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The epitome of the kind of slash-and- burn politics they pretend to lament

May 1, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

Thomas E. Mann

An op-ed by two of the Washington Post’s favorite political scientists is generating a fair amount of buzz in the usual circles. At least let’s give Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein an “A” for straightforwardness at the same time we give them an “F” for convincingness.

The headline in the Post blares, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.” Mann and Ornstein (two men who tell us they also find fault with the Democratic party but don’t bother to tell us what it is) bemoan the Republicans’ alleged lack of civility and their race to become a party “far from the mainstream.” They tell us indignantly, “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

Which, of course, are precisely the charges that could be turned back against Messrs. Mann and Ornstein whose contempt for the GOP knows no bounds. It’s worth taking a few minutes to rebut this nonsense because along with another made-from-whole-cloth charge (that Republicans are waging a “war on women”), this will be used to try to deflect attention away from the record of pro-abortion President Obama and his congressional supporters.

Norman J. Ornstein

It’s a LONG op-ed which you can read at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html. Here are three (of many) falsehoods or (at best) gross misrepresentations.

#1. They begin with one off-the-wall comment by one Republican Congressman with the implication that this is representative of everything that’s been wrong with the GOP since (at least) Obama was elected. It as is “such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted,” they tell us, because it was not condemned. But five minutes worth of research will yield you a bumper crop of genuinely vicious charges launched by Democrats against Republicans and supporters of the Tea Party that were not only not condemned by Democrats but hailed as way, way overdue !

#2. The core of the “problem” (besides the press blandly and misleadingly writing “There is plenty of blame to go around” which MUST end) is that the Republicans are now so darn conservative (“the bedrock right”), according to Mann and Ornstein. By contrast Democratic voters “along with self-identified independents, are more likely to favor deal-making over deadlock.” (And this, of course, holds true for the Democratic Party itself.) And things can only get worse. We’re told, because Republicans are targeting conservative-to-moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats.

Let’s be real, any party will “target” incumbents of the opposite party they think they can beat. But what if what’s happening is more like a circular firing squad? Just last week two more conservative Democrats were ousted in primaries “by more liberal opponents who painted their centrism as apostasies that could no longer be tolerated,” according to the Post’s Paul Kane.

“These were the latest blows delivered to the Blue Dogs, whose membership ranks have been decimated the last two years by a perfect political storm that has driven the House Democratic caucus farther to the left than at any time in the last decade.

“It’s increasingly unclear whether Democrats can ever reclaim the House majority unless they pick up ground in the conservative-leaning terrain that the Blue Dogs once represented.“

#3. There are ten more examples of gaffes/miscues/misdirection, but let’s end with this. We all are busy and most of us have short memories. Mann and Ornstein paint a picture of a Democratic Party that couldn’t wait to work with President Bush, the better to “prove” how ideologically-driven the Republican Party supposedly is. But once the glow of national unity, created by 9/11 wore off, it is be difficult to exaggerate how resolutely Democrats opposed President Bush, especially when he took politically courageous steps. Go back on the Internet and read what was said and written about President George W. Bush. It makes what is said about President Obama seem like a love fest.

But the worse contention of the entire op-ed is that simply factually incorrect idea that Obama is pining after common ground. From his first week in office Obama has adopted the position that “I won”–and therefore he didn’t have to listen to ANY Republican ideas on salvaging the economy—or–once Republicans took the House back in 2010–verbally trashed Republicans in the most partisan manner possible for daring to offer legislation that differed markedly from his priorities.

Mann and Ornstein have long carried water for pro-abortion Democrats—and that is their right. But to even suggest that they are “neutral observers,” as some do who hold up their op-ed as THE definitive explanation of why Washington politics are “dysfunctional,” is to miss that this piece is the epitome of the kind of slash and burn politics they pretend to lament.

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Categories: Politics
Tags: Politics