The banality of the RINOs
To understand just how vacuous the moderate stance has become, consider their embrace of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. John Avlon praised the Garden State firebrand as a “Northeast Republican” with a “moderate record.” Joe Scarborough defended his accomplishments. Moderate donors pleaded with Christie to run in 2012.
Yes, Christie has offended some conservatives, most notably when he cozied up to President Obama after Hurricane Sandy. But a RINO hero? This is the governor who wooed Democratic State Senate President Steve Sweeney into supporting sweeping pension and health care reform. Then, when Sweeney’s Democratic legislature submitted a budget in the spirit of comity, Christie balanced it by taking his line-item veto pen and crossed out $900 million in spending. The cuts were painful and included AIDS funding, health care programs for the poor, and mental health services. Sweeney called Christie a “rotten prick” and said he “wanted to punch him in the head.” Christie was unapologetic.
Imagine if House Republicans made a move of equivalent aggression and audacity. Masticated filet mignon would fly from the horrified mouths of Washingtonians. Tablecloths would run red with spilled Merlot. Heads would be shaken and Republican Jacobins cursed. Locusts would descend on Falls Church.
Conservatives can’t even support sequestration without drawing condemnation from the center-right. But Christie cuts funding for AIDS patients and he’s the moderate Moses leading the GOP out of the electoral desert. Again, it’s pure air.
Blowback
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For a guy named Purple, he can write a mean red streak. Good for him.
I think the RINOs are the British sympathizers of Washington’s day. They will do nothing but make our job harder, and we will have to be restrained from retaliating if things ever get nasty as the country continues its downward spiral.
rightwingyahooo on February 22, 2013 at 9:25 PM
Can’t we all just get along? We need to compromise. What’s so bad about reaching across the aisle? My fellow Republicans are idiots.
/Christie and other typical RINOs
RoadRunner on February 22, 2013 at 9:35 PM
In case you missed this:
S.E. Cupp and the Freezing of the Conservative Mind
Jeffrey Lord rakes her over the coals for six pages.
INC on February 22, 2013 at 9:39 PM
What do the RINOs want on policy? It’s simple:
- Abortion
- Gay marriage
- Amnesty
- Affirmative action
- Cap & trade
- A culturally-perverted education system
What do the RINOs want on style? Also simple:
- Soothing words & buckets of feel-good language
- An emphasis on compromise
- Repetitious insistence on the intrinsic goodness of their opponents
- A focus on identity over character
- A rejection of anything that seems “old” or out-of-style, regardless of its merits or wisdom, in favor of being trendy
In short, they’re Democrats who want tax cuts — and occasionally, spending cuts.
Stoic Patriot on February 22, 2013 at 9:47 PM
The quote misses everything Purple said about Kathleen Parker’s banality. I love that title. It’s so apt.
INC on February 22, 2013 at 9:50 PM
In Lord’s column he calls Cupp clueless on the first page and so she is. I was highly amused by what he says on page two.
Now I do think that Hanisch wrote her essay in 1969—she was living in my home town at the time—but Lord was absolutely right to skewer Cupp on her lack of historical knowledge of politics and political philosophy of the last few decades.
INC on February 22, 2013 at 9:51 PM
I wish these RINOs were purple. They are blue in the face.
Wigglesworth on February 22, 2013 at 10:30 PM
Don’t hold back Mr Purple. Start telling us how you really feel.
(about time too btw).
Chaz706 on February 22, 2013 at 10:33 PM
I think that’s the most powerfully succinct critique I’ve yet read of the nonsense we’ve been hearing from everyone from Kathleen Parker to Bobby Jindal to our intrepid Speaker since the election. And we’ve been hearing it from the people who handpicked Mitt Romney four years in advance no less.
Basically – and I say this as a Northeasterner – there’s a significant portion of prominent Republicans that hates mouth breathing racist troglodyte God-believing undiplomatic argumentative rednecks, knows that such people are the source of the GOP’s woes because all their liberal friends and news anchors tell them so, and occasionally take an opportunity – such as a lost election – to indulge in their view of reality.
HitNRun on February 22, 2013 at 10:39 PM
I kind of like meeting my foe head on. With RINO’s—I’m sorry, moderuhts, you either get flat out back stabbing, or weak sisters tugging on your shirt “can’t we find common ground”?
arnold ziffel on February 22, 2013 at 11:23 PM
I find RINOs more demoralizing than out and out foes.
INC on February 22, 2013 at 11:29 PM
That used to be the tradtional “RINO” stance.
“We are social liberals but fiscal conservatives!”
The problem is we’ve seen them support most of Obama’s spending plans in the last couple of years, and they have begun attacking fiscal conservative stances and programs as “insanity” or “impossible” the same way they talk about social conservatism. Never forget that it was Olympia Snowe who helped Obamacare out of committee. There’s always just enough sellouts to get Obama’s tax increases and debt ceiling increases through Congress.
So to be honest, I just don’t believe these people when they say they are “conservative” or that “we want 99.999% of what you do” anymore. They don’t want what we do, they are liberals and support liberalism to the hilt. Eventually I think many of these people will have an epiphany and leave us for the Democrats, where they will be happier anyway.
Doomberg on February 23, 2013 at 2:27 AM
thx for the link good read.
unseen on February 23, 2013 at 8:29 AM
They are “wantobe elitists” not dems. As the fiscal cliff talks show they will even give up on tax cuts. The RINO’s are nothing but people that want to “fit in with the cool kids” If the cool kids are GOP they lean GOP if the cool kids are dems they lean dem. Go along to get along is a good term. they are the kids who used to sit next to the cool table during lunch never really cool themselves but willing to degrade and make fun of those the cool kids deemed unworthy or nerdy or outcasts. they would sell their mother down the river if by doing so they could become part of the incrowd. they are followers not leaders and have a deep insecurity complex. Never able to fit in always trying and doing anything and everything to please the people they want to belong too.
unseen on February 23, 2013 at 8:34 AM
NOpe they don’t hate “mouth breathing racist troglodyte God-believing undiplomatic argumentative rednecks” they just know that “mouth breathing racist troglodyte God-believing undiplomatic argumentative rednecks” are out of favor. If in the future “mouth breathing racist troglodyte God-believing undiplomatic argumentative rednecks” become the cool kids in town these same people will LOVE “mouth breathing racist troglodyte God-believing undiplomatic argumentative rednecks”
The RINOS are simple people without a core who are followers of whichever trend is the “in thing” if free love is in they become hippies if “same sex marriage” is the in thing they become best friends to the homosexual community. If christianinity is the place to be they become Sunday christians and Monday sinners.
these are the people to run away from as quickly as possible because they are amoral, they will be the first to stab you in the back while they smile to your face.
unseen on February 23, 2013 at 8:41 AM
I’ve been thinking lately that it’s the conservatives that are RINOs.
Look at what the Republican party has degenerated into. All of the presidential candidates since Reagan have been moderates. Even he wasn’t as conservative as he’s reputed to be. Anyone who thinks the Bushes, especially W, have even one conservative bone in their bodies haven’t been paying attention and/or are in denial of what is right in front of their faces. A president who brags, “I ran the conservatives out of the Republican party”, and condemns those who want to get the federal government off our backs is no conservative.
Look at the down ticket candidates the party establishment supports, and at those they actively oppose.
Conservatives aren’t the Republican party’s base anymore. We are its enemies, and perceived as a greater threat than the Democrats; to be, marginalized, used, and betrayed at every opportunity. Unless, and until, conservatives wake up and turn their backs on the Republicans America will continue to spiral into socialist hell.
single stack on February 23, 2013 at 9:12 AM
So basically you’re saying that RINOs are conservatives’ “fair weather friends” and the weather happens to be foul this year. Obama’s time will pass and the RINOs will eventually go back to making their half-hearted half-assed wholly-phony speeches about preserving liberty and lowering taxes again and expect us to start voting for them again.
There are moments when I envy Democratic voters. At least their politicians seem to do what they seem to want them to do.
Aitch748 on February 23, 2013 at 9:45 AM