The battle inside the Republican party was highlighted this week when Colin Powell took a shot at Rush Limbaugh…..

It’s real simple. Powell is looking for a government job. So is Bill Clinton

NewsWonk on December 17, 2008 at 2:28 PM

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Rip Cuda & Rip Rush? It’s a great way to audition to be the balancing “conservative” on talk shows. Isn’t this how David Gergen got his gig at CNN and the Harvard Kennedy School?

Powell screwed up the entire Turkish front in Iraq as Sect. of State, undercut Bush publicly for years, and secretly protected Richard Armitage throughout Plamegate at a terrible cost to his own sitting President. He can try to sell his endorsement of Obama as a protest against Sarah Palin, but I’m not buying. He never lifted a finger to support John McCain, even in the primaries; he just couldn’t afford to endorse Obama without some kind of political cover. He knows a Palin twofer when he sees one though. It’s the Republicans’ fault he had to jump ship and he’s just the guy to save ‘em from themselves. Make that a threefer, because it will be a long time before someone calls him an Uncle Tom again.

McCain’s putative position as a centrist derives solely from his willingness to join the opposition on a short, entirely idiosyncratic list of issues. Conservatives are fooling themselves if they believe he lost the election because he was a moderate. McCain lost because he was utterly incoherent on policy. When he claimed the mantle of reform and promised to name names, the response was electric. Then he headed straight back to Washington, singing Kumbayah where he never uttered name number one. He is clueless when it comes to the Constitution, and there is simply no way to tie his eccentric positions to any consistent, underlying political philosophy at all. So called “moderates” like me were holding their noses in the voting booth just like everybody else.

McCain makes a convenient whipping boy for the same folks who have always wanted to purge Republicans from the Conservative party. I’m just as fed up with that as I am when folks like Powell and anybody else talks purges. Rush is a lot more conservative than I am on social issues, but he has done more for the party than McCain and Powell combined. They are both one man parties. McCain has almost no identifiable constituency in the GOP, and it’s high time conservatives quit pretending otherwise.

There’s one thing Powell did get right which should not get lost in the shuffle. Even a cursory look at the map confirms that we lost this election in the cities. It’s going to get worse, and if we don’t pay attention, we’ll all end up like Republicans in California.

Powell’s prescription, however, is not just liberal pablum, it’s dead wrong. Listening to city dwellers and minorities will not shift votes. We need to be talking to them, and persuading them that a Republican approach to problem solving will have a positive impact on their lives. I’m a big Palin fan, but at the moment she is singing to the choir. The choir loves it, but until she demonstrates that she can actually sell those small town values in an urban culture, it’s way too early to put all our eggs in Palin’s basket.

wouldn’t you be a little bitter over being passed over for some no-name after being the presumptive vp choice the whole primary season through?

eh on December 16, 2008 at 8:58 PM

So you think he voted for an untested, inexperienced, borderline Marxist out of pique? After extolling the virtues of his judgment? Seriously?

Look, Limbaugh’s a great entertainer, but I’ve got no illusions about him being the next great heir to conservative thought. Still, the difference between Rush and Powell is that Rush is actually a conservative. To hell with party labels – it’s ideas that are important.

Everything that comes out of Powell’s mouth would fit much better on the left side of the aisle than on the right. Why anyone would think conservatives could somehow create an electoral victory by becoming Democrats astounds me … because that’s essentially what you’re advocating. Dressing your arguments in terms of fighting “racism” or “nativism” or “anti-intellectualism” represents nothing so much as a dishonest attempt to de-legitimize your ideological opponents without actually addressing their arguments. What a terribly progressive tactic.

Dr Evil on December 17, 2008 at 10:49 AM

Is now Officialy ON MY CHRISTMAS LIST for goodb little Conservatives!

ManlyRash was the first…

Bohemian Rhapsody-Queen

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he really sidestepped that question “It should be reviewed” Does Colin Powell have a Core?

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/thanks-for-nothing-senator-mccain/

You are either an idiot or a pompous a$$.

No conservative has the values you self-proclaim. Interesting that you decry “judas goats” when that is EXACTLY what you are, by your own words.

Get lost. Republicans don’t need you and your parrot-like ability to mimic conservatism.

platypus on December 17, 2008 at 12:41 AM

A pompous ass I may be, but there are conservatives out there like me. The difference is, in the end, I support Republicans, even if I disagree with some positions that Republicans have on certain issues. I don’t side with the other party 99.99% of the time, and yet still have the unimaginable hubris to whine and complain that Republicans aren’t “big tent” enough.

And I’m also humble enough to admit when I’m wrong. I was happy that McCain won the nomination, not because I’m so much a supporter of the man, but rather because I embraced the fact that it was the party shifting to a more moderate position. What did that get us? A humiliating defeat, and a new president that could potentially be remarkably disastrous for this country. Who did I wind up falling in love with, figuratively? Sarah Palin, a Republican that represents many of the more “traditional” conservative values that I don’t necessarily share as deeply as many of you do.

The lesson learned here: I was wrong. Deeply wrong. Republicans need to move back towards the “traditional” conservatism that someone like Palin represents, and if that means that RINOs like Powell get marginalized, so be it. Either they’ll come around, like I’m doing, or they’ll be left out in the cold, but I don’t see that as much of a loss.

Maybe he should run for Senator of Arizona.

hawksruleva on December 17, 2008 at 9:31 AM

:)

+100

Nice…

Keep Powell! To keep embracing Limbaugh will keep the GOP a party of nothing but nativists, creationists, homophobes, racists and religious zealots and will ensure it never reaches a majority again….

Noneya on December 16, 2008 at 7:16 PM

So, noneya, are you saying none of those elements exist in the democrat party? I would be willing to bet there are no creationists in the dem’s party because creationism implies a belief in a Supreme Being. I dont see that in the democrat party.
And I agree with your point – if we dont listen to Rush, then we’ll be just like the democrats – racists, homophobes, et ceterah, et ceterah, et ceterah….

A “RINO” may vote against the better interests of the party, but vote the interests of their consituents.

I disagree with this. A RINO will vote his own political interests siding with whomever he has to side with to get his agenda across. Look at McCrazy.

For someone who supposedly wants to promote tolerance, Powell seems pretty intolerant of dissent.

Well, Powell’s a liberal so this shouldnt be any surprise.

Exactly right Mark!!!!

I might add this; HA appears to be a right-center site at best. Trolls, confused Moderates, the young searcher, and down right hate filled people can & do get in.

Very interesting. Your main beef is the supposed horrible treatment of homosexuals by the Republicans in general and Gov. Palin in particular. You jump in, insult and whine then run off. At 10:00 p.m. there was a thread on a Newsweek article about scripture and gays. Perfect time for you to get involved and post something compelling but no, you stuck to your same MO. So insults are the sum total of your game. Got it.