Schieffer Feigns Concern: Has Republican Party ‘Moved Too Far Right for Its Own Good?’
CBS’s Bob Schieffer, who in February asked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie whether the Republican presidential candidates “are pushing your party too far to the right to make the nomination worth anything when you get to November?”, on Sunday repeated his mantra, demanding of Peggy Noonan: “Do you think that the Republican Party has moved too far right for its own good?”
As if he cares about the success of Republicans or conservatives.
Schieffer fretted “the situation that’s happened out in Indiana, where Richard Lugar, who’s probably passed more significant legislation than any single member of the Senate right now, I would say -- that I can think of -- he might actually get beat in the primary because they think he’s not conservative enough.”
Noonan appeared with David Corn of Mother Jones, columnist Michael Gerson and CBS’s John Dickerson. None of them, nor Schieffer, raised any concern Obama or Democrats might be too liberal on anything.
From early April: “Embarrassing Conduct by Schieffer: Cues Up Biden to Pontificate, But Argues with Gingrich”
Exchange on the May 6 Face the Nation:
BOB SCHIEFFER: Peggy, I want to ask you because you wrote something about this. Do you think that the Republican Party has moved too far right for its own good? I mean, when you see the situation that’s happened out in Indiana, where Richard Lugar, who’s probably passed more significant legislation than any single member of the Senate right now, I would say-- that I can think of-- he might actually get beat in the primary because they think he’s not conservative enough.
PEGGY NOONAN: I think it’s kind of complicated, and the Republican Party has been complicated all of my adult life. When I was a kid coming up, I remember Ronald Reagan having to dance around the fact that the John Birch Society decided in 1980 that they were for him, and Reagan had too say, "Well I’m glad they’re for him. I’m glad everybody is for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m for them." It’s a dance between those on edge of movements and both movements have edges. Those on the edge of movements and those who are more centrist. I think Lugar has been a good Senator, and you know what my bias is. It’s towards stability and the adultness in Washington, DC. I happen to think, we’ll go through tough times and need the adults. But is it a daily struggle for the Republican Party to get it right? Yes. And will it have to get it right in this election? Yes.
Saturday’s Wall Street Journal carried a column by Noonan, “The Case for Sending Senator Lugar Back to Washington,” in which she argued for the value of his policy expertise and experience.
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PEGGY NOONAN: I think it’s kind of complicated, and the Republican Party has been complicated all of my adult life. When I was a kid coming up, I remember Ronald Reagan having to dance around the fact that the John Birch Society decided in 1980 that they were for him, and Reagan had too say, "Well I’m glad they’re for him. I’m glad everybody is for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m for them." It’s a dance between those on edge of movements and both movements have edges. Those on the edge of movements and those who are more centrist. I think Lugar has been a good Senator, and you know what my bias is. It’s towards stability and the adultness in Washington, DC. I happen to think, we’ll go through tough times and need the adults. But is it a daily struggle for the Republican Party to get it right? Yes. And will it have to get it right in this election? Yes.









Comments
"Richard Lugar, who’s
Submitted by forest on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:02pm.
"Richard Lugar, who’s probably passed more significant legislation than any single member of the Senate right now, I would say-- that I can think of-- he might actually get beat in the primary because they think he’s not conservative enough."
Did that legislation reduce or increase the power, scope and spending of the Federal government?
Are journalists like Schieffer really this stupid, or are they just putting us on?
Some People Don't Know When it's Time to Retire
Submitted by libBuster on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:29pm.
Some people in Washington just don't know when it's time to retire. A perfect example is Arlen Specter. His spasmodic grasps at retaining power made him look very much the fool to all sides of the aisle. Of course there also was Helen Thomas. Another example is CBS's own Scheiffer, who claims to be 75 but appears much older.
Lugar is 80 years old. It just might be time for him to retire.
Lugar retire?
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:35pm.
Not hardly, : ] , looks as though Ann's establishment is worried a real Patriot will win. So much so they are seeking the help of the dimwits.
Well, a couple more polls
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:01pm.
Well, a couple more polls like that and he may just change his mind.
Just one more reason why, if we can't have term limits, we should at least have mandatory retirement at 65.
I might settle for an
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:06pm.
Audit, every years your in office. Might make "serving" the folks a little less profitable, and appealing?
Lugar's challenger in the primary
Submitted by lrgon on Mon, 05/07/2012 - 10:46am.
has the endorsement of Palin and Richard Armey.
If we are to move back to the moderate center of the political spectrum; away from the far left where we presently have been placed by RINO's like Lugar, we need to defeat guys like Lugar in the primaries. http://hoosiersforconservativesenate.com/Richard_Mourdock.php
Conservatives Can't Win
Submitted by libBuster on Mon, 05/07/2012 - 10:56am.
The view among Republican "moderates" is that conservatives can't win. They believe that RINO McCain lost because of Sarah Palin.
I think McCain ran the single most inept political race for President in my lifetime. But I am not a "Republican moderate".
Peggy Noonan....Meh...
Submitted by Paul G on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:03pm.
Has the democratic party moved too much Marxist?.
FLASHBACK: Election Night, 2008
Submitted by Galvanic on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:00pm.
The MSM was crowing about the victories of Obama and other Democrats, and universally warning that if the GOP didn't move leftward, it would destroy itself. Two years later, after ignoring the pundits and moving further right, the GOP won back the House and many Senate seats, bolster by the grass roots support of the "extremist" Tea Parties.
Meanwhile, longtime moderate Dem. Senator Joe Liebeman was defeated by a progressive challenger bankrolled by Dem special interest groups from all over the country. The man who had run as the party's VP candidate as recently as 2000 was forced out of the "inclusive and diverse" Democratic Party.
But proving that the Dems had moved further left than the voters of Connecticut, Lieberman ran and won as an independent.
Yet, I don't recall Schieffer wondering if the Democrats had moved too far left for its own good.
Don't confuse Schieffer with
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:02pm.
Don't confuse Schieffer with facts!
Liberals know the truth. The facts are a conspiracy.
Poor Bob.
Submitted by NeoKong on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:29pm.
Another squish RINO enabler of Obama going down the toilet and he is all sad.
But I guess it's never a
Submitted by rbosque on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:41pm.
But I guess it's never a problem if the Democrats go too far to the left eh Schieffer? In fact, the more to the left the better right? CBS and the rest of the MSM have certainly been cheerleading this administration no matter how close to Lenin and Marx Obama gets.
Yeah - like this Jurassic
Submitted by Slyrr on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:42pm.
Yeah - like this Jurassic Park dinosaur gives one whit about the Republicans. I'm sick of liberal media hacks like him trying to dictate to the GOP how they 'should behave' when everyone knows the liberal media and all their anchors are right in Obama's back pocket.
It's a pathetic, transparent and embarrassingly stupid ploy on their part to try and browbeat weak-kneed RINOs into siding with Democrats. All of Bobby-boy's heartfelt 'advice' is nothing but him saying that the GOP should disband and declare themselves Democrats. He wants the GOP to do liberal democrat things, say liberal democrat talking points and basically abandon all their core principles. Basic jist of it is that he wants the GOP to bend over and grab their ankles so Obama and every other liberal can have their fun without interference.
Fat chance, Bobby-boy. You and your 'sort of god' Obama had your chance and you screwed everything up royally. This November, he and his greedy wife will be cast out along with their entire cabinet of power-hungry 'czars'. Your little rock-star concert of feel-good parties and vactions will end and the grown-ups will be back in charge and we will finally be able to put this country back to work.
double post
Submitted by Slyrr on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:43pm.
double post
More idiocy from Captain Commie Obvious
Submitted by djwolf12 on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 4:45pm.
Why doesn't this sheer idiot ever question that the Democrat Party has gone too far to the left for its' own good?
I'll tell you why: This idiot is perfectly ok with a president that is SO FAR TO THE LEFT that he is actually in front of the sinking sun in the west.
The country was birthed on the far right...
Submitted by stage9 on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:00pm.
...and unless it returns to the far right, it is utterly doomed.
"[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)
"In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity." -- John Quincy Adams (Sixth President of the United States; Diplomat; Secretary of State; U.S. Senator; US Representative)
"Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle... In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity... That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants."9. -- Congress, U. S. House Judiciary Committee, 1854
"The great, vital, and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."8 -- Congress 1854
"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God." 1. -- John Adams (Signer of the Declaration; Judge; Diplomat; One of the Two Signers of the Bill of Rights, Second President of the United States)
"There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed and its members perish… [T]he most important of all lessons is the denunciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts of religion."29 -- Gouverneur Morris (Revolutionary Officer; Member of the Continental Congress; signer of the Constitution; Penman of the Constitution; Diplomat; US Senator)
"[Governments] could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source: from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth.10. -- John Dickenson (Signer of the Constitution; Governor of Pennsylvania; Governor of Deleware; General in the American Revolution)
"If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner." — Malcolm Muggeridge
Does not mean that they were on the Right
Submitted by OhioHistorian on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 8:31pm.
In fact the Founders were combination of States Rights and Federalists. That is why the compromise for the House and Senate, the Electoral College, a slave being 3/5 of a freeman, and the Tenth Amendment restricting Federal action to those powers specifically granted. The liberal left has urinated on all but the Electoral College, by amending to get direct election of Senators and income taxation.
Thomas Alva Edison
They're never liberal enough.
Submitted by metaphorsbwithu on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:03pm.
RE: "None of them, nor Schieffer, raised any concern Obama or Democrats might be too liberal on anything."
That's because they don't see the Democrat Party as overly liberal.
They complain Obama isn't liberal emough (which we know is just a ruse to convince those not paying attention that "extremism" is of the right).
That's why socialists, Marxists, statists, etc. complain when "their guys" are labeled as such ... they feign disapproval and frustration knowing they have to fool the majority so as to advance their agendas under cover one inch at a time.
If you had any doubts....
Submitted by jdripper on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:21pm.
about why George W. Bush's numbers were in the toilet all you had to do was watch Michael Gerson today. Outside of being a total idiot he spent his entire time demonizing the Republican Party. Gerson really and truly is an idiot. I am amazed his mother let him go out alone this morning.
Jack
Bob the idiot
Submitted by mmilesll on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:24pm.
Isn't there a rest home someplace that will take this moron and let him drool with other senile liberals? Is CBS having that much trouble trying to replace him? Lugar was a pompous ass during his entire public career and maybe we will get lucky and they can both go to the same rest home. Oh yes, Lugar is very much a liberal.
Schieffer again?
Submitted by KyWriter on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 6:44pm.
Somebody tell this delusional old goat that Warren Harding is no longer the president.
Is Bob Schieffer's...
Submitted by BBallleaper on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 6:59pm.
dementia too far along for his own good?????????? Yes!
The current form of
Submitted by robert108 on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 7:27pm.
The current form of disinformation practiced by the liberals is to label Americans who want to govern by the Constitution as "right wing" or "far right", as if following our Constitution is something strange and weird.
Leftward, HO
Submitted by OhioHistorian on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 8:26pm.
Remember the strategy the Dems used to capture the House and Senate in 2006? It was their "blue dog" strategy, which put more conservative Democrats into conservative districts. My recollection is that there were about 50 in the House. Over 90% are gone, mostly victims of their left wing, which then got beat again by Republicans in 2010. And BS (he fits his initials, doesn't he?) is worried about thre REPUBLICAN party moving to far to the extreme? Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democrat VP Candidate, is another example of a Democrat who was forced out as too "conservative" (and if Joe is a conservative, I'm to the right of John Birch Society).
They prate about spending, as they have spent more money in three years than George Bush did with two wars running in 8. They pass an odious dead fish called ObamaCare, and then tell us that we'll love it, and we need to pass it to find out what's in it. They made promises of reconciliation on bills, and then send it to the CBO to fraudulently assess the income on 10 years and the expenses on 8. They have moved the EPA to cap and tax when their own liberal Congress didn't have enough stones to pass cap and tax through Congress. They didn't pass "Immigration Reform" through Congress, so their Executive refuses to enforce laws. They passed Defense of Marriage Act as a Congress under Bill Clinton so that the Republicans would not push for a Constitutional amendment. They now will not enforce the law.Their operation of the Justice Department has been a combination of hide the evidence on Fast and Furious and let the criminals go in the New Black Panthers. BS, when you stop the BS and note YOUR party's sprint leftward, then you can ask about the Republicans. Why aren't you asking Debbie Wasserman-Schultz the same questions? Afraid she will get out the de-baller?
Thomas Alva Edison
Concern is touching...
Submitted by Chulio on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 9:50pm.
It's nice that Bob is so concerned for the welfare of the GOP.
Correct answer
Submitted by CO2Maker on Mon, 05/07/2012 - 9:48am.
Bob asks: "Do you think that the Republican Party has moved too far right for its own good?"
Peggy should have answered: "No, Bob, but do you think the press has moved too far to the left, and that just makes it seem that the Republicans are too far right?"