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The WAGOP Has A Democratic Sleeper Agent On Its Executive Committee.

By: Martin Knight (Diary)  |  September 14th, 2009 at 11:52 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Via Ace, I saw this quote in his “Top Headlines” sidebar by by the proprietress of “It’s Only Words” – who should be one and the same as this lady here, and thought it was one of those brilliant things you’ve always thought of but never quite found the right words in which to express it.

Nuance is the mantle intellectuals like to don when they espouse ideas that slap common sense in the face.

So I clicked over to Paula’s blog to see what brought on that slice of genius … and my mouth dropped open at the sheer incandescence of the stupidity Paula was grappling with. It was an op-ed by a Matthew Manweller; an associate professor of Political Science at Central Washington State University, published in the Seattle Times a few days ago. He also happens to be a member of the Washington State Republican Party Executive Committee.

He’s also an idiot, notwithstanding his obvious self-regard as some sort of intellectual. Or a Democratic plant. I don’t believe there is any other explanation for what he’s proposing that the Republican Party do to itself in 2010. Either way, it’s Republicans like him that make the Committeeman Project (which I apologize for completely neglecting – and in the cause of which ColdWarrior has been an absolute wonder to behold) so absolutely necessary.

Get this; this is Manweller’s brilliant idea for Republicans to regain the majority; not challenging vulnerable Democrats.

GOP Chairman Michael Steele should not go after the “Blue Dog Democrats” in 2010. This small group of representatives has shown themselves to value practicality over ideology. They have been willing to compromise, change their minds and even oppose their own party when necessary, characteristics that should be valued regardless of one’s own political affiliation.

This was supposedly John McCain’s trump card in 2008, according to his Primary boosters. His willingness to compromise and oppose his own party in the name of “Bipartisanship” and reaching across the aisle, his Maverick™ credentials, his popularity with the chattering classes would have the silent “moderate” majority rise up and pour money into his campaign coffers, man the phone banks and walk the precincts and then march into the poll booths to pull the lever next to John Sidney McCain III.

But that’s not what happened now, was it? It turns out the voters didn’t particular care about McCain’s catalog of “Bipartisan” accomplishments or admire his history of taking sides against his own party, including the so-called “moderate” voters that were supposed to recognize a kindred spirit in John the Maverick, and of course he lost to an opponent with the most liberal and partisan voting record in the Senate.

More will be lost than gained if the GOP attacks this coalition.

Huh? I simply cannot imagine how any Republican can think reducing the majority Nancy Pelosi has to work with would be a loss. Note again; this man has a seat on the Washington State Republican Party Executive Committee.

What message does it send to conservative Democrats if the GOP assails the very people who were willing to work with them? Republican challenges will simply drive Blue Dogs to seek cover in the liberal wing of their party and make them question why they should ever cross the aisle again. More importantly, what message does it send to the American voter if the GOP seeks to overthrow the very group of people who are actually looking (and thinking) before they leap?

The same message it sent to the American voter when the DSCC spent all that money to take out Susan Collins? The message it would send to the American voter is that Republicans are ready to lead and are willing to step up to the plate. Patton was right, and it was only after 40 years in which it completely escaped a Republican Party led by the likes Nelson Rockefeller and Bob Michel that it finally clicked with the GOP Leadership; Americans respond to winners, to confidence, not people who plan to be “gracious” losers.

The fact that Manweller – a member, I remind you, of a Republican State Executive Committee – actually seems to believe that these so-called “conservative” Democrats are not voting for the President’s Left-Wing agenda because of anything other than self-preservation is proof that education is no substitute for intelligence. And given that, does this cretin honestly believe that removing the threat of being challenged would serve as encouragement for them to continue “looking (and thinking) before they leap?”

If Republicans win a majority on the backs of Blue Dogs, they will look cynical in victory and send a message that the desire for power trumps a commitment to rational discourse and the politics of cooperation.

Cynical to whom? This is the sort of argument that lets one know without a shadow of the doubt that the person making it is severely out of touch with reality. Try to imagine the illogic of this argument. This Democratic plant is trying to sell the asinine argument that the same people who voted out their Democratic Congressman for being a vote for Nancy Pelosi to hold the Speaker’s gavel would immediately eye the man (or woman) they voted to replace him negatively for actually running and winning their votes.

Huh?

I submit that the only people to whom a Republican successfully challenging a so-called “Blue Dog” would look “cynical” to are the liberal chattering class twits that this Manweller is obviously trying to impress with this op-ed. May I remind you all again that Manweller is a member of the Washington State Republican Party Executive Committee?

Such a victory would not be good for America. After having lost the trust of the American people in 2006, the GOP needs to show that they can put country above partisan gain.

And the only way, according to this member of a Republican Party Executive Committee, for the Republican Party to regain the trust of the American people (showing that he is strangely, for his position in the WAGOP, not at all conversant with current polling) and show that they are capable of putting the country above partisan gain is for the GOP to deliberately lose in 2010. That, according to a member of the WA Republican State Executive Committee would be good for America.

Words fail me …

The Beltway glitterati, not least among them the Davids Brooks and Frum, were falling all over themselves in the aftermath of John McCain’s campaign for Gracious Loser in Chief in advising Republicans to jettison all those icky social conservatives and limited government weirdos and instead cater more to “Republicans” like Colin Powell, Christie Whitman and Lincoln Chafee. Republicans, according to the New York Times editorial page and other well-meaning outlets, would do better to make these types of “Republicans” – “Republicans” who contribute to Democrats, endorse Democrats, campaign for Democrats and vote for Democrats – the face of the GOP. If only Republicans would put these types of Republicans in Leadership positions, the story goes, and follow their example (especially by voting for Democrats on Election Day) somehow, Republicans would be back in the majority again.

I honestly thought no one was taken in by the obviously self-serving load of tripe from liberal commentators and their supposedly “conservative” boot-lickers. At least no one in any position of authority in the GOP. Well, I apparently thought wrong.

I’m really curious … how many people here honestly believe Matthew Manweller is not a Democratic plant? Or is this just Frum-level stupidity? Either way, how in the name of all that is Holy did he end up on the principal policy making body of the Washington State Republican Party? And how soon can he get booted off?

COMMENTS

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  • http://itsonlywords55@wordpress.com paulag1955

    For taking notice and adding your excellent commentary. It’s absolutely stunning in its idiocy, isn’t it?

    Busy thanking God my daughter’s not attending college anywhere in this accursed state….

  • penguin2

    According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2004 ed.),

    ” a spy embedded within an organization.” Either that, or he is a rotten apple.

    • http://www.marklaiminger.org Lammo

      That would be funny if this weren’t so sad.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    How do you know Frum and Brooks aren’t Democrat plants?

    Just because they claim the R doesn’t mean they deserve it or practice it. Kind of like Specter was an R until he wasn’t because he just couldn’t handle the charade anymore?

    • clowngirl

      Before he landed his cushy job at the NY Times? His bio says he was a senior editor at the Weekly Standard so -one would think – there must have been a time when he was recognizably a Republican. Does anyone remember it?

      My impression of Brooks is that he has an amoral fascination with power and with politics for its own sake. He actually wrote a column that was embarassing enough to Obama to make the RNC website “The Two Obama’s” It was about how Obama had this idealistic image – and maybe that was part of his make up (Brooks is absurdly charitable towards Obama) but his actions were those of a slick Chicago politician – a machievellian schemer capable of almost anything.

      I thought that part of it was a very accurate portrayal of Obama and wondered how it got published in the NY Times then – in the last sentence – he said he felt conflicted because maybe Obama’s utter lack of scruples was actually a good thing.

      And yet – when he’s written this – he still professes to be sucked in by the nonsense about Obama being a moderate?? He seems to see and yet, not see. Perhaps it’s some complicated web of self deception. Or maybe it’s just that once in a blue moon he has a moment of honesty.

    • JSobieski

      Whether they are consciously plants or not, their words and actions are not in support of the Republican party, much less the conservative movement.

      At best, they are Powell Republicans which means that they vote dem when they have their most left-wing presidential nominee ever!

  • danasdaddy

    Not being from the great state of Washington, I’m not familiar with the state party’s rules. How do we get this loser off of the state GOP committee? Are they elected, appointed, or something else?

    I guess the alternative would be to take him in for a brain transplant…

    • DS.White

      I’ve only been a resident of this state for just over a year now, and I love the eatern two thirds. The trouble is that the entire state is dominated by the wacko fringe left who that live on the “wet side” of the Cascade mountain range. They dominate state wide elections which is why we don’t have a governor named Rossi.
      I hope to be help change some of that so that next november we don’t have a Senator named Murray, or an idiot on the GOP committee.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    I don’t live in Washington State and will defer to a Washington precinct committeeman to provide us with the mechanics as to how, exactly, Moderate Mannweller (I’m being polite — other adjectives came to mind) came to be a member of the Washington State Republican Party Executive Committee. Whether through appointment or by election (probably the latter), he is a reflection of the Washington State Republican Party precinct committeeman ranks. If more conservative Republican Party registered voters in Washington State (and, indeed, in all states) would take the next step and become precinct committeeman, they could get rid of Moderate Mannweller and the rest of the “leaders” who think like him — and who obviously do not embrace the principles and values set for the in the Party Platform.

    I know Martin knows this, but, in the final analysis, Moderate Mannweller came to his position because moderates outnumber conservatives in precinct committeeman ranks in the Washington State Republican Party. It’s a numbers game. Have a majority of conservatives, and you’ll get conservative leadership. Indeed, my experience has been you don’t even need a majority of conservatives because many moderates will vote for conservative positions or candidates if the conservative viewpoint is logically explained because many moderates actually have conservative beliefs but they just can’t bring themselves to say they are “conservative.” (It must be a tortured existence to not know what one believes.)

    I found this 2003 Washington State precinct committeeman officer guide that confirms my guesstimates: http://www.wrnha.org/Educational%20Resources/WSRPPCOmanual.pdf

    The PCs elect the County officers who in turn elect the State reps and officers.

    FYI, a while back I set forth summaries of the 2008 Republican and Democrat Party Platforms in this diary entry:

    http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2009/05/21/suggestions-for-what-we-the-people-can-do-to-get-republican-party-leadership/

    We have a conservative platform. Now, if only conservative Republicans would come into the Party and make sure it stays that way. If Moderate Mannweller had his way, our Platform, surely, will change to be more like the Debtocrats’.

    Become a precinct committeeman NOW. The cut-off for becoming one for the next election cycle in some states is fast approaching. Become one NOW so you’ll be able to say, “I was a precinct committeeman before it was cool.” Or something like that. <;^)

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

    www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

  • http://www.marklaiminger.org Lammo

    to try to curry favor in the Californicated enclave that Seattle has become, this mope has no business in the party’s executive ranks. The next solicitation I get from the WSRP will be returned empty with this as the reason. Guess I’m going to have to keep contributing to Devore/Rubio/Williams/
    Wilson/Bachmann/McDonnell/etc., and to the handful of Rs here in WA that don’t have there head where the sun don’t shine.

    P.S. – - contrary to widespread belief, the sun does shine in WA, mostly on the east (dry) side. On the wet side they even have a sun festival, July 31 to August 1.

    • Richard Mullins

      make it cloudy all over. Democrat clouds that is.

  • Finrod

    This is exactly the kind of expose’ that RedStaters are great at. We all need to be overturning the rocks that the bugs like this hide under so that they have to scurry away or be stomped.

    Excellent work, Martin.

    • AceInTX
  • http://www.the41stvote.org rcov092

    where a great many of the the monthly book clubs in the neighborhoods dedicate themselves to studying Mao’s Little Red book, we have both Mrs. Its Only Words and Nansen Malin.

    These are 2 of the brightest and best conservatives the GOP has in the country. I have followed them both for the last year on Twitter. They are truly remarkable for fighting so hard in a place almost abandoned by sanity.

  • clowngirl

    And, of course, racist to run against Obama in 2012.

    Am I reading this right? Actually that’s probably what a lot of Democrats actually think. They’re offended by the GOP’s mere existence. I have an aunt who’s horrified that I don’t support Obamacare. Don’t I want people to have healthcare? Have I no heart? She’s now actually arguing that “communism and capitalism are both good systems” we’re just used to capitalism.

    Anyway. I agree. This idiot needs to be removed.

    • Finrod

      .

      • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

        But the assumption is that Auntie actually reads books.

        Most liberals don’t.

        That’s one of the reasons they know so little about so much.

        Thank you.

        ColdWarrior

        • clowngirl

          First she said ” The Soviets may have abused their power but it happens here too” and then when I said that I agreed the US government has abused its power in many ways and increasingly so in recent years but that there is simply no comparison to the Soviets who slaughtered 60 million of their own people (conservative mid range estimate) then she just brings up the Native Americans.

          I’ve considered explaining to her that communism is oppressive by design but so far she hasn’t seemed to remotely listen to what I respond – just keeps making new arguments and changing the subject.

          This particular Aunt is a lawyer which seems to render her especially argumentative.

          • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

            Move on to someone who might be receptive to logic.

            Thank you.

            ColdWarrior

          • clowngirl

            Maybe it’s because I live in the belly of the beast – but there seem to be a lot of people who have lost the conviction that communism. Even outright communism. Is an intrinsically bad thing.

  • http://itsonlywords55@wordpress.com paulag1955

    I spoke to WSRP Chairman, Luke Esser, yesterday. Esser defended Dr. Manweller as being loyal and hardworking. You can read more about it at my blog and I am sorry I don’t know how to insert a link in a comment. Here is the url:

    http://itsonlywords55.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/in-defense-of-matthew-manweller/

    • AceInTX

      and ask him what difference Manweller’s hard work makes if his thinking is what he says in the Article Martin rights here…

      Esser defended Dr. Manweller as being loyal and hardworking.

      What doe that have to do with the price of eggs in China?

      My question for Mr Esser is this…what kind of product is the “loyal” and ward working” Manweller delivering as a policy maker if he believes Republicans lose elections by winning them?

      Sounds like Mr. Esser is part of the problem doesn’t it?

      • http://itsonlywords55@wordpress.com paulag1955

        Within the next two days. I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Esser again.

  • JSobieski

    A mere 60 years ago, the entire country was Redstate America. Everyone believed in American exceptionalism. Now we are a 50/50 country. Even “educated” and “intelligent” people like Frum, Brooks, and Powell move left. How is it that so many Reagan voters (take a state like Michigan which Reagan won twice) ended up voting for Obama in 2008?

    Why are leftist meme’s so damn effective?

    Frum is like the Steward of Gondor in Lord of the Rings. Brooks is like Saruman. Both will end up disgraced at best.

    • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

      Creating a mythology like that overlooks the depth and historical duration of the attack on American Exceptionism that has been going on, at least embryonically, since the late 19th century, which blinds us to the danger we face.

      Remember that Communism – with its internationalism – is the antithesis of American Exceptionism.

      60 years ago, in 1949, we were reaping the fruits of years of Communist infiltration into our government that had been going on since at least the 20′s, following the success of the Bolshevik revolution – and Communist ideas had been in circulation for decades previously.

      I suspect that if your drew a graph, you would see exponential growth in Communist ideological support through WWII, and the exponential rate did not begin to slow down in the 1950s with awareness of Stalin’s crimes and exposure of Communist cells in government and elsewhere.

      Since then, we have seen ebbs and flows, with a general trend line of more people rejecting American Exceptionalism.

      What is new is that we now have an avid Communist and enemy of American Exceptionism in the White House and in key Congressional leadership positions, who in turn are appointing many other of their buddies to key government positions.

      Thus we are in the gravest danger since our nation’s founding of losing our patrimony – which will bring a great darkness to the world that may never be recovered short of post-apocalypse (if there is a “post”),

      • JSobieski

        We downplayed communism to foster unity with our Soviet “allies” in WWII.

        However, I am not white washing history. Democratis in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960′s were NOTHING like the democrats of today.

        Truman and Kennedy believe 100% in American exceptionalism. 90% of the US population did, and 99% of our elected officials did.’

        Now the numbers are far lower. Any failure to acknowledge the decline that occurred in the 1960′s is a failure to do justice to the question.

        Something happened in the 1960′s—something utterly horrible

        • Achance

          in 2009, the Democrat leadership are communists. What happened was 1972. What led to 1972 was the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam. What gets lost in the mythology is that the civil rights movement was over by 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act on the heels of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also gets lost that there was a very heavy communist/progressive influence on the civil rights movement. The Highlander Folk School which Rosa Parks attended was thought by many to be a communist front and was certainly a very liberal/progressive outpost in The South. MLK himself had considerable communist influence, e.g., Bayard Rustin, though he fits more with the American Christian liberal mold. After KIng’s victory in getting the monumental legislation passed the civil rights movement turned much more radical and leftward as well as significant sectors of the Black population turning away from the “integration” advocated by King and his followers towards separatism and Black nationalism.

          Concurrently with the increasing radicalization of the civil rights movement opposition to the war in Vietnam and more specifically to the draft had become both vehement and radicalized by 1968. King and many other Black leaders and personages, e.g., Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali, voiced opposition to the war, the draft or both. The glue in American society seemed to have dissolved in 1968: RFK assassinated, MLK assassinated, LBJ forced from office, another “long, hot summer,” and the Democrat Convention disrupted by rioting. The Left supported Eugene McCarthy, openly opposed to the war. Nonetheless, the “old guard” held on and nominated LBJ’s VP, Hubert Humphry, who only narrowly lost to Richard Nixon, who had expressly promised to end the war. The student radicalism that most associate with the ’60s reached its apogee in the early ’70s. Nixon’s attempts to end student draft deferments for graduate students deeply radicalized the students and for the first time many parents began to openly oppose the war and the draft. The Democrat Party abandoned support of the “Democrat War” altogether and nominated George McGovern. McGovernite groups had taken over many local and state Democrat Party organizations in pursuit of the nomination. While the McGovern campaign ended in ignominious defeat, the McGovernites not only held on to their gains but continued to expand their hold on the Democrat Party. The war began to wind down after Nixon’s victory and the draft both reduced its manpower calls and went to a lottery system reducing the uncertainty of those subject to the draft.

          The student radicals of the sixties and seventies did not make the colleges radical. The professorial ranks of most colleges had long been leftist and many were open communists even in the ’30s. What student radicalism in the ’60s did was allow open radicalism by the professors and much greater tolerance of student radicalism and general bad behavior by college administrations. Even in my small Southern colege I watched the school go from fairly strict in loco parentis in ’67 to no holds barred by the early ’70s. I was a musician, a longhair, and a doper in those days and even for someone who was a part of the changes sweeping the Country, the changes were dizzying. And then it all ended with the end of the draft. Except that it didn’t, not really.

          Most of those radicalized students went on with fairly normal lives and got mugged by the reality of the economy of the ’70s. Lots of them even became Republicans. Many however had stayed in school through their doctorates in order to keep a 2S deferment. Those now fifty and sixty-somethings are the tenured professors in today’s colleges and universities. Many of the radical leadership went into the environmental groups and to organized labor. Many also went into politics with huge gains in the Congress and state legislatures in ’74 and ’76. When I first came to Alaska in ’74, the McGovernite wing of the Democrat Party bolted the fairly conservative trade union dominated mainstream Party and backed a Republican, Jay Hammond. Their reward was getting most of the appointed positions in Hammond’s two term tenure and they and their progeny still are the dominant force in the bureacracy.

          If you’re looking for the SDS leaders of the ’60s, they’re the operatives of the Democrat Party, the heads of the major environmental and “progressive” interest groups and non-profits, and especially they’re the operatives and leaders of the big wall to wall public and service employees unions as well as some of the CIO industrial unions. Those are the people who got “Clean for Gene” and continued in the Alinsky style to work methodically within the system to bring themselves to power. The organizing of the Democrat Party and the Country that they began in 1972 reached fruition with the candidacy of one of their own in Barack Obama. In November of 2008, They Won.

          • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

            But I was thinking more about the Communist moles in the federal bureaucracy, especially in the foreign policy decision-making agencies (such as the State Department) that led to crucial foreign policy actions contrary to our national interests (e.g. Suez 1956).

            These help leave us vulnerable to the turning of the Democratic Party in the 1970s that Art so well outlines, and the consequences thereafter.

            And many of these people and their ideological heirs have remained in the federal bureaucary like termites, expanding their influence – and now with the current adminstration in place, this long-term subversion of our governmental structures now is finding a release point.

            At the same time, now that the termite damage is coming to light, we have a better chance to expose the network of rot and perhaps arrest further decay if we can bring in a competent exterminator, assuming the foundations aren’t so rotted out that the house collapses first.

            But much of this will depend on current political leadership opening their eyes, recognizing the grave situation that we have arrived at, and willing to do something different that has the chance of being effective, which includes Art’s prescriptions for treating the infestations (i.e. shadow government).

          • Achance

            saw an American standing on the Kremlin balcony on May Day. I think that one of the reasons for President Reagan’s foreign policy success was his bringing Colby, an old OSS hand, back to ride herd on CIA. Likewise, the Bushes knew where the bodies were buried at CIA though GWB got set up by Plame. If Bush hadn’t done all nice guy with the bureaucracy that wouldn’t have happened.

            Memo to file: Whenever you take over a government, very noisily fire everyone you have a legal right to fire – and a few more just to show you’re not scared.

          • navychick1993

            I have argued with many blacks over the years that with the Civil Rights movement came the socialist/communist invasion in the black community. I use to ask my parents all the time what caused blacks to lurch so suddenly to the left. My mother explained that once the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act passed, a more radical element within the black community moved in and hijacked the movement, i.e. Nation of Islam among others. And mind you, on black college campuses, the “going back to the motherland” was being preached as well. (Both parents attended college from 1967-1972…mother ’67-’71 and father ’68-’72.)

            I took a class on the Harlem Renaissance while at UCLA and learned that many of the prolific writers embraced socialism and communism. It is amazing how so many in the black community are ignorant to what the so-called leaders espoused. No surprise that Van Jones and Maxine Waters, among others are embracing this crap. And to think…Booker T. Washington would be considered an Uncle Tom now.

            Anyways, it’s my first time replying to you. I enjoy reading your posts; I always learn something new.

          • Achance

            Actually, Grad Student deferments ended in Feb. 68 on LBJ’s watch, so all those grad students either had to go out of the Country or evade here in the Country after that date. That’s what happens when you try to write something like that up from memory. If you actually remember the Sixties, you weren’t there!

            Anyway, I think drafting the grad students was the pivotal thing in catalyzing opposition to the War and the Draft and the reason all Hell broke loose in ’68. Somehow I was thinking that was later and was the impetus for there being so much anti-war stuff in 71 – 72.

  • AceInTX

    Such a victory would not be good for America. After having lost the trust of the American people in 2006, the GOP needs to show that they can put country above partisan gain.

    I’m thinking…if Mr Manweller thinks the way to put country above party is to help the Democrats maintain their majority…maybe he should go join the WA Democrat Executive Committee and help the Democrats put country above party by helping to elect Republicans…He’d be a better fit over there…and he’d help elect more Republicans by the shear weight of his stupidity!

  • ATG

    party wholeheartedly, isn’t that in part what happened during the years that GWB was our president?

    I loved that man but there were a few policies that I was not quite on board with.

  • Mark

    This is as conservative as it gets for being a faculty member of a College or University in Washington State.

    Even if he is a liberal Republican (he claims to be a conservative) I’m very surprised that the leftist faculty hasn’t driven him out by now, on second thought maybe he is a plant, that’s the only reasonable explanation as to why he still has a job at a public university in this state after announcing himself Republican years ago.

    That being said of course I disagree about giving blue dog dems a pass, maybe this time only though we should give our left wing Republican friends a pass for the next election cycle.