On PBS, Former Bush Aide Laments Perry's Importing Ann Coulter Lingo Into the Campaign
It might not be surprising to see someone sit in the rarefied liberal air of a PBS set and dismiss the undignified palaver of talk radio and Ann Coulter, but on Friday's PBS NewsHour, this line was coming from former Bush speechwriting chief Michael Gerson, and the target was Gov. Rick Perry.
Gerson and liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus were sitting in for David Brooks and Mark Shields. (In other words, Gerson was in the "I agree with Mark" chair.) Both agreed that Perry really gaffed in suggesting Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was "treasonous" if he shoveled more dollars into the economy before the election:
JIM LEHRER: Well, explain, Michael, why those gaffes wouldn't disturb the Republican electorate, for a candidate to use the word treasonous in the same -- in a context of talking about Ben Bernanke?
MICHAEL GERSON: I think the unfortunate context here is that that's the importation of language that's used on the Internet, used on talk radio, used in book titles. We have titles like "Treason." We have -- you know, so I think those -- that type of language has been imported in the Republican primary process. I agree that it's a long-term problem. I don't think that it's necessarily a short-term political problem in Iowa and other places.
Gerson must be referring to the Ann Coulter book "Treason" -- which was about actual communist espionage, and the anti-anti-communist liberals who were soft on it. It doesn't exactly match the current controversy. It's more snobbish than artful. One can dismiss the idea that Bernanke is a traitor as overbaked without dragging Coulter books into it.
Speaking of the Fed, Lehrer brought up Ron Paul's chances, since the pundits have dismissed his second-place straw poll showing as another insignificant CPAC-style outlier. (Lehrer didn't mention that the "End the Fed" author said Perry's remarks "make me look like a moderate.") Gerson gave the usual conservative line that Paul is too libertarian on drugs and too strangely supportive of Iran to win over the GOP:
LEHRER: Why -- there's been a lot of complaints from Ron Paul and his folks that he's been -- he came in within 100 -- within 200 votes of Bachmann in the straw poll, and he was just brushed aside. Is he not considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination?
GERSON: Well, I think he's not a serious contender for the Republican nomination. He has a floor of very committed supporters and a ceiling that's not too much higher than the floor, because he has very radical views, which came out in the debates. He seemed very much excusing of Iranian behavior. He's a libertarian on even the hardest -- legalization of the hardest drugs.
You know, he has views that are definitely not mainstream views, in my view and in the view of most Republicans. So, I do think that he is a force, but I think that he has a very committed core that's not likely to expand beyond that group.
At least on Friday, Marcus disappointed Obama partisans by agreeing with Gerson that the president's stance on unemployment is not cutting it:
GERSON: So, I think the president's problem here is not just the vacation, which is easy to focus on, but it's the fact that he's coming up with a big jobs plan 28 months after unemployment went over the nine percent figure, which most people seem -- see as quite late. He's playing catchup on the most important issue in American politics.
JIM LEHRER: Ruth?
RUTH MARCUS: I wish I could say I disagree. The -- I thought the tour was very odd, because it was: I'm on a tour. I'm going to come up with a policy. Wait until September. And that was problem one with it. Problem two, I thought, was when he started to sort of ramp up this argument against Congress, you know: I need your help to get this Congress to get off its -- and get something done.
Well, when President Truman ran against the do-nothing Congress, he had not promised the voters earlier that he was going to be able to make the Congress do something and that he was the guy who was going to be able to come to town and change all of this. So, for the president now to be ramping up against a do-nothing Congress, I feel his frustration, but he did tell us he was the one who was going to be able on fix this broken political system that still turns out to be broken.
Marcus may be one of the few media liberals who want to remind voters Obama pledged to be a terrific bridge-builder to the other party -- something the other party can easily reject -- as the Democrats proved with George W. Bush.
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Comments
Oh, please!
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:16am.
Of course, it's perfectly appropriate to call Republicans "terrorists," accuse them of "holding hostages" and "putting a gun" to people's heads....because, you know, that's just the truth.
he did tell us he was the one who was going to be able on fix this broken political system that still turns out to be broken.
Wow. Who are you, madam, and what have you done with Ruth Marcus?
She nailed it. This president just keeps on whining about the very thing he claimed that he was The One to repair.
Epic fail.
Violent rhetoric
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 3:08pm.
Yes, and don't forget it was Obama who told people to 'get in people's (opponent's) faces' and to 'bring a gun to a knife fight', the latter of which perhaps Loughner responded to.
Obama Has Stopped Calling For Guns, Snippers Are Republicans
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:40am.
Again Ann Coulter for Vice President of the United States.
Does anyone know Chris Christy? I would like to get his endorsement of the draft Ann Coulter movement.
How about a RINO hunt as a fund raiser.
the only "bridge building"
Submitted by spepper on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 9:37am.
The only "bridge building" that the current occupant's administration intends is to build bridges to transport ALL of their political opponents, however nonviolent and law abiding, into their prepared FEMA camp installations, as their PERMANENT new mailing addresses......
He's a Mole
Submitted by Ogundipe S.O. on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:07am.
Carl Rove's water boy, Michael Gerson, is by no means a Conservative. He'd done more to advance the liberal communist agenda than any other thing in his Washington elitist carrier. Indeed, during the run up to the 2010 elections, Laura Ingraham sat in for O'Reilly and she was forced to ask where Mr. Gerson got his Democratic Party talking points from. All his answers to every question was a vicious attack on the Conservative curses. Even Howard Dean wouldn't have been more nefarious.
Someone contact the local zookeeper
Submitted by gmaniac1 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:45am.
as it looks like some RINO's are on the loose!
Just another panty wipe republican lapdog advancing the ideas of the socialist agenda, nothing to see here
I see no difference of the
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 11:53am.
I see no difference of the Fed producing money which devalues my current money as nothing more than theft. the thief could come at 2 am in the dark, break in harshly to my home or as the fed does it, in broad daylight using words to scam us.
"Former Aid..."
Submitted by CobraMan on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 12:05pm.
"Former Aid," isn't that just a kind way of saying "has-been?" In other words: irrelevant. I wonder how many more irrelevant people the liberal media will use to demean Perry? Will they dust off Al Gore and parade him in public again?
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
Evidently, Megan McCain, Trig
Submitted by TE on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 1:56pm.
Evidently, Megan McCain, Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan, Kathleen Parker and Michael Smerconish were unavailable to fill the "conservative" "Republican" chair on Lehrer's PBS advocacy/lobbying group so they settled on Michael Gerson.
What is it about being a
Submitted by fitzfong on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 2:03pm.
What is it about being a Republican White House speech writer/spokesman/strategist that turns one into an unprincipled, tone deaf, rhetoric-obsessed, content-light, condescending, finger-wagging, big government "moderate" eunuch? Frum, Gerson, Noonan (OK, so she'd not so much a eunuch), Rove, McClellan...
These two-faced RINO turds are a greater threat than even the leftist tools that have so ruined the economy and the functions of this nation, as the RINOs essentially pave the way for the left to run roughshod over liberty by creating the myth of "reasonable" Republican endorsement of their methods.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." -George Best
Don't like the way Anne talks?
Submitted by Mike009 on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 7:49pm.
The main reason liberals hate Anne Coulter is because she talks about liberals the same way they talk about conservatives. She also uses irony and sarcasm, which totally goes over their heads. Too bad there's only one of her.
Gerson doesn't even qualify as a RINO
Submitted by Dave. on Sun, 08/21/2011 - 8:32pm.
He's a committed lefty.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
He Is Correct We Should Elevate The Intellect Of The Campaign
Submitted by Avitar on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 8:28am.
ANN COULTER for Vice President of the United States!
Nothing would increase the intelligence of the campaign more than having Ann on the ticket as the running mate. Only Newt Gingrich is as smart. The media would realize that they have been made fools but would have to resort to the Internet to realize how.
I realize that a cruiser is the usual escort for a flagship but why not the Superdreadnought Ann Coulter? She certainly would be able to step in as President, she knows everybody.
Of course they can clip together her words together saying anything that they want. She has told so many jokes that they would just appear not to get the humor.