The Fool Who Follows
By Erik Rush (10/17/07)
My mom had a succinct (but oh-so-scathing) saying for the times when us kids would attempt to put off bad behavior on one of our compatriots: "Who's worse - the fool, or the fool who follows him?"
Ouch.
I was having a conversation of sorts with an old friend whose politics are very different from mine. There was a time when I simply didn’t possess the philosophical detachment to even consider someone a friend whose politics were as completely divergent from mine as this individual’s, but that’s another story.
They were telling me about how excited they were to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I don’t understand how the whole Hillary being an apostate of hell thing escapes those who are decent, intelligent and reasonable people otherwise. Anyway, this person still thinks Carter should have won a second term, so I wasn’t entirely surprised.
Speaking of which…
In addition to Jimmy Carter being The Worst President America Ever Had, every day since his presidency ended has spoken to the fact that he should have hurled himself into traffic, left the country or hidden out in Georgia somewhere immediately after leaving office and kept his mouth forever shut.
“But noooo!” as the late comedian John Belushi used to roar with palpable disgust…
I suppose one ought to expect a former president to claim the right to posture as a sage elder statesman – especially an egomaniacal closet Dixiecrat who decreed that Secret Service agents not speak to His Eminence, but rather stand silently as his servile (though extremely intimidating) centurions. Yes, Carter’s been involved in a number of causes that made him appear to be a real mensch, such as Habitat for Humanity; he’s also won the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the Nobel Peace Prize, though it ought to be clear what blithering, incontinent idiots the membership of the latter organization are given their awards to such individuals as terrorist mastermind Yasser Arafat and more recently to former Vice President, propagandist and hypocrite of the highest order (second in the nation only to Democratic presidential nomination-seeker John Edwards) Al Gore.
If politicization of the War on Terror by the far-Left has been one of the most pathetic and dangerous phenomena in American history, Jimmy Carter’s manifestly treasonous October 10, 2007 diatribe on Cable News Network (CNN) was one of the most despicable, craven acts ever committed by a former President.
Claiming that the United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, “has abandoned the basic principle of human rights,” and accusing President Bush of creating his own definition thereof, the former Chief Executive and committed globalist put on a lovely show for CNN's “fallen over the edge he’s so far-Left” anchor Wolf Blitzer, no doubt calculated to further humiliate the current administration and convince the public at large that Republicans are little better than Nazis and our military little better than Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (the dreaded SS).
"I don't think it. I know it," Carter smugly told Blitzer, as regards our torturing prisoners. If he does, it’s only due to his going on the assumption of things that have likely occurred routinely during wars and clandestine operations covering every administration in the 20th Century, including his own. His attitude belies his altitude.
The argument that we ought to torture prisoners notwithstanding, too few people seem to remember (or are willing to verbalize) what an abortion on toast the Carter presidency was; from his softness on the People's Republic of China to his lily-livered giveaway of the Panama Canal to his abysmal, terrorist-inspiring hyperbotch of the Iran Hostage Crisis, for those of us who lived the experience, it seemed there was nothing he could do right. Carter was happy running with the post-Nixon zeitgeist which implied the administration’s deportment ought to be: “After all that, who gives a rip? Let’s have fun, smoke dope and fool around with congressional pages!” With the notable exception of having substantially weakened America on nearly every significant front, Carter’s was a clown presidency.
So America followed a fool for four years; fortunately we were able to gain a lot of ground over the next eight. Now, we have a true challenge. Whether or not Hillary Clinton receives the Democrat Party nomination, the field current dictates that an unacceptable Democrat will emerge, assuming we use Bill Clinton as the standard of relative acceptability among Democrats for the sake of argument. There’s the black nationalist (Barack Obama), the ambulance-chasing, medical care cost-increasing hairboy (John Edwards), and Al Gore (should he declare); any victor will be a far-Left pathologically narcissistic candidate versus the Republican candidate.
In the other corner, there’s former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Winston Churchill of Gotham City (at least in the eyes of some). The trouble with Giuliani is that the Republican base – particularly the massive Christian contingent – don’t like him because of his position on social issues such as abortion. Interestingly, former Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson has made rather astonishing gains in the polls since he declared a scant six weeks ago. Prior to that, Arizona senator John McCain (whom I have said might as well be a Democrat) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney were fighting for second place. McCain has name recognition, but similar problems with the base; Romney looks presidential and is pretty levelheaded on the issues – but has no street creds, as it were. Alas, no city sieges or prisoner of war tales to boast on for Mitt…
I realize I have excluded some viable candidates on both sides, including a Republican or two whom I think would make excellent presidents assuming they could realistically get the nomination and then beat the Democrat nominee who, in any event, will have name recognition and lots of money.
What I find profoundly disturbing is the public excoriation the Republican contenders are receiving from high-profile conservatives. I have gone on record vis-à-vis my displeasure with President Bush’s performance in several areas, and I have obvious though varied concerns with said Republican contenders, but I see the choice as potentially being between a centrist Republican and the woman riding the scarlet beast from the Book of Revelation (Rev. 17:1-6). If it comes down to that, I don’t care if the Republicans run Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh – I’m voting for him.
It isn’t 1980 or 1992; with the war against radical Islam barely in full swing (believe it) and the far-Left having made the strides it has in America, the call for a candidate that perfectly suits conservative Christian activist Dr. James Dobson is neither realistic, responsible nor affordable. I find it incomprehensibly mind-boggling that Hillary Clinton talks like a centrist for eight months and millions of people believe that’s who she is.
Yes, Republicans need to purge the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) from the party and learn to assert themselves, but this won’t happen overnight. America cannot count on another Ronald Reagan emerging to right the damage that four to eight years of a Clinton, Obama, Edwards or Gore presidency would most assuredly wreak upon this nation.
The GOP needs to come up with a front runner who will appeal to the base and the swing voters, period. Neither Giuliani nor McCain can accomplish this universally, though both men at least sound principled enough for the public. For the discerning Republican voter, this slims the choice down somewhat. Popularity isn’t always the ticket; Bill Clinton proved that. He was the Democrat’s Bob Dole in 1992. He wasn’t expected to win, but win he did. The RNC (Republican National Committee) needs to take a lesson from that – and fast. As it stands now, there remains a right-of-center candidate who talks like Ronald Reagan and another who at least looks like a President; neither sound like a pig stuck under a fence, have ties to militant separatists or are nuevo plantation owners.
Money isn’t always the ticket, either. There was a race for a U.S. Senate seat vacated by a centrist Republican in my state fairly recently. In the primary, instead of backing the candidate who was well-known, well-liked, could out-debate anyone and had proven himself to be principled, the idiot GOP leadership and donors went with a candidate who had slightly better name recognition and a billion or so in the bank. The base was furious and the centrists weren’t fooled.
You know what happened? We wound up with a nice, shiny new Democrat senator.
Here endeth the lesson.
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