{"id":31889,"date":"2011-09-28T18:33:49","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T18:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/theanchoress\/?p=31889"},"modified":"2017-03-04T04:25:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T04:25:57","slug":"limbaugh-christie-and-the-real-reagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/09\/28\/limbaugh-christie-and-the-real-reagan\/","title":{"rendered":"Limbaugh, Christie and the "Real" Reagan – UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Running out to store,<\/strong> I heard Rush Limbaugh criticizing Chris Christie for using the word \u201ccompromise\u201d<\/strong><\/a> too often in his speech last night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Said Rush \u2014 who wants nothing of compromise in our governance: \u201cWinners don\u2019t compromise with losers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, alright, I guess that\u2019s one point of view, but it seems to me the man wants to have his cake and eat it too. He (and I, and many others) criticized President Obama for saying at his first meeting with the GOP, \u201cI won,\u201d and for later reminding them on another occasion that he won in \u201908 and that \u201celections have consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

We hated<\/em> that.<\/strong> We found that arrogant (because it was arrogant) and said \u2014 \u201cthis is not how one governs. How can he not listen to half the country!\u201d<\/p>\n

But now \u2014 shoe on other foot, suddenly Rush Limbaugh is suggesting that a GOP candidate must essentially be willing to turn to the Democrats in \u201912 \u2014 assuming he or she were to win \u2014 and say, \u201cI won,\u201d<\/em> and perpetuate the stalemate that is preventing constructive solutions to our problems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the stagnant mindset<\/strong> that keeps something like Paul Ryan\u2019s serious plan to replace Obamacare<\/strong><\/a> in the DOA pile, in Congress.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the stagnant mindset that has a \u201cpost-partisan\u201d president out there on the campaign trail throwing red meat and demonizing<\/strong><\/a> the loyal opposition, which may feed his base, but still does not allow for real solutions to our problems to be explored and developed.<\/p>\n

Limbaugh\u2019s shouting,<\/strong> \u201cwhere do you want to compromise with Nancy Pelosi; where do you want to compromise with Harry Reid; where do you want to compromise with Barack Obama?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s stirring rhetoric to the faithful, but it does nothing at all to get us out of this mess. No, I don\u2019t especially want to compromise with Pelosi or Reid, but you know what? You have to live in the world \u201cas it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean roll over \u2014 it means fight for what you believe in, but also recognize that no one likes to be steamrollered and the people with whom you are in opposition need to feel like they\u2019re participating<\/em>, or nothing goes forward.<\/p>\n

I know, I know, Limbaugh is looking<\/strong> at a big picture \u2014 his intention is to stir up his listeners and get momentum going to elect not only a GOP president but collect a super-majority in both houses (as though we loved it so much when one party was in total control from 2008 to 2010) but in his passion he\u2019s encouraging his listeners to forget<\/em> that a president must be president of the whole nation \u2014 not just of the base.<\/p>\n

This \u201cwinners don\u2019t compromise with losers\u201d language. It turns me off, because it\u2019s what we\u2019re living with right now. And it sucks.<\/p>\n

Limbaugh is misleading when he says<\/strong> \u201cSt. Ronaldus Magnus\u201d \u201cnever compromised.\u201d Limbaugh knows darn well that Reagan was the one who wrote in his biography, An American Life<\/em><\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201d When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn\u2019t like it. \u201cCompromise\u201d was a dirty word to them and they wouldn\u2019t face the fact that we couldn\u2019t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don\u2019t get it all, some said, don\u2019t take anything. I\u2019d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933:<\/p>\n

\u2018I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.\u2019 If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that\u2019s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m always astonished at conservatives<\/strong> who deify Reagan with one breath and then completely ignore the fact that he wrote that \u2014 he knew<\/em> that politics is the art of the possible, and that nothing is possible with a steamroller but destruction and waste.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know who I am going to support for President; I do know that Christie has made a positive difference in his state by being tough when toughness mattered<\/em> \u2014 I\u2019ll never forget him sending the Democrat budget back within five minutes of receiving it, with his veto. He got what mattered<\/em> to him in the budget. He got what mattered<\/em> with regards to the unions. And he even cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. I give all of that a lot more weight than how many times he used the word \u201ccompromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think Christie has more than demonstrated<\/strong> that you compromise where you can \u2014 get your 75% and fight again another day. And that is downright Reaganesque<\/em> of him. The real<\/em> Reagan, not the \u201cpure and perfect conservative\u201d hagiographic fiction that so many cling to.<\/p>\n

We are currently being governed by an \u201cI won-do-as-I-say\u201d president who is catering to the nit-pickers on his side. I frankly don\u2019t want another, not from either side.<\/p>\n

Anyone currently running for president from the GOP side would be an improvement over Obama. But I want a president who has demonstrated <\/em>that he can actually lead<\/em>, and bring others around to his way of thinking \u2014 not browbeat and not make end-runs around the congress or the constitution.<\/p>\n

And I will point out to some of the \u201cpurists\u201d that even Sarah Palin made her reputation \u2014 and governed effectively and successfully<\/em> \u2014 by being a conservative who stuck to her guns on what mattered<\/em> to her, but still was able to work with the opposition.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old chestnut that in a storm it\u2019s the rigid trees that fall, while those that still have a small reserve of flexibility survive. Being stubborn and single-minded can often accomplish much, but being completely inflexible just blocks solutions and foments resentment. It gets us to where we are, today.<\/p>\n

A reserve <\/em>of flexibility matters<\/em>.<\/strong> I don\u2019t want another president who does not have it.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Hot Air has more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running out to store, I heard Rush Limbaugh criticizing Chris Christie for using the word \u201ccompromise\u201d too often in his speech last night. Said Rush \u2014 who wants nothing of compromise in our governance: \u201cWinners don\u2019t compromise with losers.\u201d Well, alright, I guess that\u2019s one point of view, but it seems to me the man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[4918,4869,506],"class_list":["post-31889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chris-christie","tag-election-12","tag-limbaugh","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nLimbaugh, Christie and the "Real" Reagan - UPDATE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Running out to store, I heard Rush Limbaugh criticizing Chris Christie for using the word "compromise" too often in his speech last night. 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