In fairness to the much-maligned GOP field, they face a formidable hurdle: how to credibly attack Obama when he has adopted so many of their party's defining beliefs. Depicting the other party's president as a radical menace is one of the chief requirements for a candidate seeking to convince his party to crown him as the chosen challenger. Because Obama has governed as a centrist Republican, these GOP candidates are able to attack him as a leftist radical only by moving so far to the right in their rhetoric and policy prescriptions that they fall over the cliff of mainstream acceptability, or even basic sanity...
The core problem for GOP challengers is that they cannot be respectable Republicans because, as Krugman pointed out, Obama has that position occupied. They are forced to move so far to the right that they render themselves inherently absurd.
Now mind you, what most of America would call "reasonable," Greenwald calls "Republican." But with that caveat, do you see how he's within inches of getting it? As I've been saying for a very long time now, President Obama has been willing to be reasonable in finding pragmatic solutions to the problems we face. And rather than join him in that effort, Republicans have chosen obstruction - only to find themselves marginalized to ideological extremes and sure defeat.
Its rather amusing watching Greenwald actually get this and STILL not be able to see the whole picture of what's going on right in front of him. Its obvious that ODS (Obama Derangement Sydnrome) affects your vision.
ebogan63 here.
ReplyDeleteA 'centrist Republican' would not have passed ACA, or it would have been the law of the land years ago. This "PBO is a Republican" meme is as ridiculous as those that suggested Clinton was a 'moderate Republican'
Good Morning
ReplyDeleteGG reminds of someone looking through a keyhole at a mural! If someone would just swing the door open, he could see the whole thing he would fall away in a dead faint!
GG tries to cling to his money making enterprise and still deny that PBO is "the smartest ____ the world has ever seen!
He, Hampsher et al are in the same boat as the repug/traitors! Shocked out of their senses that this skinny, funny-named interloper has put all of them in the bag.
"Conciliatory rhetoric as ruthless strategy" indeed. What a wonderful composition of words with such strength and power! Do you think they have not been listening since 2004 to what he said or is it ignorance?
You just gotta love it and I do.
Smilingl8dy