At the Battle of the Bulge near the end of WW II, the German army, in a desperate last gasp effort to turn the tide of the war, broke through allied lines in the Ardennes forest in Dec. 1944. Nazi forces, led by the Germans’ elite Panzer divisions, surrounded the troops of the American 101st Airborne at Bastogne. Facing overwhelming numerical superiority and bad weather which made the possibility of rescue extremely unlikely, the Americans were presented with a demand from the German commander to surrender or face certain annihilation.
The Screaming Eagles,then led by General Karl Rove and his strategic adviser, Col. Reince Priebus, delivered what has become perhaps the most dramatic response to come out of that war: “Nuts! We’re beaten. Nutn’ we can do. What kind of a deal can we get?”, he asked of the German commander.
The rest, of course, is history the Americans surrendered. Bastogne fell. The Germans eventually won the war.
Fortunately, for the entire world, that’s not what happened. Also fortunately, General Anthony MacAuliffe was not of the Karl Rove ilk. The 101st did not surrender. Indeed the defenders became known as the Battling Bastards of Bastogne. Bastogne did not fall. The Allies did not lose the war.
A fair analogy to the behavior of today’s establishment GOP? Probably not, but many of the Republican Party leaders today are way too anxious to avoid direct confrontation with the political opposition on crucial issues, preferring to concede, appease, surrender, for now, of course, and vow to battle fiercely “the next time, over the next issue, on which they’re certain to prevail”.
It’s around this point that I take some exception to Dick Morris’ otherwise excellent piece The Soul of the GOP which assesses current fighting within the party over the effectiveness and value of the Tea Party. *
In his piece, Morris writes:
“Sometimes, the amateurs of the Tea Party lead us astray. No one can deny that Missouri, Indiana and Delaware would be represented by Republicans had the Tea Party not nominated candidates who made themselves unelectable. And it is probable that we would have won seats in Nevada and Colorado as well but for Tea Party primary victories.”
I am, perhaps, one of the few who does not accept this assertion entirely. When one looks at what allegedly sunk the candidacy of Mourdock in Indiana, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharon Angle in Nevada, or Todd Akin in Missouri, I am not convinced that they were candidates of “inferior quality” as Karl Rove almost immediately concluded, withdrew any support from, and has since often recalled. I will concede that each had flaws…perhaps some serious flaws. But, “inferior”… to whom…a large segment of the Democratic Party? And “unelectable”?
I don’t think so. I would urge those who suggest that I am wildly oblivious to political reality, to examine closely the “quality” of prominent Democrats… and note who is “electable”. And one can start with “Despicable Harry” Reid. and his colleague, that “Rhodes scholar”, Nancy Pelosi!
Does Rove fervently wish that the GOP could field such enormously bright intellectuals like “Rocket scientist” Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Constitutional scholar, Sheila Jackson Lee? And what about those squeaky clean Democrats like Charlie Rangell or impeached federal judge, congressman Alcee Hastings. And what about “likeable” Alan Grayson, who, if there was a vote, would likely win “Most Mean-Spirited Member-of-Congress”, year after year.
Maybe rather than the “disgraced” Mark Foley, who was accused of sending suggestive e-mails to a male House page and was driven from office by his own Republican party, Mr. Rove would prefer a proven Democrat winner like the late Gerry Studds who was reelected 4 or 5 times after admitting to having sex with underage congressional male pages and was touted upon his death, for “Democrat Sainthood” for all his magnificent contributions to… ?!
And who wouldn’t rather be known to admire, indeed revere, a quality guy like Ted Kennedy?
No matter what their flaws might be Democrats seem to have no problem being assured that their party and its leadership will “have their backs” and will support their candidacies to the fullest, and attack their opponents relentlessly.
Messrs. Mourdock and Akin were dropped by their Party’s establishment like radioactive spuds for comments I contend are no worse than various remarks by Democrats which are termed “just gaffes”. Their somewhat clumsy statements were ill-characterized, amplified, distorted, and cynically used to divert from substantive issues and positions by not just the Democrats and the left but by their own Republican party. And note, that “great statesman”, Dick Lugar, showed his grace as a loser. He refused to endorse or help in any way Mourdock to whom he had lost in the primary, quite decisively. And that was even before Mourdock’s unfortunate remark.
Were a Republican Tea Party candidate to applaud a black candidate as being refreshingly “clean and articulate”, would there be anything discussed about his or campaign than their “vicious, racist war on the black community”? For sure, their GOP establishment Party ‘leaders’ would never dismiss their remark as “just good ol’ Sharon or Todd”, or whomever. Never would they find themselves defended by the likes of “General Rove” or “Colonel Preibus”. Instead those “leaders” would spend more opposition research cash against them than against their Democrat opponent.
Ever hear of Chris Coons? My guess is the one thing best known about the Senate race in Delaware in 2012 is the statement “I am not a witch”.
And wouldn’t you like to have an uncorrupted Dept. of Justice which would really devote sufficient resources to determine just how that 2012 Senate election in Nevada was won? DLH
* Ed note: The Dick Morris column referred to herein is very complimentary of TEA Party efforts, their many wins, indeed that they are crucial to the Republican Party. But as Don points out Morris unfortunately continues the narrative that five races were lost solely because of the TEA Party candidates themselves. We find that the weak spot in his article and will continue to revisit the assumptions behind such error.
