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Tag:

GOP

BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

House GOP May Be The Majority Party, But It Is Not The Leadership Party

by lgadmin October 14, 2015
written by lgadmin

Since regaining the majority in the House in 2010, the Republicans have resembled less an organized, cohesive team of lawmakers, than the Biblical Hebrews wandering in the Wilderness. Speaker Boehner’s sudden announced resignation demonstrated an unprecedented lack of vision, agenda, and leadership; undertaken without any apparent forethought or responsibility for the future of the Party or the country. The move could hardly have come at a worse time; just as a lame duck president, desperate to cement his “legacy” at any cost, is dragging America into a Black Hole of international recklessness.

While President Obama sits back and plots his next moves — be they unilateral action on gun control, flooding our communities with more refugees, or implementing additional disastrous environmental regulations — Boehner suddenly announces his resignation, with nothing in place for the Party’s “next step.” Then, Rep. Kevin McCarthy leaps forward, apparently also with no plan, only to quickly step aside when he realizes the personal cost to assuming the position. Now, still in the first inning of this comedy of errors, Rep. Paul Ryan coyly dips his toes in the water.

In short, there is no clear, or even close, consensus candidate to emerge from the rumpus. More than just the irresponsibility shown by the so-called House “leadership,” the mess reflects how little the Republican Party appreciates the significations of the post of speaker (not that the Democrats would do any better). The position is not a stepladder to hoist any one individual into the limelight. Rather, it is a solemn, constitutionally-based position of significant national importance – embodying a responsibility that transcends party or personality.

If GOP elders — who are supposed to be mentors to junior congressmen who may not yet understand the importance of a long-term strategy for legislative success — truly understood their position and responsibility, there would have been far more consideration and care devoted to grooming potential leaders. That there was not even a semblance of a succession plan in place, is the height of irresponsibility.

In the world outside the political arena, corporations and charitable organizations, as a matter of standard operating policy, maintain leadership succession plans. They also routinely devote resources to identifying and developing future leaders for their enterprises; much like a baseball’s “farm team.” But in the United States House of Representatives, the GOP will have none of such nonsense as a succession plan, or unselfish development of future leaders. However, it has not always been this way.

Sadly, in the one generation since the GOP captured the majority in the House for the first time in forty years, and within three short years brought us major legislative victories, the Republican Party in the House has devolved into a political assemblage that enjoys majority status, but does not truly deserve it.

Rather than continuing to look within its ranks for a leader who does not appear to yet exist, the GOP should take a historic, but constitutionally permissible step, and consider a proven leader from the outside. As I wrote in September, Republicans not long ago claimed a Speaker who was able to actually accomplish notable goals as Speaker, and in a polarized environment not unlike today. That man was Newt Gingrich. As a direct result of Gingrich’s steadfast resolve to rise above the factional squabbling and forge a working majority, and then convince a Democratic President to work with him, Republicans were able to pass an astounding number of principled, conservative reforms.

Later, with a Republican-controlled White House and Congress, the GOP was unable to accomplish what Newt was able to as speaker; which is why he makes the perfect candidate now, even if on an interim basis, to save the GOP from descending into all-out civil war. Speaker Gingrich alone could rise above the fray, and the picayune and personal motives that appear to be the fuel, which motivates the current crop of potential candidates. He could provide a degree of actual leadership and strength obviously lacking in the current House GOP.

The man or woman who occupies this high post can do more to set the legislative and policy agenda for the country than any other elected official in the country – but only if they understand the power and responsibility of the office. The speaker – that is, a real speaker — must be firmly rooted in a coherent governing philosophy, but at the same time be able and willing to exhibit true leadership to accomplish important legislative goals. If the one question foremost in the mind of a candidate for speaker is, “will this job help or hurt my political future,” that person already has disqualified himself. Tragically, the current crop of potential candidates within the House GOP caucus, all appear to fall into this category.

Bring back Newt!

Originally published here on townhall.com

October 14, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Trump is the GOP’s Rosemarys Baby

by lgadmin August 19, 2015
written by lgadmin

In a matter of only two months, business mogul and Reality-TV eccentric Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has gone from “a collective eye roll and a laugh” (Washington Post, June 16th) to a “Trump Tsunami” (Time.com, August 17th). His meteoric rise from quaint outsider to front-runner has left his Republican challengers scratching their heads in disbelief; with GOP apparatchiks bemoaning what was shaping up to be a gentlemanly and substantive duel between an Establishment candidate (read, “Jeb Bush”) and several sort-of-Establishment, and non-Establishment candidates (read, “everyone else”), turning into a bar room brawl, in which Trump is winning.

While the GOP ponders the why and how of Trump’s ascendancy, in reality, the party need look no further than the closest mirror. Trump is the GOP’s Rosemary’s Baby — a phenomenon of the Republican Party’s own making; the result of years of failed leadership, broken promises and spineless decisions.

As Pogo said eloquently, “we have met the enemy and it is us.”

Leaders of the GOP inside and outside the Washington Beltway can blame Trump all they want for the deep-seated rage that is his fuel. But such blame falls hollow at Trump’s feet; he did not create this acrid environment — they did. Trump is simply taking advantage of it. In a sense, it was only a matter of time before someone came along with the unbridled chutzpah and unlimited money of a Donald Trump, to cash in on the anti-Establishment anger that has long-simmered among the voting electorate.

In fact, a Donald Trump was forewarned us a century ago by the political satirist, H. L. Mencken. As the acid-tongued essayist from Baltimore noted, in an emotionally-driven and rationality-starved environment such as we find ourselves in today, “all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.”

To restate the obvious, Trump is not a conservative; he barely qualifies as a Republican. He is, as the National Review’s Charles Cooke pointed out recently in a debate with Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity, “a man in the Republican debate who praises single-payer . . . [who is] still talking about funding Planned Parenthood . . . who has flip-flopped perhaps on the wealth tax and on gun control . . . who on any other circumstances, would have been laughed at through the primary.” The problem for the GOP is, these are not any other circumstances; these are circumstances tailor-made for a candidate like Trump, who is a master of knowing how to game the masses – and the conservative media itself — for the purposes of raising his own profile.

This is no longer the stuff of entertainment. Trump has become dangerously viable.

And what exactly has he offered in exchange for this outpouring of support?

He proudly refuses to offer substance; avoiding interviews that may actually challenge him to provide a fact-based vision for a Trump Administration. He proclaims himself the “world’s greatest negotiator,” but what does he “negotiate” aside from self-aggrandizement and fulfillment? He mouths inane statements loudly and repeatedly – such as “forcing” Mexico to pay for the massive and impenetrable border wall he will construct — and crowds cheer him because he “doesn’t back down” and “tells it like it is.” Doesn’t “back down” from telling what“like it is” — nonsensical blustering?

And still, people of otherwise rational mind flock to him because “he isn’t a politician”; as if not being a “politician” is now far more important than possessing a philosophy guided by the Constitution and a commitment to individual freedom.

Perhaps this is what Trumps represents most of all — not a reflection of “discontent” among conservatives, but the willingness of so-called “conservatives” to abandon all semblance of logic, reason, and fidelity to the values that first“made America great,” in exchange for whomever simply barks the loudest that they will “make America great again.”

This signals a depressing shift in what we value as intellectual and moral leadership in the conservative movement; where we no longer are guided by the scholarly wisdom from the likes of William F. Buckley, but instead by the facile and superficial talking points mouthed by high-paid pundits. In this landscape devoid of high ideas and understanding, it is “The Donald,” not Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, who serves as the standard bearer for “rebellion” against the status quo.

This is not progress. It is regression; and further serves the point that Mencken was trying to make — that as the mob continues to feed upon its hysteria, eventually it “will reach [its] heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Whether the GOP can stem this tide by changing its ways, thereby putting an end the source of unrest among its voters, is a question that goes to the very heart of what the Republican Party stands for . . . if anything.

Originally published here via townhall.com

August 19, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Message to Republicans — Motives Do Matter

by Liberty Guard Author March 4, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

“I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Giuliana made this startling statement in defense of his earlier observation that Obama does not truly “love America.” Not surprisingly, Giuliani’s criticism had pushed the Left to apoplectic fits. Obama’s defenders rushed to the aid of their Savior-in-Chief; characterizing Giuliani as a washed-up “has-been” taking cheap shots at the man he failed to beat in 2008. Less expected, however, were the droves of Republicans who jumped aboard the “motives-don’t-matter” bandwagon.

While Giuliani’s initial criticism of Obama was not unlike that of other conservatives during the last six years, many Republicans lost no time jumping in front of the cameras to distance themselves from Giuliani and echo his mantra. “I don’t think it helps to question the President’s patriotism or motives,” said Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. He was joined by other Republican notables, including 2016 presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Jeb Bush observed it was proper to question the President’s “policies” but not why he does what he does.

Like most “outrages” on the Left, the Democrats’ blustering was a time-tested trick to force squeamish Republicans to back down. In fact, the Democrats were using the very tool they have employed so effectively for years – question Republicans’ motives. How many times, for example, have we heard liberal wags claim that any criticism of Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder reflects Republican racial animus; or that opposition to redefining marriage is motivated by “homophobia?” Even GOP efforts to reform welfare is attributed to a mean-spirited hatred of the “poor.” In these and countless other instances, Liberals openly and shamelessly question conservatives’ motives; often in very personal terms.

Motives do matter; so why are so many Republicans so squeamish about admitting this, especially when such criticism is pegged to important matters of national security and other fundamental policy issues? Common sense dictates they should know better. Giuliani, who first rose to national prominence in the 1980s as the hard-charging United States Attorney in New York City, certainly must recall that establishing a motive or knowledge of bad acts is an essential element of a successful prosecution. It’s Criminal Law 101.

In the political arena, inquiring into and understanding why a decision-maker undertakes certain actions as opposed to others — actions that may affect our entire economy or our nation’s defense — is a vital first step in developing alternative policies and correcting mistakes.

For example, the refusal by Republicans to subject the President’s motives to public debate is doing exactly what Obama is doing with regard to ISIS — criticizing the terror organization’s actions without understanding the reasons it commits atrocities. If we do not understand the mind of the enemy, we doom ourselves to flailing around in the dark against an adversary without any real hope of defeating him.

President Ronald Reagan orchestrated the defeat of the Soviet Union not simply by criticizing the self-evident inefficiencies of the Soviet economy, or the deplorable living conditions created by its authoritarian regime. He did so by enunciating the moral depravity at the core of the Communist philosophy, as the “evil empire” it was. Only by understanding and articulating what motivated Communists was Reagan able to outflank them; ultimately sending the USSR to the “ash heap of history,” as he predicted would happen.

As was true in the 1980s, so it is now in this 21st Century. Condemning the unconstitutional actions of the Obama Administration is appropriate and essential (even obvious). But this makes sense only if and when we begin to deconstruct the motivations for such actions in order to truly understand the enemy we face. Otherwise we are just shooting in the dark.

Many of today’s Democrats, reflecting the philosophy underlying this Administration, are no longer motivated solely by the benign desire to help others using the power of government. Instead, Obama and those in his Administration appear clearly to act based on a genuine disdain for and rejection of the American traditions of free markets, private property, and individual rights; principles they see as a moral blight on society rather than as a foundation from which to protect and strengthen our nation.

If the GOP truly hopes to defeat this brand of toxic “progressivism,” it had better learn to defend its positions aggressively, rather than backing down whenever the media or its political adversaries play the “motive” card.

March 4, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Election Results Sweet For GOP, But Will It Last?

by Liberty Guard Author November 5, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

You do not need to retain the services of a high-priced, K-Street consultant (I understand that “high-priced” and “K-Street” are redundant terms) to decipher the tea leaves of yesterday’s mid-year election. The message for the Obama Agenda and those who advocate for it was loud and clear: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”

Last night’s results were a crushing indictment of the Democratic Party’s unquestioning embrace of the incompetence and corruption that has been the proud hallmark of this President. For six long years, voters watched as Democrats abandoned reason and integrity in order to protect “their” President and his agenda at all costs; never blinking in the face of increasing evidence of mismanagement and outright criminal activity in the Executive Branch. What they got for their loyalty was not an impressive track record of legislative victories, but a string of scandals and resignations-in-disgrace; and finally, a resounding rejection by the voters.

By the time the toxicity of the once-ubiquitous “Brand Obama” was clear, even keeping its namesake on the sidelines for the midterms was not enough to uncouple the train car transporting most Democratic incumbents and challengers, and prevent it from crashing off the rails.

Despite the dismal results of the midterms for the President’s Party, however, the writing on the political wall still is not evident to everyone. Die-hard Democrat partisans still cling to the narrative that Obama remains a sort of tragic hero, who after all of the trials and tribulations under which he has suffered, possesses still the courage (and relevancy) to rally his party. “I’m not sitting here blithely telling you we are as awesome as we can be . . . ” one top White House aide told POLITICO, “but, you hit bottom, and then you have the Obama comeback story.”

What worked for Bill Clinton — the so-called “Comeback Kid” of the 1990s, a decade ago — will not work for Barack Obama. Obama is no Bill Clinton.

Whereas Clinton was a consummate and charismatic politician — one who clearly eschewed an ideological agenda in favor of actually winning political victories — Obama remains to his core an arrogant ideologue unwilling to admit mistake; much less a man willing to swallow his pride in order to salvage some success from the embers of a crushing defeat.

We therefore almost certainly will not witness a chastened but optimistic Barack Obama rise from the ashes of his second mid-term election, to work with Republicans to accomplish at least some bipartisan benefits for the American people. Far more likely will be two more years mired in the same, tired routine of deception, bullying, brinksmanship, and unilateral actions.

But where go the Republicans, now that they have captured the brass ring of Senate majority control? Will they unite and govern as Republicans? Or will they be satisfied as so often they have been in the past, to simply cast themselves as Democrat Lite?

Americans truly are hungry for real leadership — the type of leadership that was promised, but never delivered, by the Obama Administration. The sort of leadership often promised, but rarely delivered consistently, by the GOP.

Indeed, the Republican Party has a golden opportunity to write its own comeback story. However, to do so it will have to act out of character and – in the bargain – position itself to beat Hillary Clinton, the all-but-certain Democrat nominee in 2016. Clinton will continue to put as much distance between herself and Obama as humanly possible in the coming months. Republicans will have to develop an actual record of conservative accomplishments if their nominee is to beat her; simply running against Obama – which worked in this mid-term – will not cut it in 2016.

Yesterday’s election victory is but a small prize in a much larger battle for the GOP; one it can hope to win only by recognizing and rejecting the mistakes it has made in the past, when its leaders stressed re-election and raising K-Street dollars to do so, rather than standing by and for a truly conservative legislative record. The jury is still out; but what happens in the upcoming Lame Duck session of Congress, and in the first crucial months of the 114th Congress with the GOP controlling both houses, definitely will signal in which direction the jury is leaning.

November 5, 2014 0 comment
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