-By Warner Todd Huston
The Old Media establishment hates all Republicans, certainly, but they tolerate liberal Republicans because those sorts of Republicans don’t rock the boat and are quite happy taking the scraps from the Democrats’ table. So, the media always does its best to promote liberal Republicans and will use them as a foil to destroy conservatives–the latter of whom they truly despise. Politico recently had a perfect example of this Old Media strategy.
In a piece discussing how conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives are lagging with their donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Politico had a perfect example of how the left frames the debate when they are pretending to “report” on what is going on with the GOP.
The story noted how many of the House conservatives most associated with tea party principals don’t seem to keen on giving some of the campaign war chests to the NRCC so that it can promote left of center Republicans–and who can blame them?
In a great example of agenda “journalism,” the left’s narrative was perfectly pushed in the third paragraph of the slanted piece by Politico’s Alex Isenstadt.
Here is that paragraph:
Their refusal to contribute to the House GOP’s political arm, coming as Republicans are getting thumped by Democrats in the money race, is causing heartburn and frustration among Republican strategists charged with laying the groundwork for next year’s races. They say it is reinforcing a perception of the conservative gang that they’re out only for themselves and don’t much care about advancing the party’s larger cause.
Notice the locus of power assumed by Isenstadt’s piece? He assumes that the liberal Republican is the one properly in charge of the GOP and the conservatives are the outsiders causing trouble.
The conservatives are “refusers” and a “gang” that “don’t care” about the party’s “cause.”
This sets up the left of center GOP as the proper leaders, the ones that should be in control, the ones that need to slap down these darn refusenick conservatives.
But why isn’t the GOP establishment coming toward the right? That is the real question, here. The conservatives and the tea party folks have given the GOP its only real wins in decades (the 2010 midterms and the 2012 race in the states among the governors). Further it is the conservatives that have the guts for the fight, it is their supporters that have the fire in their bellies, and it is the conservative grassroots that have been the only ones in the GOP that have tried to put forward any plans, campaigns and policy suggestions.
The folks at the NRCC have just sat there with a blank stare on their faces doing precisely nothing to promote “the cause.”
And that leads us to the next point as assumed in Isenstadt’s left-wing analysis. What the hell IS this “party’s larger cause” that he’s talking about?
The liberal Republican establishment has no larger cause.
They aren’t willing to fight against Obamacare, they only feign interest in cutting spending, they don’t have a goal, they won’t stand up to Obama and his party on ANY issue… so what the hell is their “larger cause” that Politico says the conservatives won’t support?
In fact, it is the conservatives that are offering a cause that the liberal establishment won’t pursue. So, Isenstadt has it precisely backwards. It is the GOP establishment that won’t support “advancing the party’s larger cause” because the NRCC and the liberal GOP establishment have no larger cause to push.
No wonder the conservative members of Congress don’t want to give cash to the NRCC.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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But also note that it is the NRCC and it’s lack of both an agenda and Republican principals that Politico is supporting here?
Yes, that is the key. Politico is supporting the do-nothing, low profile-loving, table scrap-begging liberal Republican establishment knowing that these weak spinned sort of Republicans will sit back and allow the left to run the playing field in Washington DC.
It is the conservatives that present to only resistance to Isenstadt and Politico’s push for left-wingery and so they must be destroyed.