Republican Party
We shouldn't be surprised that David Frum got fired from the American Enterprise Institute for violating the Republican party line on health care. Notwithstanding the Palin/McCain campaign rhetoric, the GOP has been hostile for years to to mavericks, independent thinkers and, frankly, almost any kind of thinkers.
Even so, I was struck by this post from Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden:
We have both been part of the conservative movement for, as mentioned, the better part of half of our lives. And I can categorically state I’ve never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate–the hallmarks of Reaganism, the politics with which we grew up–prevail in our movement as it does today. The thuggish demagoguery of the Limbaughs and Becks is a trait we once derided in the old socialist Left. Well boys, take a look in the mirror. It is us now.
As you read the following from noted congressional expert Norm Ornstein, keep in mind that he's no Democratic apologist or spinmeister. Norm is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an organization no one could possibly mistake for an arm of the Democratic Party. I'm reprinting the whole thing so no one can accuse me of selectively quoting from Norm's piece.
Hypocrisy: A Parliamentary Procedure
I still can't tell for sure if this is happening because of some grand design or is just a series of events that add up to something bigger, but it looks to me as if the Republicans have bet the farm...and their future...on being the extremist, take-no-prisoners, we-never-compromise-no-matter-what-the-result political party in the United States.
Consider the following, all of which happened just in the past week:
Senator Arlen Specter's decision to switch parties yesterday was a stunning turn of events. Last Friday, a Rasmussen poll showed his primary opponent, former Congressman and staunch conservative, Pat Toomey, with a 51-30% lead. Specter expressed regret that "so many in the Party I have worked for for more than four decades do not want me to be their candidate." He cited 200,000 Pennsylvanians switching to the Democratic Party and his desire to adhere to principle, but the real reason he switched was political survival. President Obama immediately embraced him as a Democrat, and that will assure Mr. Specter's reelection as a Democrat in 2010.
