In its painfully obvious quest to suck up to conservative Republicans generally, and Fox News viewers most especially, CNN leaves no right-winger uninterviewed. Today, the Conservative News Network offered a real blast from the past: Phyllis Schlafly.
For those not familiar, Schlafly earned her place in the far-right pantheon back in the 1980s and is the founder of a pressure group, Eagle Forum. She strikes us as sort of a cross between Granny Clampett and Ann Coulter.
Judy Woodruff’s “Inside Politics” provided Schlafly a platform, the premise for this special treat being that Schlafly was about to be a speaker at tonight’s big tribute gala for — who else? — the (urp) Hon. Tom DeLay, majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives and three-time loser before that august body’s ethics committee last year.
Woodruff began by asking Schlafly what the event’s supposed to accomplish.
Schlafly:I think it’s a demonstration that the whole conservative movement is standing behind Tom DeLay. We recognize that he’s the leader of the conservative movement, that he’s the most effective man in Congress. And I think it’s pretty obvious that the paranoid, hysterical liberals who failed to destroy George Bush last year have selected Tom DeLay as their target this year.
We realized immediately Schlafly has lost none of her luster as a far-right extremist, exhibiting three distinguishing traits of the breed right up front: calling names, distorting facts and being hypocritical. In Schlafly’s fevered mind, trying to win a presidential election in which a right winger is incumbent is tantamount to trying to destroy the person. The people behind such an attempted outrage are paranoid and hysterical.
Look who’s calling whom paranoid.
The interview continued . . .
Woodruff: So you think that the charges against him are entirely politically motivated, there’s nothing of substance in what the ethics committee is looking into?
Schlafly: That’s right. I think it’s wholly political, because if you look at it it’s done about the same thing that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have done. He’s not even one of the biggest trip takers in Congress. And so I think it’s clearly a political attack on the man whom the liberals recognize as the most effective Republican in Congress, who is responsible for the passage of whatever conservative legislation we can get passed.
We’re not sure what “it” is here. She seems to be bloviating about against-the-rules travel arrangements, which neither Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid nor House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are guilty of. Neither do Reid and Pelosi have a prosecutor breathing down their necks back home for having organizations that have broken their respective states’ campaign laws.
But hey, Reid and Pelosi aren’t right-wing Republicans — as Democrats they’re status offenders, in other words — so they must be guilty of something.
As an ostentatiously Christian and patriotic woman, Schlafly is curiously impressed with DeLay’s effectiveness. We’d like to point out to her that Benito Mussolini, who made the trains run on time, was effective. So was Adolf Hitler, whose armies conquered nearly all of Europe, taking France in a mere 40 days. “Effective” describes Al Capone, Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden.
As for DeLay leaping tall buildings in a single bound and getting all those bad deals for middle-class and working-class Americans passed, we’ll bet Schlafly’s not scoring any points with House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Woodruff: If there are Republican members of Congress, Mrs. Schlafly, who are either not supportive of Tom DeLay, in one way or another, does that say something about them, do you think?
Schlafly: Well, I think it does. Of course, there are divisions in the Republican Party. Maybe some of them don’t like him, I don’t know. But Tom DeLay has a very conservative agenda. We praise him for that. I think one of the main reasons the hysterical liberals are going after him is that he has spoken out about the out-of-control, activist judges. And the liberals know that the only way they have to get their agenda since they’ve lost Congress and lost the presidency, is to get activist judges who will try to impose their will on the American people. And we thank Tom DeLay for leadership in that field as well as many other areas.
Evidently, Schlafly believes the L-word has lost some its demonizing ability. She thus embellishes it with “hysterical” as often as possible. Note, too, that she can’t refer simply to judges who do disagreeable things. No, they’re all activists and they’re all out of control.
But make no mistake, it’s the hysterical liberals who are paranoid.
Woodruff: Are Republicans who take a more moderate line, if you will, could they face challenges from the right, from the conservative movement?
Schlafly: Well, sometimes, yes. I think — I think sometimes. But clearly if you look at the way the Republican platform has been adopted, the RINOS, the Republicans in name only, are diminishing. They are not able to get their planks in the Republican platform. I think we have had a good demonstration that the Republican Party reflects the conservative views and that is where the American people are. They want to keep the pledge of allegiance with “under God” in the pledge. They want 10 Commandments monuments, and they certainly do want traditional marriage as husband and wife.’
Schlafly’s got one thing nailed: the Republican Party’s gone down the radical-right drain. What few moderates and mavericks it has left have a high tolerance for being slimed, as happened to Sen. John McCain in 2000; and for being marginalized, as Sens. Hagel and Voinovich are destined to learn.
As to where the American people are, Schlafly neatly ignores just about half the voting population. Going by polls of what people think of the Bush agenda, she’s writing off a clear majority of the overall population.
So what, if the elbows get a little dirty: We’ll be watching to see if Jack Abramoff has a place of honor beside Schlafly at the speaker’s table during The Hammer’s big bash tonight. That would be so fitting.
You seem irritated that CNN is not
as totally left leaning as they once were.
They are still plenty left for my taste:
they quote Voinovich and Biden at length
about John Bolton, with a little token
comment from Luger.
I’m groaning at your gratuitous
comparison of DeLay to Pol Pot et al.
RSF, I hold as a general belief that the three broadast network news operations up to about 1984 or 1985 tended to be Democrat friendly and more kindly disposed toward liberal than conservative viewpoints and politicians. I expect CNN was about the same.
At the same time, I reject the notion CNN was ever “totally left leaning.”
No, there wasn’t just a token comment from the Foreign Relations Committee chairman. Comments from Sens. Allen of Virginia and Kyl of Missouri were on at various times throughout the day.
Lastly, please go back and read what I wrote. I made no gratuitous comparison of DeLay to Pol Pot et al. The point, since you seem to have read over it or into it, is that Schlafly applies a lame, lacking standard if all it takes to make her dessicated l’il heart go pitter-pat is effectiveness.