My old friend John Taft writes in the New York Times along the same lines as EOM: the GOP is unhinged from its mooring and has only itself to blame.
October 22, 2013
The Cry of the True Republican
By JOHN G. TAFT
NEW YORK TIMES
I AM a genetic Republican.
Five generations of Tafts have served our nation as unwaveringly stalwart Republicans, from Alphonso Taft, who served as attorney general in the late 19th century, through William Howard Taft, who not only was the only person to be both president of the United States and chief justice of the United States but also served as the chief civil administrator of the Philippines and secretary of war, to my cousin, Robert Taft, a two-term governor of Ohio.
As I write, a photograph of my grandfather, Senator Robert Alphonso Taft, looks across at me from the wall of my office. He led the Republican Party in the United States Senate in the 1940s and early 1950s, ran for the Republican nomination for president three times and was known as “Mr. Republican.” If he were alive today, I can assure you he wouldn’t even recognize the modern Republican Party, which has repeatedly brought the United States of America to the edge of a fiscal cliff — seemingly with every intention of pushing us off the edge.
Throughout my family’s more than 170-year legacy of public service, Republicans have represented the voice of fiscal conservatism. Republicans have been the adults in the room. Yet somehow the current generation of party activists has managed to do what no previous Republicans have been able to do — position the Democratic Party as the agents of fiscal responsibility.
Speaking through the night, Senator Ted Cruz, with heavy-lidded, sleep-deprived eyes, conveyed not the libertarian element in Republican philosophy that advocates for smaller government and less intrusion into the personal lives of citizens, but a new, virulent strain of empty nihilism: “blow it up if we can’t get what we want.”
This recent display of bomb-throwing obstructionism by Republicans in Congress evokes another painful, historically embarrassing chapter in the Republican Party — that of Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose anti-Communist crusade was allowed by Republican elders to expand unchecked, unnecessarily and unfairly tarnishing the reputations of thousands of people with “Red Scare” accusations of Communist affiliation. Finally Senator McCarthy was brought up short during the questioning of the United States Army’s chief counsel, Joseph N. Welch, who at one point demanded the senator’s attention, then said: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” He later added: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Watching the Republican Party use the full faith and credit of the United States to try to roll back Obamacare, watching its members threaten not to raise the debt limit — which Warren Buffett rightly called a “political weapon of mass destruction” — to repeal a tax on medical devices, I so wanted to ask a similar question: “Have you no sense of responsibility? At long last, have you left no sense of responsibility?”
There is more than a passing similarity between Joseph McCarthy and Ted Cruz, between McCarthyism and the Tea Party movement. The Republican Party survived McCarthyism because, ultimately, its excesses caused it to burn out. And eventually party elders in the mold of my grandfather were able to realign the party with its brand promise: The Republican Party is (or should be) the Stewardship Party. The Republican brand is (or should be) about responsible behavior. The Republican party is (or should be) at long last, about decency.
What a long way we have yet to go.
John G. Taft is the author of “Stewardship: Lessons Learned From the Lost Culture of Wall Street.”
October 22, 2013
The Cry of the True Republican
By JOHN G. TAFT
NEW YORK TIMES
I AM a genetic Republican.
Five generations of Tafts have served our nation as unwaveringly stalwart Republicans, from Alphonso Taft, who served as attorney general in the late 19th century, through William Howard Taft, who not only was the only person to be both president of the United States and chief justice of the United States but also served as the chief civil administrator of the Philippines and secretary of war, to my cousin, Robert Taft, a two-term governor of Ohio.
As I write, a photograph of my grandfather, Senator Robert Alphonso Taft, looks across at me from the wall of my office. He led the Republican Party in the United States Senate in the 1940s and early 1950s, ran for the Republican nomination for president three times and was known as “Mr. Republican.” If he were alive today, I can assure you he wouldn’t even recognize the modern Republican Party, which has repeatedly brought the United States of America to the edge of a fiscal cliff — seemingly with every intention of pushing us off the edge.
Throughout my family’s more than 170-year legacy of public service, Republicans have represented the voice of fiscal conservatism. Republicans have been the adults in the room. Yet somehow the current generation of party activists has managed to do what no previous Republicans have been able to do — position the Democratic Party as the agents of fiscal responsibility.
Speaking through the night, Senator Ted Cruz, with heavy-lidded, sleep-deprived eyes, conveyed not the libertarian element in Republican philosophy that advocates for smaller government and less intrusion into the personal lives of citizens, but a new, virulent strain of empty nihilism: “blow it up if we can’t get what we want.”
This recent display of bomb-throwing obstructionism by Republicans in Congress evokes another painful, historically embarrassing chapter in the Republican Party — that of Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose anti-Communist crusade was allowed by Republican elders to expand unchecked, unnecessarily and unfairly tarnishing the reputations of thousands of people with “Red Scare” accusations of Communist affiliation. Finally Senator McCarthy was brought up short during the questioning of the United States Army’s chief counsel, Joseph N. Welch, who at one point demanded the senator’s attention, then said: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” He later added: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Watching the Republican Party use the full faith and credit of the United States to try to roll back Obamacare, watching its members threaten not to raise the debt limit — which Warren Buffett rightly called a “political weapon of mass destruction” — to repeal a tax on medical devices, I so wanted to ask a similar question: “Have you no sense of responsibility? At long last, have you left no sense of responsibility?”
There is more than a passing similarity between Joseph McCarthy and Ted Cruz, between McCarthyism and the Tea Party movement. The Republican Party survived McCarthyism because, ultimately, its excesses caused it to burn out. And eventually party elders in the mold of my grandfather were able to realign the party with its brand promise: The Republican Party is (or should be) the Stewardship Party. The Republican brand is (or should be) about responsible behavior. The Republican party is (or should be) at long last, about decency.
What a long way we have yet to go.
John G. Taft is the author of “Stewardship: Lessons Learned From the Lost Culture of Wall Street.”
8 comments:
It is great to see an eloquent Republican stand up to the Jeb Bush/ Marco Rubio virulent, radical right wing of the GOP.
Amen. The only way to get across the message is at the polls next November.
Just wait. All the Miami Repubs inc Jeb will be rebranding themselves.
I WAS a life long Republican until 2008. My entire family was as well. During that period, this country and party became so divided instead of working things out together across the aisles, I saw lines in the sand with arguments making no common sense. It is sad to me to read what Taft wrote. I agree wholeheartedly with his comments. Where has my party gone? I guess it goes on without me into some black hole I don't understand. Florida and some other States have amplified what is wrong with the party - the people involved have somehow hijacked it's core principles. As long as their reign continues, I will remain NPA!
Ah, the view from the Country Club! Terrible how those "useful fools" you've been allowing to do your dirty work can turn on their masters!
Cruz may be the new McCarthy, but back in the day, the Responsible, Decent Taft GOP did nothing to stop him and were just as terrified of him as the present-day GOP is of Cruz and his acolytes.
The GOP of Taft's nostalgic memory allowed Wall Street to run amok in the 20s and then ferociously opposed Roosevelt's programs to alleviate the misery of the Great Depression. We've seen a pretty exact replay of that with the Great Recession.
Republicans fought Social Security and Medicare. Nixon brought us Watergate (decency?). Reagan gave us what was then the largest deficit in US history and set in motion policies that have allowed obscene concentration of wealth among a tiny economic elite. Then Bush II gave us an unfunded war (based on a lie) which is the primary cause of the deficit that the GOP now pretends to care about (responsibility? stewardship?).
BTW, political affiliation isn't really genetic--you just have to be able to think for yourself.
And the Taft family deserves credit for the Taft School in Watertown, Ct. The Taft School is one of the best private high schools in the United States. Its graduates are leaders and they are spread throughout the world.
Gonorrhea spreads throughout the world too.
and cue the Tea Party commenters who are probably lining up to be the first to call this guy a RINO (Republican in Name Only).
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