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After twelve years in the House, Republican Bob Inglis’ job as a U. S. congressman is over. David Corn tells the story.
…this year, as Inglis faced a challenge from tea party-backed Republican candidates claiming Inglis wasn’t sufficiently conservative, these donors hadn’t ponied up. Inglis’ task: Get them back on the team. “They were upset with me,” Inglis recalls. “They are all Glenn Beck watchers.” About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, “They say, ‘Bob, what don’t you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.’” Inglis didn’t know how to respond.
Refusing to go along with the avalanche of lies and misinformation tumbling down from his party, Inglis was defeated in the primary by a tea party favorite.
For Inglis, this is the crux of the dilemma: Republican members of Congress know “deep down” that they need to deliver conservative solutions like his tax swap. Yet, he adds, “We’re being driven as herd by these hot microphones—which are like flame throwers—that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd.” Inglis says that it’s hard for Republicans in Congress to “summon the courage” to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. “When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation…we’re failing the conservative movement,” he says. “We’re failing the country.” Yet, he notes, Boehner and House minority whip Eric Cantor have one primary strategic calculation: Play to the tea party crowd. “It’s a dangerous strategy,” he contends, “to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible.”
Hearing a conservative like Bob Inglis speak should give one hope that all is not lost within the ranks of the Republican party. The problem though, is that it might be too little, too late and even more important, who on the right cares to listen to the concerns of a Bob Inglis?
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I saw him on Rick Sanchez yesterday. Thank God…. a sane one!
What’s sad about this, the “radicals” are forcing the intellectual, sane Republicans out of office and out of site. We can only hope the intellectual & sane Democrats can overcome the fools & liars.
Frankly, I am not sold on Democrats in our government as the intellectual and sane bunch, when they constantly give in to the filibuster system the GOP uses over and over. I’m Democrat but right now I’m not too happy with them either.
We have been shown that the right can get their way by doing what they do and never stopping. We see the lies, distortions and just crap made up day after day, and they get their way. Why do they keep getting their way? When we do make progress it’s often times only after compromising the bills to death until they really have nothing left to make much of a difference with. I always found the Democrats to be the party of compassion, but it’s not enough to have good intentions when we can’t win the battles to end the war on our hopes for a better nation for all.
I read the story yesterday in The Huffington Post, that indicates this administration included in the cover up for all the dead carcasses of marine life washed ashore in the Gulf coast disaster the media was not allowed to cover. I’m heart broken by this, as it’s likely true. I think in part it’s happened because the citizens of the Gulf regions have been begging the government to lift the moratoriums, fighting the government to lift any bans for offshore drilling. Although this administration doesn’t seem to have been truly successful at keeping the moratorium in place. Now BP is making statements that they still want to drill for oil in deep waters, eventually. We are not really in power while we have the filibuster keeping us from any real and lasting progress for change that will be the kind to help the struggling that was once the middle class. Where is the intellect and sanity to give us the justice we deserve for all our hard work in putting President Obama in place, and the work we try to continue to do with the other side fighting in such an unfair and determined way to regain the power they really haven’t lost??? The GOP have been playing this game to win back their power of the corporate elite. It’s hard for me to see where they have lost their power as the mortgage mess is hardly over, but rarely talked about. We are drowning in all the many issues that have kept the middle class from thriving again. The process of the rich get richer while the poor get poorer was just slowed down when President Obama came into office, but it never did stop.