Posted on 11/15/2010 9:04:22 PM PST by roses of sharon
With all due respect to Nancy Reagan, her proposal that the first Republican debate of the 2012 season be held at the Reagan Library in the spring of 2011 is worse than a nonstarter. The country needs to focus on the hugely important congressional debates this spring, not on made-for-MSM, liberal-dominated GOP wrestling matches.
The idea is itself an insult to conservative activists and new media. A quick rejection by GOP candidates of the presumptuous declaration of inevitability by Politico.com and NBC that they would be in charge would go a long way toward recognizing that these outlets, like most of the Beltway-Manhattan media elite, went in the tank for President Obama in 2008 and won't be allowed to dictate the terms of the 2012 presidential race.
Full disclosure: In addition to my radio show, I write for The Examiner and Townhall.com. I used to receive an occasional invitation to write for Politico or to appear on MSNBC, but as those outlets have gone left -- slowly, in the case of Politico, or rapidly and without reservation for NBC and its Olbermann subsidiary -- those invites have stopped. That's fine. I still enjoy having Politico's Mike Allen on my show as a regular guest most Tuesdays, and I read Politico every day.
But both outlets are significantly biased to the left, and not just to the president, but to the whole Beltway culture which is inherently big-government oriented and dominated by the conventional big-government wisdom about every debate. Very few Beltway media voices retain any connection to the conservative grass roots or the GOP's base, and those that do don't work at Politico or NBC.
In fact, those journalists never appear at these debates, which are instead given over to lefties like the affable Anderson Cooper, the professional but still MSM-driven Wolf Blitzer, the amiable Brian Williams or the talented-but-still-Beltway-driven John Harris or Jim Lehrer.
Can we be honest? They are all liberals. All of them. Not one of the questioners that could or would be proposed by Politico or NBC would be remotely in touch with the cares, concerns, and passions of the GOP's primary electorate. The process of choosing a GOP nominee should not be mediated by the left-wing media -- again.
I discussed this topic with one of my favorite Beltway pundits, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, on Friday's radio show. Cillizza gamely defended his guild, but here's the key exchange:
HH: OK, objectively, what would get more ratings and be more interesting, a panel of Brian Williams and John Harris and Anderson Cooper asking eight Republicans questions, or a panel of Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved -- four different radio networks -- asking the same people questions? What would be more interesting, Chris?
CC: And I don't want to sit on the fence, but I think, I mean, I think there would be two different sets of questions, potentially.
HH: Oh, hugely.
CC: But I don't know that either of them would be uninteresting.
Beltway liberals asking MSM questions would indeed be different than opinion journalists of the center-right, and I suspect far less intelligent and challenging as the questions posed by my panel, which would probe things like the constitutionality of the individual mandate while avoiding questions from plants in the audience, Santa Claus, and the endless abortion questions which marked 2008's "debates" and which the liberal MSM "journalists" manufactures to advance the left's agenda on a four-year interval.
There are scores of conservative journalists to people the panels and center-right outlets to sponsor GOP debates when they begin, which hopefully will not be until the fall of 2011.
I think I heard Col Allen West mention the self licking cone in one of his speeches (he was making fun of something)
I just stole that part and added it to “What do we get with Career Politicians and MSM... a Self Licking Ice Cream Cone”
My concern is the freaking Ice Cream is melting and making a mess and you know them whiners are going to want another cone from our kids, and one from their kids etc... and that’s just this batch of MSM/Politicians, what will the next batch of MSM/politicians want? and the next?
This just needs to end... these clowns have not measured up .. they ain’t tall enough for the Ferris wheel, let alone the ride you and I are on.
TT
Fan yes, worshiper no. And that book was a commercial success.
But I agree with you that something is going on here, there is a back story.
I agree, the MSM NBC Olberman types will drench our candidates with pisspots of low ball questions and smears.
How about Judge Napolitano on the panel? We would very quickly learn who knows the Constitution.
Yeah, the same way we’ve moved on from other Presidents of the past, like FDR, Lincoln, Washington. Reagan is the greatest President of our generation. Why would we want to move on from the legacy he left? His legacy needs to be remembered and shared with the next generation, not forgotten!
Maybe not THOSE guys, but Conservatives would ask TOUGHER questions because WE EAT OUR OWN!
You are absolutely right, and make my point perfectly.
We look up to the great Presidents of the past, and Reagan stands proudly among them.
But we don’t run our candidates on their records.
I don’t know how old you are, but I’m getting up there. Reagan may have been the “greatest President of our generation” for many Americans, but we are rapidly approaching the point where most of the electorate have no recollection of his time in office.
I’d laugh at a politician who was continually referring to a President who left office before I was even born.
It’s time to apply Reagan principles to new policies and own them instead of invoking his name continually. It sounds old, stale, passe, to too many voters, and that’s a mistake.
"Welcome back, dad. Even if you're bearing children and wearing a skirt."
Creepy at best.
We are in agreement. Reagan was an exceptional president, but we cannot wallow in the past. It makes the GOP look like navelgazers who have a dearth of ideas. Outsiders instinctively shirk away from perceived oversentimentality.
Thank you for saying it much better than I did.
I just want to win elections, and I fear that this “Reagan, Reagan, Reagan” mantra is beginning to hurt the cause, make us sound like we don’t have today’s answers to today’s problems.
Spring 2011 is just too damn early for presidential debates. I have no issue with the kick off being at the Reagan library. As for moderators… we go through that every cycle. Rush, Hewitt and the rest would be no better choosing or asking questions. I’d like to see Brit Hume moderate though.
And yes, Rush or Hugh would absolutely ask better questions of Republicans...and make no mistake they would be hard hitting. And Brit is an excellent moderator.
Republicans are very hard on Republicans.
>> something is funny, Hewitt is no rebel <<
What everybody on this thread seems to be overlooking is that Hugh Hewitt has the closest of ties with the NIXON Library.
So probably he’s trying to torpedo the Reagan Library’s aattempt to host the first debate, thereby clearing the path for the Nixon Library to grab the plum.
And soon the “tea party” will discover that their influence will be futile...and we are too far gone for the ballot box to make a difference.
Too bad...some of us said at the time that waiting for the next election, waiting for a knight in shining armor, or waiting for the massive, entrenched commie war room of MSM/DNC/Hollywood/Academia/DC Bureaucracies and the Judiciary to fail...is a lost cause.
But no one ever listens.
Of course the book made a profit, how could it not, that was known before pen was put to paper but it is meaningless.
That could be, Hewitt is a snaky guy.
Easy. It's a book. Many books are unprofitable.
The point is that one of Hewitt's motives in writing the book was to make money. It was a well thought out commercial venture. The book was not just an exercise in "Romney worship."
It was impossible for that book to not make a profit, and he was totally dedicated to Romney, that is why he wrote it.
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