Dana Milbank, the Washington Post's resident Little Girl With a Skinned Knee, thinks the tone of discourse is really really bad. Of course, this is exactly why he thinks we need adults--because he needs adults to bandage his flesh wound and shower him with attention and reassurances that he's "special." So let's all shower Dana with the attention he clearly needs and pretend not to notice that he's living in a fantasy world.
By Dana Milbank
Sunday, October 31, 2010; 12:00 AM
In an interview last week with National Journal's Major Garrett, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was asked what his priority would be for Republicans after their expected gains in Tuesday's election.
A full sentence with which I have no problems? Unheard of!
The possibilities were many: Balance the budget and pay down the debt?
Outstanding plan.
Fight the terrorists and reform entitlements?
Presumably these are separate points.
Support and defend the Constitution?
I’m pretty sure they cover that one in the Oath of Office.
No, McConnell's priorities were elsewhere. "The single most important thing we want to achieve," he said, "is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
The single most important thing?
I take it from your italicized typeface that you disapprove, no?
This bit of truth-telling,
A virtue, no?
reminiscent of McConnell's lament in August that "I wish we had been able to obstruct more" of Obama's agenda,
Just to be clear, that primarily includes Obamacare, which Republicans are vowing to repeal by the boatload. I’m not sure why that statement would be controversial.
underscored a problem that will come to the fore if Republicans succeed in winning a majority on Tuesday:
If? Really?
The party is sorely in need of grown-ups.
If I had old men from Dana Millbank to Harry Reid lobbying me to get in the back of Barack Obama’s fictional van, I’d be wailing that I need an adult too. (In case you missed the insinuations, yes, I’m comparing Democrats to child molesters.)
When Republicans gained control of Congress 16 years ago, the revolutionaries were eventually convinced by their leaders to cut deals with President Bill Clinton,
More that Bill Clinton was convinced to cut deals with the massively popular legislative agenda of the triumphant conservatives.
leading to milestone achievements on the budget and welfare reform.
Which a) were both Republican ideas central to the ’94 campaign, and b) were both ideas opposed by Democrats until Clinton was assured of the political necessity of moderation. In other words, these legislative accomplishments are precisely the types of compromise that Millbank is opposed to: Republicans lead through conservative principles and Democrats grudgingly coming along because of the political popularity of the opinions.
But there is no Bob Dole in the Republican leadership today;
Liberals only like Republicans that lose national elections. That John McCain can’t get favorable press coverage as a moderate shows just how far to the left the congress and the media have shifted in just the past few yars.
there isn't even a Newt Gingrich. There is nobody with the clout to tell Tea Party-inspired backbenchers when it's time to put down the grenades and negotiate.
Except, of course, the American people. But negotiation with liberals isn’t what the people want.
Rather, there are weak leaders who, frightened by the Tea Party radicals, have become unquestioning followers of a radical approach.
I can see why this concept would be unfamiliar to liberals. It’s governance that defers to the will of the people.
"This is not a time for compromise," House Republican leader John Boehner informed Sean Hannity on the radio on Wednesday. When Hannity mentioned that retiring Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) called it unwise to attempt a repeal of health-care reform, Boehner replied: "I love Judd Gregg, but maybe he doesn't get it. . . . We're going to do everything - and I mean everything - we can do, to kill it, stop it, slow it down."
I fail to see the moderation in Republicans refusing to acquiesce to a bad idea that garnered only one Republican vote in congress (and even that was only after the outcome was no longer in question.) As has been widely noted, the only thing bipartisan about Obamacare was the opposition.
After that bit of reasoned dialogue, Boehner resumed his planning to hold a rally with GOP House candidate Rich Iott, a Nazi reenactor.
Yes, he’s a Nazi in much the same way that Christopher Waltz is a Nazi—which is to say, not a Nazi at all. So why are we talking about this?
The rest of Republican House leadership is no better. "Look, there will be no compromise on stopping runaway spending,
Should there be?
deficits and debt,"
Again, should there be?
Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), the No. 3 House Republican, told radio host Hugh Hewitt recently. "There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare.
Right on.
There will be no compromise on stopping Democrats from growing government and raising taxes.
Amen, brother Pence.
And if I haven't been clear enough yet, let me say again: no compromise."
If this is supposed to be worthy of condemnation, it’s not really working.
You were perfectly clear the first time, Congressman.
Compromise was not always a dirty word for conservatives.
The historical record will be usurped in 3…2…1…
Ronald Reagan - so idolized by Pence that he has perfected a Reaganesque head-tilt while speaking - compromised with the Democrats on Social Security and taxes.
This is yet another example where Republicans invited Democrats to join them in conservative legislation.
American Democracy couldn't function without compromise.
That’s an audacious claim. Here’s the problem: the American Republic is stronger than its legislators.
But now there is nobody to stand up to the take-no-prisoners caucus, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), who has floated the notion of impeaching Obama because she doesn't like his policies,
Except that she didn’t, but who cares about accuracy? The Post’s circulation is on the decline anyways.
and Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), who threatens to leave the GOP if his colleagues don't pursue his biblical-law agenda.
This is a very obvious point that Milbank blithely careens past in his eagerness to paint DeMint as a biblical nut-jub: why should DeMint be part of a party that doesn’t share his values?
When a blog reported that Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) had assured GOP donors that "crazier Republicans" would not repeal health-care reform because GOP leaders wouldn't allow it, Corker and McConnell both rushed out statements reassuring conservatives that they are devoted to repealing the law.
File these denials under: “Completely reasonable things to do.”
When former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott told The Post's Shailagh Murray that "we need to co-opt" the new Republicans because "we don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples," the furious reaction included a demand from Fox News's Glenn Beck: "I want people like Trent Lott to be shut down in the Republican Party."
Which is, of course, also completely reasonable. Why should it be encouraged or even permitted for Lott to “co-opt” the duly elected representatives of the people?
And there isn't a single Republican leader, in Congress or among the party's 2012 hopefuls, who has the power to disobey an order from Beck - or Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly or Hannity.
Except, allegedly, Corker, McConnell, or Lott…but nevermind the glaring contradictions in Milbank’s narrative.
Last week, Chuck Todd and his NBC colleagues suggested that "the level of anger, disrespect and incivility seems to be at an all-time high right now."
Well liberals have been laying the foundation from a “all conservatives are insane gun-totin’ militia members” narriative. Milbank is all too happy to follow the script.
I doubt that's so. Yes, a MoveOn activist's head was stomped by a Rand Paul supporter in Kentucky,
How quickly we forget the asymmetric coverage of the Kenneth Gladney beating at the hands of SEIU thugs.
but my very first story for The Post, 10 years ago, was about fisticuffs between Bill Bradley and Al Gore supporters in New Hampshire.
…you seem way older.
The difference now is that, particularly on the Republican side, there are no authority figures to say "no" to the angry,
That’s because there’s every reason in the world to be angry
the rude
That’s because I can’t bring myself to respect a dude named Dana. It’s preposterous.
and the violent.
What violence? The only violence, outside of the incident in Kentucky—in which the “victim” was a career political protestor who charged the car carrying a Senatorial candidate, has been left-on-right violence. (Or occasionally left-on-self violence to frame the right)
With a House leader determined not to compromise, and a Senate leader whose top national priority is the defeat of the president, things won't get any better after Tuesday.
That’s a reasonable statement. The only reasonable follow-up question, however, is “for whom?”
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