Word: gop
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Obama, there is no great plus in looking back and trying to make the Democrats' adversaries from the Bush years pay with an extra pound of flesh," says Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Independents, including those who drifted over from the GOP because of their unhappiness with the rightward turn of the party - and its incompetence - are not likely to resonate to attacks, and most voters want a focus on problem-solving, meaning looking to today and tomorrow, not yesterday...
Franklin D. Roosevelt's critics once tried to get at him through his dog, Fala, claiming the Navy had been dispatched, at great public expense, after Fala was supposedly left behind on a remote island. The attack backfired--the GOP hadn't factored in the popularity of a pooch with his own secretary to answer fan mail. America is canine-crazy, which is why a President's best friend can sometimes be the only one he needs...
...which would be fairly standard ratings-chasing melodrama, except that prominent members of the GOP, like Karl Rove and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, began signing on to versions of Beck's critique. At that point conservative heavy hitters, including former Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Clinton tormenter Ken Starr, spoke up in favor of Koh. The dispute soon spread to the blogosphere, and Republicans across the country took sides, calling one another "fruitcakes" and "windbags." (Read "Glenn Beck: The Fears of a Clown...
...Another group fears Koh may get the nod for the Supreme Court at some point in the Obama presidency and wants to bloody him now in preparation for that fight. "We have been watching and studying up on Koh for a long time," says one GOP judiciary committee staffer. "We didn't anticipate that he'd be named for legal adviser; now that he has, we've encouraged others to focus on his radical views even more." (Read "Fox News Continues Reign with Big Three...
...larger question for the GOP is whether in this and other matters it will risk a Faustian bargain with Beck, whose apocalyptic take on U.S. politics generates instant support from an angry, vocal minority but is unsettling to the mainstream. Embracing the populist wing of the party worked in the wake of 9/11, but contributed to the electoral disasters of 2006 and 2008. It may take more time for centrist Americans to sour on big government and higher spending than the GOP's activist right wing would like, but true conservatives are patient...