Twisting in the wind

'The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington. Their constant refrain, delivered with cynicism but not irony, is this: Republicans are the anti-big-government, anti-stimulus, anti-Wall Street, pro-Tea Party tribunes of the common folk. “This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money.

Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=opinion

Er, that isn't Ms Palins schtick. You are doing a dreadful job of watching the news and reading the newspapers, Mr Rich. Nobody with half and eye and a quarter of a brain, leastways Tea Party people, can forget how government and government debt grew under George W Bush. Supported by many Republican encumbents who are at this very moment being fitted for their political funeral clothes. These big government Republicans get booed and shouted down at Tea Parties they are rash enough to attend. But you apparently haven't been paying attention. Tut tut, you man.

'...G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course. Republicans in office now, as well as Palin during her furtive public service in Alaska, have feasted on federal pork, catered to special interests, and pursued policies indifferent to recession-battered Americans.'

Huh. Ok, you seem desperately intent to tar Sarah Palin with the RINO brush. Do you really think anybody who knows any of the facts is going to buy that? If Sarah Palin had been a porky beast during her time as Governor of Alaska that is all you guys would have talked about during the McCain campaign. And given that you didn't, and had to fall back on bogus flim flam about book burnings, unethical quashing of investigations and her clothes budget, I think we can conclusively deduce that she wasn't. You are right about many other Republicans- pork earmarks are a game everybody can play, and that many of both parties have. Indubitably some special interests have had a deleterious affect on American democracy, and something should be done about that.

You got any ideas Mr Rich? Well, other than replacing Republican special interests with even more voracious and despicable Democrat ones?

'It also shows the power of an incessant bumper-sticker fiction to take root when ineffectually challenged — and, most crucially, the inability of Democrats to make a persuasive case that they offer anything better.'

Oooooh. Dangerous ground. 'Hope and Change' bumper sticker anybody? Do Republicans demagogue better than Democrats? Or is it that most Americans just agree with far more of the Republican core prospectus of God, Country and Family than the Democrat one of Obama, Government and victim tribe? Is it perhaps that they find the Republican prospectus resonates in a thrilling and positive way, while the Democrat one reeks of class division, resentment and murderous rage barely masked?

Nobody does apoplexy better than the Nutroots, and nobody does demagoguic flim flam like the the Democrat leadership. But people have to be willing to buy what you are selling if you are going to close the deal. And the Democrats simply can't.