.
“The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, ‘Yes, well, that’s only 2 percent,’ or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax,” Norquist said in an NPR interview. “I mean, that’s the morality of the Holocaust. ‘Well, it’s only a small percentage,’ you know. ‘I mean, it’s not you, it’s somebody else.'”
I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but a profile about a controversial political figure should include a record like this. Indeed, it’s disconcerting, to say the least, that someone can say such insane things and still be welcomed with open arms within the GOP establishment.