So what? He should be. He's clear that he likes bloggers who doggedly support the conservative cause. That's utterly unsurprising.
Here's Glenn's response, but, really, no response is needed. Glenn's blog is compulsively readable because it's not predictable and it's not partisan. I rarely look at the partisan blogs, which serve as gathering places and keep people enthused about predetermined goals. That's not how I want to spend my time. I'm looking for interesting things to read and talk about, not ways to keep excited about things I've already decided I want to be excited about.
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The one point Rush makes that's a good one (Jeeze, I can't believe I'm complimenting the hypocritical Adulterer) -- Democrats aren't out there writing off races, even ones they've no hope of winning. It seems like they focus on the races they can win -- at least to hear it from the MSM.
Now, someone will invariably pipe up and say the MSM is biased. Well, Republicans leaders shouldn't be giving quotes about writing off races to a biased press. Don't give ammo to your enemy.
Rush is only highlighting the debate about whether losing Congress will be good for Republicans in the long run. This debate is between republicans, neither Glenn or Rush believe that Democrats are a worthy alternative. However, Reynolds may be taking the position that a loss will sweep out the current leadership for a new more energetic leadership that will easily take back Congress in 2008. Rush disagrees with this position and argues that such a move is too risky.
I think if Reynolds were convinced that new Republican leadership would emerge with a Republicans retaining the House in 2006 his attitude would change. However there is no such assurance.
The Democratic party is a hapless organization with no ideas and no direction. If they win in 2006 it will be a temporary win based on Bush hatred - something they won't have in 2008.
A lot of pundits worry about Democratic investigations into the Bush Administration. I don't understand this worry. The Democrats will find nothing, because there is nothing (anything worthy gets leaked instantly). They will look like fools in the end.
Sloan, the problem with the Democratic party is that there is no leader. Or maybe there are too many. Anyway, If one true leader emerges, the ideas and direction will follow. I hope I don't sound like I'm looking for a Messiah :)
There is a big difference between saying that the GOP is going to lose, or explaining why you think the GOP is going to lose, or offering possible silver linings if they do lose, on the one hand, and saying that you want the GOP to lose, on the other hand. Limbaugh is laying into people in the latter group, and rightly so (while the arguments for taking the party to the woodshed are serious and important, I think in this case the proferred cure is worse than the disease), but I think Reynolds is basically in the former group. To borrow from Scalia's argot, if Limbaugh is proclaiming heresy and going after Reynolds as an exemplar of the people who want the GOP to lose, he's nailed the proclamation to the door of the wrong church.
MadisonMan said...
"Sloan, the problem with the Democratic party is that there is no leader."
The lack of a leader is not, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, THE problem with the Democratic Party. It isn't even the MAIN problem with the Democratic Party. In fact, if anything qualifies for such a distinction, it would probably be the party's transparent disdain for the very country it aspires to lead, its seeming revulsion at this country's history, tradition and institutions whenever they cannot be used as tools to implement its agenda.
I'll annoy you by quoting Obama making a similar point on the other side of the political divide:
One good test as to whether folks are doing interesting work is, Can they surprise me? . . . And increasingly, when I read Daily Kos, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s all just exactly what I would expect.
(Interesting that he's decided his long-term bread is buttered on the side towards the center.)
In fact, if anything qualifies for such a distinction, it would probably be the party's transparent disdain for the very country it aspires to lead, its seeming revulsion at this country's history, tradition and institutions whenever they cannot be used as tools to implement its agenda.
This is also true for the current Republican Leadership, I will note.
InstaPundit is intelligent, wide ranging and somewhat non-partisan / libertarian.
If only it wasn't boring . . .
MadisonMan -
That's true to some extent; no one will be more glad to see Frist gone than will I, and I wrote an op/ed recently saying that win or lose, the first thing the GOP needs to do in January is to eliminate the entire leadership team in the House, and preferably start by installing Mike Pence as Speaker. But in the bigger picture, I think the difference is that the GOP just has a few issues where I strongly disagree with them, but the Democratic Party is practically at war with this country and is literally at war with its Constitution. When you look at what they have done and when you look at what they would like to do, it is just really, really horrifying. There are quite a few things in the modern GOP platform that bother me, or that I disagree with, but when you look at the other party, and realize what the stakes are, you suck it up and deal with the few areas of disagreement. You don't jump into the fire just because you're not so keen on the brand of oil in the frying pan.
The Jerk -
So you're saying...that...If Reynolds weren't being partisan Rush wouldn't be mad at him right now...? (The preview button is your friend).
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney puts in his two cents:
The Republican Governors Association chairman -- 2008 White House hopeful Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) -- said today he believes the "House and the Senate look a little better" for the Republican Party than the governors races. "So the question is, will we lose six or eight governorships or even more? But we'll probably lose quite a few," said Romney on CNN.
"We'll certainly lose the lead," added Romney. When asked if there will be a majority of Democratic governors when the dust settles on election night, Romney responded, "Oh sure. Oh sure. I don't think there's anyone who has looked at the poll numbers who doesn't think that will happen."
And Limbaugh is worried about what a blogger said?
(Nah, I'm not whacking Romney. He's being realistic--but also demonstrating the "counting up losses" thing.
And an argument could be made that, in the mid to longer term, the shift in statehouse control is a bigger deal in some respects than shifts in current Congressional seats.)
The problem is that Glenn is really not the big one saying that maybe it would do the Republicans good to lose this time. If you want to see a lot of that, the NRO Corner has had a lot of that in the last week or so.
But rather, Reynolds is the bigger target. Most of what he has done here is to highlight what others have been saying.
I still like Instapundit a lot, and read it, like I read this blog, about a half a dozen times a day. The difference is that Reynolds really doesn't do much analysis there. Rather, he just links to it elsewhere (and does most of his analysis elsewhere too). And that is fine with me. Ann is one of the few solo bloggers I find who can do more in-depth stuff and not get stale (maybe because a lot of less deep stuff is thrown in).
I don't think that Rush is really losing much control here. The Dittoheads are still out there, as numerous as they ever were. Yes, bloggers have made an impact, but more, IMHO, on the MSM, than on conservative talk radio. One reason is that there is a lot of non-overlap. The other is that the two work together - often it is the bloggers who first find stuff, and it is fed to Rush, et al. for dissemination.
The most recent example of this is probably the Dingy Harry (Rush's name for the Sen. Minority Leader) scandals. Apparently, it was started with an AP story. And Rush mentioned it. But then, bloggers started digging in, developing more dirt, and a day or so later, it would show up on Rush's show (actually, usually the next day - he is pretty fast).
The other thing is that Rush has a pulpit that few on the right have access to. And he sees it as part of his duty right now to rally the troops for the upcoming election. Part of this is pushing back at defeatism, and the idea that it may be in the best interests of Republicans to lose this one is, in his view, defeatism (and I agree - the advantages of new leadership would be IMHO greatly outweighed by having Pelosi and Reid running Congress).
Bruce: I think you have in exactly right. Rush understands that turnout is the key and he's just making sure people turn out for the right reason.
This goes back a long way with him. I recall his warning in 1992 that voting for Perot as a punishment to Bush41 was faulty thinking.
Limbaugh is right in that once you lose, you never know how long it'll take to get back to power.
For what it's worth, I'm going to hold my nose and vote GOP. (Not that it's worth anything, given that I live in Cambridge, MA.)
On the other hand, the present GOP leadership stinks. So... well, I won't shed too many tears for them.
It's true, of course, that the Democrats are worse
Althouse nonpartisanship at its finest, I'd say!
But it's not classy to shout down or talk over a law professor, which is what Limbaugh typically does to callers he disagrees with. In fact, that's what he does to people he agrees with!
You must not listen to Limbaugh's show. He's more polite to his callers than any other political radio show host on the air. He's especially polite to his liberal callers. He often keeps them on for extended lengths of time for discussion. His show is one of the very few where someone can call in and not be hung up on after making one comment--you're actually allowed to respond.
If Instapundit was an independent, Rush Limbaugh would not expect him to toe the party line, and would not be outraged. The doctrinaire save their worst fury for perceived apostates.
The real problem is, of course, that Limbaugh, like yourself, has no familiarity with Instapundit. That is why he thought of Instapundit as a partisan Republican blog -- a mistake no regular reader could possibly make. So, like yourself, he's making a fool out of himself, talking about Reynolds straying from a fold he was never inside of to begin with.
Reynolds opposes the social conservative agenda, the war on drugs, the Republican Congress' spendthrift ways, most of the anti-immigration agenda, and the Bush Administration's support of torture and the detention of American citizens. Anyone who looks at that and says "partisan Republican!" has his head up his ass.
Which, of course, both Limbaugh and yourself traditionally have.
"It's true, of course, that the Democrats are worse"
Althouse nonpartisanship at its finest, I'd say!
You obviously don't know what the term "partisan" means. A partisan is a person who, like yourself, needs only to know the political parties of the parties involved in a dispute in order to decide which side is in the right.
Reynolds simply views the Republicans as better than the Democrats because the Republicans advocate more positions he supports than the Democrats do. That's not a partisan -- that's a voter.
Rev -
That Reynolds holds some opinions which are unorthodox for Republicans (does hating pork honestly count?) does not make him non-Republican. Nor does the fact that Ann also considers him such.
No one thinks of themselves as "partisan," they just think of themselves as right.
Reynolds simply views the Republicans as better than the Democrats because the Republicans advocate more positions he supports than the Democrats do.
Fancy that! So Democrats identify first and foremost with their party label, while Republicans just happened upon the GOP in their personal, nonpartisan quest for truth and justice? I don't know... sounds pretty convenient.
The Jerk: I have a pet hypothesis, that Harry Hutton is the same guy as Henry Raddick, the legendary Amazon reviewer. Should we call in Don "Author Unknown" Foster?
"the Democratic Party is practically at war with this country and is literally at war with its Constitution"
Wow, Simon. That's some mighty fine projection you've got going on there: Who just banned habeas corpus again? Who just legalized torture? Which party's president has blown the record for signing statements out of the water? And that's with a Republican-controlled Congress.
How is it exactly the Democrats are "literally" warring with the Constitution?
My jaw has literally dropped.
So Democrats identify first and foremost with their party label, while Republicans just happened upon the GOP in their personal, nonpartisan quest for truth and justice?
Hyperbole aside, I would say that yes, identity politics are more integral to the Democrat side of things where ideas often seem less important than being on the right team. I think that's why you find more personal exoriation on the Left than on the Right.
That Reynolds holds some opinions which are unorthodox for Republicans (does hating pork honestly count?) does not make him non-Republican
He does not belong to the Republican party. That makes him a non-Republican.
That he also is directly at odds with much of the Republican Party platform makes him, in addition to a non-Republican, an unenthusiastic supporter of the Republican Party, and hence no partisan.
Yes, I realize that you categorize everyone who does not burn with the desire to fellate the nearest available Democratic Party official as "a Republican partisan", but back here on planet Earth Reynolds is just a typical libertarian hawk, an ally of Republicans only inasmuch as Republicans advocate libertarian and hawkish positions.
So Democrats identify first and foremost with their party label, while Republicans just happened upon the GOP in their personal
No, dumbass -- Republicans *also* identify first and foremost with their party label. Which is one of the many reasons why calling Reynolds a partisan Republican is ignorant.
I mean, geez, half the time, Limbaugh sounds like he's eating the furniture he so mad.
You must have caught him at some anomalous times. He's actually pretty good natured and humorous.
You must have caught him at some anomalous times. He's actually pretty good natured and humorous
I haven't listened to Limbaugh in 13 years, and when I did it wasn't really by choice -- but I don't recall him being that way. When liberal callers rang him up there would be a "caller abortion", with the sound of a vaccuum cleaner and a woman screaming. He probably mellowed over the years, but he *used* to be pretty outrageous in his treatment of people who disagreed with him.
I read Instapundit regularly, and have since 2000. You have no idea what I do and don't read.
Oh, I have a definite idea that the above claim was a flat-out lie -- Reynolds launched Instapundit in August, 2001.
Add in the fact that your description of his blogging bears no resemblance to the reality and the fact that his pre-9/11 readership was virtually nonexistant, and, well -- sorry, you're busted. Try a different lie.
Instapundit is so obviously partisan, although he tries to pretend he's not. He doesn't fool me.
The only major blogs I actually read are Althouse, Sullivan, and Washington Monthly, although I do check in on the lefty and righty blogs just to get a laugh. In my opinion, the ones on the right are all group think. I actually think you'll get more independent thought on the blogs from the left. There is zero tolerance for those who stray from the agenda on the right. Just look what they did to Sullivan when he went off the reservation. And look at what Limbaugh is doing to Instapundit now.
Wait until you see what happens when the Republicans lose big time. The right has absolutely no idea what's about to hit them in November. They are utterly clueless. Especially if you read their blogs immediately after the 2004 elections when they basically stated that due to demographic trends it would be impossible for them to lose a Presidential or Congressional election for the next 40 years. Really - they are super dumb if they really believed that.
Then again - they also think "staying the course" in Iraq is a real plan for the War, so what do you expect.
Oooo! You caught a typo! Congrats!
No, I caught a lie. "2000" is not a typo of "2001" -- the 0 and 1 keys are nowhere near one another. Nor is it credible that you would have accidentally thought that a warblog -- which is what all but the unread first few weeks of Instapundit have been -- started a year before 9/11.
So, sorry -- like I said, you're busted. It is never a smart idea to try to bullshit your way through an argument by feigning expertise in something you know nothing about.
Nope. It bears every resemblance to the reality. He's not as hackish as Hugh Hewitt or Powerline, more like the NRO crowd.
Please. You've already been exposed as a liar -- try no to convince everyone who actually *has* read the blog that you're an illiterate fool, too.
In case you haven't noticed, Rush is a little like O'Reilley. They both tend to show disdain towards bloggers especialy O'Reiley who believes the internets are out of control..."My god - anyone can say anything".
I could tell because you used Democrat as an adjective.
Sorry, couldn't bring myself to type "Democratic" as I find the Democrats' current agenda to be anything but.
Oh, pish, posh. It is a funny satirical ad.
I hope you'd say the same of a commercial featuring a Bob Corker look-alike whipping Mexicans fieldworkers in tee-shirts that read: "ILLEGAL". After all, Corker employs illegals.
there is a fine line between saitre and outrage. I would say that the Stanford Band marched right along that line in thier "Salute to Aabortion" when the band formation was a coat hangar.
Nonetheless, the ad against Ford makes you laugh. I found the funniest part the couple suggesting that Canada is not too busy to handle Iraq.
If there were an equivlaent ad against Corker-- that made people laugh-- then good. We could use some of that this election season.
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