Outrageous NY Times Nonsense On Huckabee And The Right

It's labeled an opinion piece, but it's still in The New York Times. It's absolute crap, doesn't care to mention Huckabee's substantial income now and smears every Republican, conservative, or center-right person against him. The truth is, Republicans would like nothing better than a self-made individual with a middle, or even lower-class birth who was good on his feet and attractive to voters. What matters to the Right as regards Huckabee are his positions and his record. All this piece does is prove the elitist mindset of the moron that wrote it, Timothy Egan, and falsely smear Huckabee and all of the above. I guess that qualifies as worthwhile opinion to the New York Times. Read it all. They even manage a joke about his kid hanging a dog. Pathetic.

Few of Huckabee’s critics have actually come out and said what many of them think. The language is coded, as it usually is with class and race in this country. The Wall Street Journal, the anti-tax jihadists at the Club For Growth, the National Review – these pillars of Old School Republicanism have signaled that Huckabee is Not One of Ours. But they’re careful to say it’s not about class, because, of course – it is!

It’s okay to have faux rubes, a la Bush senior and his pork rinds, or George W. and his Midland malapropisms. But when something that looks like the real thing comes along, the Republican royalists get apoplectic. They were appalled at the recent YouTube debate because it looked like a parody of one faction of their party – complete with Bible-waving wackos, trigger-happy gun nuts and Confederate-flag enthusiasts.

Comments

[Joe Citizen]

Actually, I think they are right.

"Republicans would like nothing better than a self-made individual with a middle, or even lower-class birth who was good on his feet and attractive to voters"

Well, sure. But the piece was not talking about "republicans" - as in average folk who vote for the GOP. Of course those kind of republicans would love someone like that - hence the Huck victory. The piece explicitly referred though to the Republican elites - those who run the party. The ones who make appeals to the average people, and try to win enough of them to achieve or stay in power, but otherwise have no use for the average person.

The GOP has had either executive or leg power, or both, in DC for the past quarter century. And they achieved that by convincing working class and middle class people out in the heartland to vote for them - by convincing them that their culture was under attack by liberals. And its worked. The elites have won for themselves uncountable riches by implementing policies designed for their own benefit while ignoring the realities of their base.

When a politician rises up out of that constituency, expressing a real, organic attitude forged in real life (as opposed to the spiel shouted down to them on the radio) - a politician who recognizes the real problems of real people, and the snake oil quality to standard right wing economics - then that politician must be stomped down.

He really just does not get it. He does not understand what this game is all about.

[el gordo]

You want to talk about class, Citizen?

Rudy Giuliani comes from working class parents. His father was in prison. That makes him a self-made man, doesn´t it? The only difference is that he does not rub it in at every opportunity. Of course the NYT would never mention that because they are themselves elitists trying to manipulate the rubes. They will build up Huckabee only to tear him down when he runs against a Democrat.

Fred Thompson´s father was a used car dealer.

John McCain is the son and grandson of an admiral.

Yes, Romney is the son of a governor but he did not inherit his money or his career.

None of these candidates has been rejected on account of class by these nebulous "elites", supposely a monolithic movement runs out of a secret bunker below the Great Salt Lake.

I do not remember the liberal elites wrestling with their support for a real patrician like Gore in 2000 or Kerry in 2004. Remember what people liked about Bush, another compassionate conservative, in 2000? "He talks like the rest of us". Faux or not, liberals recoiled in horror. They still do.

As for your dissatisfaction with "the snake oil quality to standard right wing economics" it is exactly the snake oil quality of economic populism has sets me against Huckabee. You want to go back to the Great Society? Because that was such a great success on all fronts, right? The supply siders have been good for us. We have not had a real recession in 15 years.

Having said that, I absolutely agree that Republican candidates should focus more on domestic issues like health care because they have superior ideas.

And you know what? The despised "Republican elites" mentioned in that article have been saying that for years. Do you actually read National Review? Or here for example:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/312korit.asp

Right now, I trust Thompson or Romney more on health care than anyone else. Of course they are talking about solutions, not snake oil and hot air about change and hope.

[BobInStamford]

The NYT post is spot on. My parents and their friends are all republicans of the country club variety. I can assure you that none of them like being associated with the party of Jesus and Nascar. But, as I reminded them over Christmas, if it wasn't for them, they wouldn't have the Decider to lead them through the darkness.

[Lala]

Republicans in my family:
2 firemen, 1 teacher, 1 NYPD Lieutenant, 1 NYPD Sargeant, 2 carpenters, 1 housepainter, 2 airline workers, 1 Wall St. type, 1 TSA worker, 1 acoustic tiler, 2 truck drivers, 1 telephone installer, 1 factory owner, 1 accountant, 2 musicians, 1 heavy equipment operator, 1 printer/owner, 1 FBI employee, 1 mail-carrier,

Democrats in my family:
4 teachers, 1 lawyer, 1 EPA employee, 2 archaeologists, 1 magazine writer, 1 nursing home manager, 1 small business owner.

Almost all are Roman Catholic, no born-agains, no Nascar fans, some hunters

[Terry Gain]

The NYT would love nothing more than to see the GOP reject the foresight and steady hand on national security of McCain, Giuliani, Thomson and Romney -and especially the executive and entrepreneurial competence of Romney, in favor of the very friendly and quick witted but naive Huckabee. If they do one can expect the GOP supporters to be described as:

"Bible-waving wackos, trigger-happy gun nuts and Confederate-flag enthusiasts"

In fact all of their reporters' computers will be equipped with a macro for this phrase.

BTW I see that BIS is a snot nosed kid who insults his rich parents while accepting their hospitality. Quelle surprise. His political predictions will be as reliable as his predictions on The Surge.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

Wahoo agrees with the article. Mostly because a word change here or there and we're talking about demonrats because there is less than a nickles worth of difference between the two parties. Those of us who go back to Ike will likely recall though that the most powerful congress people and most demonrat prezzies/candidates since then have been from the rich, elite class while most repubs came from middle to upper middle class back grounds. The closest I've seen to an actual (viable) populist may well be Obama. If you think Little Lord Fontleroy Edwards is a pimple on a populist ass, you should be disenfranchised.
In this current bunch, I dont know how anyone can look at any of these people without tasting thier own bile. What the hell ever happened to leaders? Men and women of character who had a notion of what it's like to live pay check to pay check. Sooner or later a real populist must step forward with ideas in one hand and the Constitution in another and form a viable third party.
Niether of the two we have has done mcuh to improve the lot of the majority. Fifty years after the "Great Society" we still have people who can't afford a bus token to get out of town before the levees break. We've dumbed down the schools so that we have to farm out the most basic jobs. They are always in our pockets to pay for the most useless of programs while our bridges fall down from bird poop.
Yet the partisans keep bickering "My rich white guy is better than your rich white guy" and none of us is watching out for what is important.

I am also not surprised that BIS is a smart ass in his parents house. Pretty typical of the gratitude of someone who has been handed too much and who thinks work is a four letter word.

[Lala]

Here's an interesting article that I picked up about Huckabee

http://www.newswithviews.com/Duke/selwyn79.htm

[BobInStamford]

Wow, Terry 'We Already Won' Gain is back. Have you defeated the brown people? Won the 'war'? Any liberations? As always, thank you for your service.

Btw, I make my own money. Amazing what an edukation can do for you. Mission Accomplished!!!

[TheSpartan]

Republican Musicians Lala? They must not be good ones...Wait, let me guess...Christian Rock?

[el gordo]

The left likes to go on about class, race and gender because that is the way they divide and rule. They see everything through that filter as this article proves. They replace traditional institutions and values - which stand between the state and the individual - with artificial groups and identities. Conservatives do not and should not think that way.

Now let me quote what a commenter over at Contentions wrote which I think is spot on:

"Over the last three decades, while the GOP focused on winning the Cold War, cutting taxes, and placating evangelicals and corporations, the attitudes of the majority have been shifting to the left, due to demographic attrition, immigration, and the overwhelmingly leftist influence of almost all institutions that shape public opinion - education, academia, journalism, entertainment, the professions, even religion (as evidenced by Huckabee on most non-social issues). The gradual process has been masked by the harm the Democrats habitually did themselves by taking leftist positions for which the public was not yet ready at the time. At this point, however..."

The ONLY problem with Huckabee is that he stands for exactly this trend. He mixes his religion with being a big-government busybody whose foreign policy consists of apologies. You can´t tell me that conservative pundits would agree with these positions if Huckabee were a country club Republican with a Harvard degree. And if he could somehow transcend that, I might very well support him.

[el gordo]

Lala, thanks for the link. I think that article makes my point (just better).

In a way it is a shame because the guy is a gifted politician.

[Lala]

Spartan,
guessing is like assuming, usually wrong

[Lala]

Here's Mark Steyn

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/huckabee-huck-guy-1953999-put-afford

[TheSpartan]

Lighten up Lala, you're just proving the lefty assumption that you folks have no sense of humor.

[Lala]

Spartan,
Your remark was funny?

[Fred Beloit]

Spart is one of the funniest comedian/satirists in the country, Lala. Just the other day he wrote that we would be surprised how many leftist and liberal ideas he disagreed with. That one really broke me up.

[Lala]

Fred, I find you to be extremely funny.

[TheSpartan]

You want one Fred? Gun control...I do not support it.

[Dion]

BIS: “Wow, Terry 'We Already Won' Gain is back. Have you defeated the brown people? Won the 'war'? Any liberations? As always, thank you for your service.
Btw, I make my own money. Amazing what an edukation can do for you. Mission Accomplished!!!”

That’s hilarious. No one has ever heard that before. I think BIS meant “indoktrination” or maybe “inkulkation” rather than “edukation.” I’m sure life as a leftwing parrot caged in mom’s basement is most “lukrative.”

[Dion]

BIS: “Wow, Terry 'We Already Won' Gain is back. Have you defeated the brown people? Won the 'war'? Any liberations? As always, thank you for your service.
Btw, I make my own money. Amazing what an edukation can do for you. Mission Accomplished!!!”

That’s hilarious. No one has ever heard that before. I think BIS meant “indoktrination” or maybe “inkulkation” rather than “edukation.” I’m sure life as a leftwing parrot caged in mom’s basement is most “lukrative.”