Partly Hoisted from Jennifer Rubin's Archives: I Should Have Listened to Norm Ornstein!
Norm Ornstein observes Jennifer Rubin (2015) saying "I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO NORM ORNSTEIN THREE YEARS AGO!!" to Jennifer Rubin (2012):
(September 15, 2015): Perry exits: A sad sign of our politics: "The MSM obsesses on trivial matters...
...almost priding itself on political coverage that ignores the substance.... The right-wing media bubble is part of a crass political culture excusing (promoting, even) ignorance, anger and paranoia... dumb[ing] down our politics and turn[ing] the electorate into a mob. Flagship conservative weeklies irresponsibly fan anti-immigrant sentiment.... The result is debased political discourse and a sense of victimhood bent on attacking Republicans who dare to govern responsibly. Voters... embrace bad causes, gobble up a steady diet of political junk food, celebrate rotten behavior and buy into the notion that insufficient conservative extremism is the root of our troubles.... The right wing has done more to undermine conservatism than any Democrat could have done... converting a serious party of ideas into an unattractive, angry racket for snake-oil salesmen. A long-time GOP operative assures me, ‘The adult voters in the GOP always show up to the party fashionably late.’ We should pray he is right.... It is fair to worry whether the GOP electorate has become incapable of setting standards for political debate, of distinguishing crass entertainers from legitimate contenders and of rejecting bigotry and irresponsibility. If so, Republicans picked a particularly inopportune moment to lose their marbles.... A serious, responsible Republican Party... is on the brink of extinction.
(2012): Ornstein and Mann’s Op-Ed Blaming Republicans: It Was a Parody, Right?: "Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein... are Democratic hacks and not serious pundits...
...let alone scholars.... They... write a piece saying the GOP alone is to blame for what’s wrong in D.C... throw around adjectives (’extreme’ is always an easy one) with no factual support... cite intemperate House Republicans rather than the legions of deal-making Republicans.... Yes, this is the parody; theirs is the result of what happens when you’ve been in D.C. too long.
(2012): Ornstein and Mann’s Non-Solutions to Ending Partisan Politics: "After tossing the pose of nonpartisanship aside...
...and casting the Republicans as the root of all that is wrong in American politics.... Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann received more attention than they have in their entire careers. (Never let it be said that attacking Republicans isn’t a good career move.)... Such puny solutions they... come up with for a crisis they paint in gargantuan terms. (‘We are witnessing unprecedented and unbalanced polarization of the parties, with Republicans acting like a parliamentary minority party opposing almost everything put forward by the Democrats; the near-disappearance of the regular order in Congress; the misuse of the filibuster as a weapon not of dissent but of obstruction; and the relentless delegitimization of the president and policies enacted into law.’)... campaign finance reform... redistricting reform.... instant runoff voting... fin[ing] people for not voting.... And finally there is the old hobby-horse--filibuster reform! Well, good luck trying to get either party to buy into that one.... I don’t buy the authors’ analysis of the problem.... Not getting Obamacare passed would have been a success; passing a monstrous bill along strict party lines without understanding what was in it was the calamity. (That, and its disregard of Commerce Clause limits).
Partisanship is not a political disease... [but] a reflection of real differences in policies and values that are becoming more rooted in geography as people select neighborhoods and states where they feel comfortable.... Democracy, in short, will not work without a virtuous citizenry. All the gimmicks and finger-pointing in the world won’t substitute for voters who decline to be bribed or bamboozled. The real ‘solution’ is not to disguise differences, but make them apparent, run on issues and let the voters decide, hoping they are mature and responsible in their preferences. We have one presidential candidate (with congressional allies) ready to indulge the public’s worst impulses and give them lots of ‘free stuff,’ while the other has ambitions to stop the hemorrhaging of debt and restore essential public values (e.g. delayed gratification). Let the voters pick. In the end, we get the leaders we deserve.
