The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Damn You, Josh Barro!

Posted on | June 4, 2013 | 86 Comments

Do I want to defend Erick Erickson? No, I don’t. I used to be OK with Erick until August 2011 when he got the bright idea to load most of the conservative blogosphere onto the Rick Perry bandwagon — like Noah herding llamas onto the Ark — and sent them plummeting into electoral oblivion, only to subsequently claim that he hadn’t actually endorsed Perry. Along the way, the Perry-supporting blog herd convinced themselves that every other candidate in the GOP primary field was unacceptably flawed, repeatedly making the argument that “A Vote for [insert candidate not named Rick Perry here] Is a Vote for Mitt Romney,” the RINO Establishment choice. The denouement of this was that after Perry flopped, all the not-Romney candidates had been tainted, we got stuck with Romney anyway, and Obama won in November in part because a lot of conservatives were so disgruntled over the way the primary campaign played out.

Dude, I lost friends over that shit. But when I see Josh Barro hitting Erick Erickson from the left, I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute, what’s up here?” And so I’m forced to check out Erickson’s column:

Josh Barro is a late twenty-something gay male who hates conservatives, champions Obamacare, attacks Republicans for wanting to oppose it, supports the tax hikes that come with Obamacare, wants to rid the GOP of social conservatives, and gets fawning pieces of prattle composed by liberals who want everyone to know that their friend Josh Barro is a conservative reformer who wants less conservatism. . . .
He left the conservative Manhattan Institute after it became clear he was not a conservative through his support of Obamacare, but uses that connection and being kin to his famous father to segue into not very interesting, slightly shallow “deep think” pieces on conservative reform about which he knows nothing and advocates no such thing. His liberal friends call him conservative because of his prior employer and father and use him as a useful idiot to claim if only Republicans were like him they’d start winning.

OK, a lot of that is ad hominem and a lot of it is populist rabble-rousing, but it does describe not only Barro, but a certain type of soi-disant “intellectual” from whom we always hear a lot of squawking after Republicans lose an election.

Sic semper hoc. This never changes — the Articulate Elite point the finger of blame at the yammering mob of right-wingers as scapegoats for the defeat, while the yammering mob claim they were betrayed by fainthearts and establishment insiders who rigged the game to nominate a weak-kneed RINO who proves that there’s Not a Dime’s Worth of Difference, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

A lot of this is really just the Dougherty Doctrine:

At the end of the day, the arguments all seem to boil down to something similar: If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you.

Not all problems of the Republican Party are a matter of substance — of ideology or policy — and a lot of the problems are about process and personalities, of less-than-ideal candidates and tactical blunders and the ever-present headwinds of media bias. The only way to fix the problem is . . . to stop losing elections.

Kinda simple, really, and Republicans are not going to win elections by being Democrats Lite — the “Me Too” Party. Insofar as the argument between Erickson and Barro is about substance, Erickson is right and Barro is wrong. Republicans can’t defeat Demo0crats by agreeing with Democrats, and why should they agree with Democrats, when Democrats are always 100% wrong about everything?

That’s the attitude necessary to victory, a core belief that whatever Democrats are in favor of is a bad thing for America, because if it was good for America, Democrats would be against it.

Democrats are the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools, and the job of Republicans is to convince America of this basic truth.

And calling Erick Erickson “derpy” ain’t getting the job done.

Now shut the hell up, kid, before you make me agree with Erick again.

 

Category: Intellectuals

Comments

86 Responses to “Damn You, Josh Barro!”

  1. Klejdys
    June 4th, 2013 @ 11:25 am

    This was an excellent post. Thanks Stacy. I feel smarter – much smarter – after reading it.

  2. Finrod Felagund
    June 4th, 2013 @ 11:34 am

    I have my disagreements with Erick too, but compared to Josh Barro, Erick sounds like Ronald Reagan.

    The large number of vile commentators on Barro’s article only confirms it.

  3. robertstacymccain
    June 4th, 2013 @ 11:56 am

    No need to thank me.

    Just buy a watch.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 4th, 2013 @ 12:16 pm

    “Along the way, the Perry-supporting blog herd convinced themselves that every other candidate in the GOP primary field was unacceptably flawed…”

    Truth was they were all flawed. It was an exceedingly weak selection of candidates.

    Need I remind you of the guy you initially backed until he melted down like a candy bar left on a sidewalk on a hot Georgia summer? The campaign would not even call you, and you were their strongest supporter. You should discuss that campaign with Dan Reihl sometime and get his thoughts on it.

    Newt and his serial affairs? There was a camp ready to embrace him. Remember what you said about him?

    Rick Santorum is a guy who is badly maligned but unfortunately seemed more intent in going after the libertarian wing of the GOP than being a viable candidate who could win the general election. But there is a reason Santorum lost Pennsylvania by 18 points as a incumbent Senator–he has a gift.

    Rick Perry could have been a contender, except he have perhaps one of the worse debate performances ever. If you know you are going to be in a debate, don’t take drugs for your back. Whose fault was that?

    The sad fact is Mitt Romney, with all his flaws and failures, was the best candidate left standing. And we know how that turned out.

    We need better candidates and a deeper bench. The GOP has the talent, but a lot of players choose to sit that cycle out.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 4th, 2013 @ 12:18 pm

    Erick Erikson is establishment GOP/centrist conservative, but compared to how many worse pundits are out there I do not get why people go after him. There are some very good contributors at Red State.

  6. Finrod Felagund
    June 4th, 2013 @ 12:23 pm

    And he didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

  7. Finrod Felagund
    June 4th, 2013 @ 12:25 pm

    There are only two bloggers I read regularly: here and Moe Lane.

  8. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 4th, 2013 @ 1:11 pm

    And you can read Moe both at Red State and his own site.

  9. keyboard jockey
    June 4th, 2013 @ 1:12 pm

    Erickson isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Just sayin…..

  10. OmegaPaladin
    June 4th, 2013 @ 1:46 pm

    Mr. McCain,

    “Republicans can’t defeat Demo0crats by agreeing with Democrats, and why should they agree with Democrats, when Democrats are always 100% wrong about everything?

    That’s the attitude necessary to victory, a core belief that whatever Democrats are in favor of is a bad thing for America, because if it was good for America, Democrats would be against it.

    Democrats are the Evil Coalition of Liars and Fools, and the job of Republicans is to convince America of this basic truth.”

    So the solution to winning elections is to be a partisan hack. I hope that was satire, because it is outright insane to believe that Democratic Party is never right. That just leaves you open to the easiest attack in the book – Democrat does some common-sense nice thing, like give a speech saluting veterans, and you then jump on it and blow your credibility.

    Also, that sounds exactly like the average liberal party flack, only reversed. People will get turned off by blatant partisanship.

  11. jakee308
    June 4th, 2013 @ 1:46 pm

    What’s with all the Josh’s on the internet?

    They’re cropping up like a bad case of body lice and similarly seem to be difficult to ignore or get rid of.

    Why do these intellectual light weights who still have their MNT pj’s have any kind of voice? There’s no beef there.

    I propose a ban on all progressive blogger’s named Josh.

    I mean that’s a word for kidding, teasing and generally dicking around, right?

  12. jakee308
    June 4th, 2013 @ 1:49 pm

    And he IS a tool. But he’s our tool for better or for worse.

    I’ll take him over somebody like Markos Moulitsas any day.

  13. keyboard jockey
    June 4th, 2013 @ 2:03 pm

    Yeah but that’s not the choice anyone has to make Erickson or Moultisas. One is supposedly a staunch conservative, and the other a liberal tool.

    There are plenty of conservative commentators, that are more deft at promoting conservative point’s of view then Erickson. I always felt CNN was using him just to stereotype conservatives as a bit dim for their viewership.

    I for one know he’s not the standard.

  14. RantMan
    June 4th, 2013 @ 2:39 pm

    derp derp derp…

    what?

    *runs off screaming for my mommy* 😉

  15. RantMan
    June 4th, 2013 @ 2:39 pm

    and try the fish.

  16. Adjoran
    June 4th, 2013 @ 3:01 pm

    He should look for a watch that comes with a free clue.

  17. Adjoran
    June 4th, 2013 @ 3:05 pm

    Erickson’s an idiot. Barro is despicable.

    And Business Insider is a haven for the “gay-for-Obama” crowd. Most of them haven’t a clue about business, finance, or markets, they are a bunch of little leftists whose Mommies knew someone.

  18. richard mcenroe
    June 4th, 2013 @ 3:07 pm

    Republicans can veer as far left as they want, but at the end of the day it’s a Democrat “civil servant” handing out the phones and EBT cards to the dole proles. GOP will never be acknowledged for that.

  19. richard mcenroe
    June 4th, 2013 @ 3:39 pm

    If you want to hear what a real conservative sounds like, check out Tea Party Patriot Karen Kinney’s IRS testimony over at Hot Air.

    Funny how the IRS never worried about Erick Ericson.

  20. jakee308
    June 4th, 2013 @ 3:58 pm

    THAT’S gonna leave a mark. Accurate though.

  21. Billly
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:24 pm

    This is the best articulation of the Republican party platform since 2008: “Doesn’t matter what it is, if Dems are for it, we’re against it.” And you wonder why the Repubs lose elections.

  22. ihazconservative
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:25 pm

    “That’s the attitude necessary to victory, a core belief that whatever Democrats are in favor of is a bad thing for America, because if it was good for America, Democrats would be against it.”
    One of the dumbest things you’ve ever written. Knee-jerk opposition is not what Americans want, and it’s ethically bankrupt – get some principles! If the other side agrees with some of them, then you get something done. You might not want to be “Me too” but you should get some ideas, and you have none but tax cuts. You’re not going to be a successful party when you only oppose what the other side proposes. People see through that, and they don’t like it.

  23. kindness
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:40 pm

    Derp.

  24. kindness
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:42 pm

    I’m pretty sure it was clever snark, but I could be wrong. Many here seem to think this post is real.

  25. kindness
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:44 pm

    Reagan started the phone program. George W Bush expanded it to cover cell phones.

    Derp.

  26. freddy the fixer
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:47 pm

    here’s the link:
    http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/04/video-tea-party-activist-describes-irs-intimidation-tactics/

  27. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:48 pm

    The assumptions you’ve larded into that whiny, petulant mush are typical of those who are so far left they’ve forgotten how to be free men. Not how to be sex-obsessed, metrosexual drones, content to cheer for their favorite metrosexual contestant on American Idol: No, I mean real men, who refuse to yield their liberty to those who would see them in bondage to the state.

    Here’s a clue for you: when the airplane is headed straight into the ground, you don’t compromise on whether to pull out of the dive or just alter course a little bit. We’ve done that dance to death. Now we’re taking over, and you can sit in the back and complain. You control freaks have managed to take over education, all staffing of government, and the media, and you constantly complain that it isn’t enough because your serial screwups have left us with an economy that looks like a banana republic.

    Take your pretend defense of “principles” and shove it where evidently you leftists want everything else in society to end up. We’re rolling, and you have a choice: to help restore liberty, or get out of the way.

  28. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:49 pm

    I josh you not.

  29. knucklehead1979
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:50 pm

    Ah, yes, principles. Such as: Whatever my political opponent is for, I’m against.

    Wait, that sounds nothing like a principle that makes any rational sense. Never mind!

  30. Swenstein
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:51 pm

    Too many herps spoil the whole derp.

  31. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:53 pm

    Nothing but straw. You wouldn’t recognize a principle if it was saving your life.

  32. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 5:57 pm

    And lots of other places. It’s viral.

  33. Gabriel Thompson
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:00 pm

    If you had any evidence that your type of politics works at a national level, we’d have seen it by now.

    I will restate what others have said: nobody knows what the GOP is for except tax cuts. “Liberty” you say? That’s too vague and even the leftiest Ds want more civil liberties; Smaller gov’t (sure, but what does that mean except cutting social welfare, especially compared to the idea of a more efficient gov’t which sounds better to voters).

    Eventually someone will come around to properly lead the GOP, and when that happens, it will be because he/she took their message straight to the voters and completely ignored all the GOP partisans. He/she will even admit when they agree with the Dems, you guys will spill blood, they will get elected anyways and will hold absolutely NO accountability to you’re politics. Just watch what happens to Ted Cruz over the next 4 years.

  34. knucklehead1979
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:00 pm

    Okay, Bob.

    Here’s a very recent example of how stupid your principle is: http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/republican-socialists-fight-obama-plan-to-privatize-tva-130527?news=850132

  35. nagej
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:03 pm

    “Rolling”, huh? If you say so. You are on the verge of becoming the Whigs of the 21st century. A deeply un-conservative, un-serious, manically obstructionist, delusional, paranoiac cohort of fanatics and extremists, devoted to nothing more enobling than demonizing the opposition. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater are rolling over in their graves.

  36. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:05 pm

    Like everything else that may have had a good intent once upon a time, the leftists took it and exploded it into a massive, unmanageable, out-of-control, un-accounted-for program.

    Entire crates full of barack’s phones were delivered to people without requiring signatures. Not to organizations like the Red Cross, who could be counted on to dispense them reasonably, but like the vast majority of pigford claimants, those crates full of phones went to sleazeballs who sold them on the black market, or traded them for drugs.

    You should be embarassed for bringing up another example of how barack and the left have turned something of questionable-to-moderate utility into total, mindblowingly expensive crap.

    What, doesn’t money burn fast enough on its own?

    And while you’re delving into President’s who are long retired or dead, why stop so soon? You should go further back in time and compare barack to cave men or germs. That way, everything he does will seem original …for a few minutes …before it turns into crap.

  37. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:13 pm

    I don’t need to see your justifications for controlling everthing you can grab. It’s obvious that it’s all gone down in flames because of the dumbing-down of everything to the point where math has become a matter of magical belief for you folks.

    You clowns spend money you don’t have in the belief of magic math that tells you there will always be more. Spend it on what? you ask. Trying to control things you don’t understand, and don’t have any competence to understand.

    And you are always complaining about how terrible this society is, and how rotten it is to live in the freedom your betters provided for you.

    Take your “compromise” and sell it to the sharks circling your disaster of an economy. Here’s my idea of a useful compromise: you stay out of our way, keep off of our lawn, and start taking responsibility for your own failure for a change.

  38. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:17 pm

    Romney’s cash pile had a lot to say about it, too. But I was always amazed at the rancor over past problems that made it impossible for “acceptable” conservatives to push past the obviously unacceptable Romney.

    Let’s hope his “turn” has proven the uselessness of that route to anyone paying attention.

  39. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:20 pm

    ‘”Liberty” you say? That’s too vague’

    Telling, that.

  40. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:24 pm

    You seem intent on showing how little your understood either man. I’m not sure why that tactic seems useful to you.

    The string of adjectives leading into it shows you to be neither a fan of conservatism, nor one who understands it.

  41. knucklehead1979
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:29 pm

    Wow. Talk about straw men!

  42. sheryl
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:48 pm

    Mr. Erickson spends a lot of time on his blog talking about his Christian faith, his values, his moral way of life. I agree with all of it, I agree with his right to say it. I would read his blog daily, until his writings, his mocking of others (in a rude way, not for politics), and his dismiss for people that disagree with him, seem to run counter to what Christianity really is. That coupled with his four day, childish rant about Palin “not running for president”, and his complete lie about a tea party individual running for office, pretty much turned me completely off.

    Great write up by the way.

  43. K-Bob
    June 4th, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

    You certainly do.

    Do yourself a favor and take an unclouded look at the collapse that barack has engineered. All of these “scandals” are simply a symptom of what happens when things are so bad that even having the press in your pocket can no longer hide the SCOAMF-tastic splendor of malfeasance on such a grand scale.

  44. Dave
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:33 pm

    Not Josh’s best work obviously, but the word is he had urgent business to attend to at Bronyland.

  45. Bob Belvedere
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:45 pm

    She lives right upstairs, Patrick.

  46. Bob Belvedere
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:53 pm

    She was wonderful.

  47. ihazconservative
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:54 pm

    Metrosexual, lol – dude, maybe lighten up on the weird introduction of sex talk, your anxieties are showing.

    Please, go full steam ahead with this. Really. It has worked so well for you in winning the Senate and Presidency (both where gerrymandering isn’t a factor for winning).

  48. Bob Belvedere
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:55 pm

    Damn well-stated, K-Bob.
    OUTLAWS!

  49. Bob Belvedere
    June 4th, 2013 @ 7:59 pm

    The Sarah Palin Countdown was the last straw for me.

  50. ihazconservative
    June 4th, 2013 @ 8:08 pm

    You guys need to find some conservative icons who are alive and can win. It’s getting kind of sad that you still talk about Reagan, and also shows how old you all are.