Radical Right -- Same Old Party

May 11, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

RADICAL RIGHT

Same Old Party

Last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the Republican Party is in deep trouble because it is getting smaller and being led by far-right polarizing figures. Specifically, he said that right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh "diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without." Limbaugh then responded that Powell ought to close the loop and leave the Republican Party instead of claiming to be interested in reforming it. Yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, Vice President Cheney said that if he had to choose a model Republican, he would choose Limbaugh over Powell. The episode underscored an unexpected result of the 2008 election: Though a significant majority of Americans continue to reject the policy prescriptions and political rancor of old guard Republicans like Limbaugh and Cheney, the Republican establishment is now turning to those same conservative ring leaders to guide them out of the political wilderness.

DOUBLING DOWN ON THE PAST: In an interview last week with a conservative North Dakota talk radio host, Cheney said that "some of the older folks" in the Republican Party "who've been around a long time (like yours truly) need to move on, and make room for that young talent that's coming along." In the same week, congressional Republicans launched a "listening tour" in an attempt to rebrand their party, and in House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's (R-VA) words, "[R]econnect and make sure that our policy prescriptions are relevant to the challenges that people." Yesterday, however, there was little sign that the Republican Party of 2009 is any different than in years past, as three of the four major Sunday talk shows were dominated by old guard Republican voices. On Face the Nation, Cheney declared that his roll in authorizing the use of torture saved "hundreds of thousands of lives" while reiterating his view that Obama's national security policy is making Americans less safe. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on ABC's This Week, where he defended barring gays from openly serving in the military and claimed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is "working well." On Fox News Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) claimed that President Obama wanted to put "alleged terrorists on welfare," railed against Obama's budget (which the American public supports), and reminisced about former President Reagan. The trifecta of rejected Republican leaders seemed to verify former Florida Republican governor Jeb Bush's observation last week that his party is consumed by "nostalgia" for the era of Reagan and relies almost completely on "good old days" rhetoric to push the Republican message.

'I'M THE DEFACTO LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY': This past Saturday marked Michael Steele's first 100 days as the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), but the Chairman was nowhere to be seen on the Sunday shows. Last weekend, after Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's defection from the Republican Party, a Sunday morning show representative explained that Steele was not invited to discuss it because "there were questions as to how much power he still has or doesn't have within the struggling GOP." Steele's power, or lack thereof, is the result of a nearly constant stream of public "gaffes and stumbles" and an apparent inability behind the scenes to manage the large institution effectively. One anonymous Republican strategist familiar with the situation explained to The Progress Report's Amanda Terkel: "A lot of donors seem totally underwhelmed by Steele. Some donors are looking for another organization to donate to, and right now, for a lot of them, the [Republican Governors Association] looks like an ideal alternative." Over his first 100 days, Steele has swung wildly from pledging to moderate and grow the GOP to dismissing moderate members as traitors. Early on, he appeared to endorse women's right to choose abortion, and challenged Limbaugh's leadership. Steele had insisted on CNN that he -- and not Limbaugh -- was the "defacto leader" of the Republican party and admitted that he viewed Limbaugh's show as "ugly" and "incendiary." After an uproar from the conservative movement in response to those and similar comments, however Steele has tried to show himself to be an unyielding champion of conservative principles -- but not always in the most articulate way. On Friday, while guest hosting Bill Bennett's talk radio show, Steele dismissed Obama's desire to nominate a Supreme Court justice with "empathy" for "the daily realities of people's lives," calling Obama's criteria "crazy nonsense empathetic." Steele nonsensically added, "I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!"

MODERATES NEED NOT APPLY: When Specter announced his decision to leave the Republican Party on April 28, he explained, "The Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right. I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy." Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) expressed similar concerns in an op-ed the next day, writing that moderate Republicans often "get the distinct feeling that you're no longer welcome in the tribe." Cheney seemed to confirm this sentiment yesterday in his rejection of the more moderate Powell, while Steele suggested earlier this month on NPR that if other moderate Republicans -- such as former Sens. Chuck Hagel (NE), Gordon Smith (OR), and John Warner (VA) -- were still in Congress, they would be "left of [the] Republican Party today." Steele explained himself, saying, "They are to the left on some very critical issues that are fundamental to our -- some of our core beliefs." Yesterday, on ABC's This Week, McCain expressed his view that the problem for Republicans was not that Americans had rejected their right-wing policy ideas, but that they had not communicated those policy ideas well enough in the recent past. He agreed with Cheney, who recently claimed it would be a "mistake" for his party to moderate. "I don't want to moderate either. I think our policies, the principles of our party, are as viable today as they have been in the past," but insisted that there's a place in his party for moderates. Without a hint of irony, however, McCain then repudiated his daughter's view that the Republican Party ought to be more accepting of gays and those who are pro-choice. McCain said that while the party should be "inclusive," they cannot betray their "fundamental principles."

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS -- POLL OF ARAB NATIONS FINDS FAVORABLE VIEWS OF OBAMA: After his election, President Obama vowed to address the Muslim world from an Islamic capital sometime in the early days of his presidency. On Saturday, the White House announced that Obama would be making the speech in Cairo, Egypt on June 4, in what Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called "a continuing effort of the president to engage the Muslim world." A new McClatchy/Ipsos poll suggests that Obama's "overtures to the Middle East are paying off in positive feelings towards him from Arab peoples that far outpace the region's critical view of the United States itself." A poll of six Arab countries "found that residents think that Obama will have a positive impact on the Middle East." In Jordan, where Obama scored the highest, 58 percent have a favorable opinion of him; in Saudi Arabia, 53 percent gave him a favorable rating. Though the ratings dip in Kuwait, Lebanon, and Egypt -- where only 35 percent view him favorably -- "in none of these countries...was Obama's unfavorable rating higher than his favorable one." The polls mark a promising change in direction from the Bush years, during which world opinion of America -- particularly from Muslim nations -- fell dramatically. A 2008 Pew poll found that majorities in only three of 24 countries polled had confidence President Bush would "do the right thing regarding foreign affairs." In Jordan, 89 percent had little to no confidence in Bush, a perspective shared by 86 percent in Egypt and 65 percent in Lebanon.

U.S. reporter Roxana Saberi will be released from prison "after an Iranian court reduced her prison term for spying to a two-year suspended sentence." Last month, Saberi received an eight-year jail term on spying charges.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai called on the U.S. to halt air strikes in his country, after attacks that killed as many as 147 people. "We demand an end to these operations...an end to air strikes," Karzai told CNN. Yesterday, National Security Adviser Jim Jones said it would be "imprudent" to end the air strikes.

Christine Varney, head of the DOJ's antitrust division, will give a speech today at the Center for American Progress announcing "plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors." The new policy would "reverse the Bush administration's approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims."

Doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies will join President Obama today "in announcing their commitment to a sharp reduction in the growth of national health spending" that could "save $2,500 a year for a family of four in the fifth year and a total of $2 trillion for the nation over 10 years." Relatedly, in a new CAPAF report, Harvard economics professor David M. Cutler shows how "health system modernization could increase productivity growth in health care by 1.5 to 2.0 percentage points annually."

The anti-health reform group Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which is funded by disgraced Columbia/HCA Healthcare CEO Richard Scott, has "spent about $600,000 a month on ads in March and April but is ratcheting up its buy for May to more than $1 million." Scott has recently been "meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and addressing conservative groups in Washington."

China now uses more coal than the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined, "making it the world's largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet." However, China "has emerged in the past two years as the world's leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost." While the U.S. debates building such plants, China builds them at a rate of one per month.

"We're doing what the Japanese did in the nineties," economist Paul Krugman told reporters in Beijing. "It's clear the administration won't take radical action to strengthen the banks any time soon," he said, referring to the administration's refusal to temporarily nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America. "A second stimulus is becoming clearly urgent. They need a very, very strong stimulus."

Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said yesterday that though she expected the economy to begin growing in the fourth quarter, it is "unfortunately pretty realistic" that the unemployment rate could reach 9.5 percent, rising even after the economy starts to recover.

And finally: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was the target of some of President Obama's jokes at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday, but he didn't take any offense. "It was good love between two brothers!" Steele said. He then "noted with a smile," "This worm will turn. My time will come. Trust me."

CBS golf analyst David Feherty apologizes for Reid/Pelosi "joke."

Bush may haunt Republicans for decades.

Cheney said he may be willing to testify under oath about torture.

The Fed assured ailing banks that they don't need to raise the capital mandated by the stress tests.

Wanda Sykes's jokes about Rush Limbaugh and the right wing have prompted a debate.

Yglesias heralds the new Star Trek movie but says the concept is still "something that best unfolds on television."

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the source for a lot of bad pre-Iraq war intel, has died in a Libyan prison.

Texas is charging victims for rape kits.

"[It is] a little dangerous, incidentally, to now close what has turned out to be an extremely effective, well-run facility."
-- Bill Kristol, 5/07/09, on the Guantanamo Bay prison

VERSUS

"I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
-- Former U.S. military interrogator Matthew Alexander, 11/30/08

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