Egad! Grover Norquist is on my TeeVee right now [View All]

[Emit]

Must we endure the Grovers and Limbaughs and Hannitys? They are coming out of their worm holes...

Criticism of Obama's policies
GWEN IFILL: Are Republicans also right to say, as Rush Limbaugh has, that they hope that the president fails?

GROVER NORQUIST: Only President Obama equates himself with the nation. When people say, "I hope that Obama is stopped in his effort to raise taxes and spending," that's opposition to Obama's policies.



We want the country to succeed, which is why we oppose the bad things, the damaging taxes and spending and regulations and trial lawyer stuff that Obama and the Democrats are putting forward.

He is not Louis XIV, "L'etat c'est moi." It's the nerve of Obama to say that criticism of him is disrespectful to the country. He isn't the country. He is not Fearless Leader. He's the head of the executive branch of government.

GWEN IFILL: But he's an awfully popular president right now, Vin Weber. So what does the party do to establish its opposition without seeming as if they're on the wrong side here?

VIN WEBER: Well, you're right he's a popular president. And they have to treat him with great respect and deference. And the phrasing of how you oppose his programs has to be done so that you don't want America to fail, even if that's the interpretation that he seems to put on it sometimes.

But the Republicans can't simply embrace a left-wing agenda, which is increasingly what we're seeing out of this administration, not a centrist, bipartisan agenda, but a left-wing agenda, without losing their soul.

GWEN IFILL: So you -- when you say a left-wing agenda, you're speaking particularly -- pardon me -- about spending?

VIN WEBER: About spending, taxing, regulating, and the most substantial expansion of the size of government certainly in any of our lifetimes. The president is doing it because he believes in it. He campaigned on it. His party believes in it, but it's not what Republicans believe in.

As Grover pointed out, the reason we don't believe in it is because we think it's bad for America. Republicans didn't vote against the so-called stimulus package because they just wanted to try to embarrass President Obama. They voted against it because they thought it would hurt the economy, drive people out of work, drive down the stock market.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june09/gop_03-03.html