When, on March 13, a caller to Bill Bennett\u2019s radio show charged the host with being unduly supportive of \u201cestablishment Republicans\u201d over Tea Partiers, Bennett admitted that while he\u2019s an admirer of the Tea Party, he would not endorse those of its candidates who, even if they won, would hurt the party.<\/p>\n
Even if they won, they would hurt the party.<\/i><\/p>\n
Bennett\u2019s justification for not voting for Tea Party candidates\u2014let\u2019s call it the \u201cNo Harm\u201d principle\u2014is the justification to which all establishment Republicans resort for doing the same.\u00a0 And, as far as I can determine, it seems cogent enough.\u00a0 But here is the rub: what\u2019s good for the establishment is just as good for the Tea Party.<\/p>\n
In other words, it is rank hypocrisy for the Bill Bennetts of the GOP to castigate Tea Partiers (and libertarians) for being \u201cpurists,\u201d say, when the latter invoke the No Harm principle against those establishment Republicans who they <\/i>believe have been harming the party, and the conservative movement, for decades.<\/p>\n
It is rank hypocrisy for establishment types to charge their brethren to their right\u2014and make no mistakes, so-called Tea Partiers and libertarians are <\/i>indeed more to the right than their accusers\u2014of aiding and abetting Democrats.<\/p>\n
You can bet the bank that Bennett, Bill Kristol, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, and legions of others wouldn\u2019t spare a moment to forfeit an election, any <\/i>election, to a Democrat, any <\/i>Democrat, if the only alternative was, say, Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t just a hypothetical: It\u2019s a matter of record that Bill Kristol once explicitly stated that he would vote for John Kerry over Buchanan.<\/p>\n
A more telling example of this inconsistency on the part of establishment Republicans is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.<\/p>\n
Though he implored the attendees at the most recent Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC) to set aside their differences and vote Republican, when Christie had an opportunity to advance Mitt Romney during the last presidential election cycle, he did nothing of the kind.\u00a0 He formally endorsed Romney, it is true.\u00a0 Yet, in effect, he pushed President Obama over the finish line by heaping endless praise upon him in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and insinuating that his prior endorsement of Romney was just a matter of \u201cplaying politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is yet more hypocrisy to be exposed.<\/p>\n
The establishment types label their opponents \u201cpurists\u201d\u2014the implication being that they <\/i>are reasonable <\/i>and realistic <\/i>while the Tea Partier types are unreasonable <\/i>and na\u00efve. <\/i>\u00a0With one word, establishment apologists debase their rivals while elevating themselves.\u00a0 But it is actually establishment Republicans, not Tea Partiers, who are the true purists.<\/p>\n
To an incalculable extent, the GOP\u2019s foreign policy under President Bush II damaged the Republican brand. \u00a0Poll after poll continues to show that the vast majority of Americans prefer, in the words of none other than presidential candidate <\/i>Bush II, \u201ca more humble <\/i>foreign policy.\u201d \u00a0Still, such establishment figures as John McCain and Lindsay Graham continue to feed into the worst caricatures of the war mongering Republican.\u00a0 It is establishment Republicans who fuel the perception that they\u2019re zealous purists, \u201cextremists\u201d and \u201cone issue voters,\u201d when they wax hysterical over just talk <\/i>of reducing by a single red cent our tremendous defense budget.<\/p>\n
Establishment Republicans are doubtless sincere when they claim to desire intraparty unity <\/i>and, thus, a <\/i>presidential candidate in 2016 that can bring this about.\u00a0 However, the only \u201cunity\u201d for which establishment Republicans will settle is unity on their terms. <\/i><\/p>\n
In practice what this means is that any candidate like, say, a Senator Rand Paul, who exhibits anything less than unadulterated enthusiasm for the foreign policy agenda for which Republicans have, to their great detriment, become known, will most definitely not <\/i>receive support by the GOP machine.\u00a0\u00a0 Beyond this, much like Paul the Elder, they will be branded an \u201cisolationist\u201d and subjected to every conceivable smear.<\/p>\n
When establishment Republicans acquiesce in the left\u2019s agenda and Tea Party types complain, the reply with which they are invariably met is something like: \u201cRemember, Republicans control only \u2018one-half\u2019 of \u2018one-third\u2019 of the government.\u201d\u00a0 The tone is clear: these pesky, na\u00efve purists just can\u2019t grasp political reality!\u00a0 Well, maybe it is high time that establishment Republicans be forced to face a counter-reply.<\/p>\n
Tea Partiers should remind the establishment that during past election cycles none of the candidates who they\u2019ve catapulted to office ever instructed them on the nit and grit of the political realities on which they are now being lectured.\u00a0 Furthermore, Tea Party voters should insist now, before<\/i> the next election cycle, that every Republican running for office repeatedly<\/i> caution voters against entertaining unrealistically high expectations, for regardless of what happens this November, a Democratic president promises to remain in the White House for at least the next two years.<\/p>\n
Intra-party unity<\/i> there will never be.\u00a0 Intra-party clarity, \u00a0<\/i>however, is less unattainable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When, on March 13, a caller to Bill Bennett\u2019s radio show charged the host with being unduly supportive of \u201cestablishment Republicans\u201d over Tea Partiers, Bennett admitted that while he\u2019s an admirer of the Tea Party, he would not endorse those of its candidates who, even if they won, would hurt the party. Even if they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n