Reason Writers Around Town: Katherine Mangu-Ward on Hot GOP Messes

In the third and final day of their Los Angeles Times Dust Up about the future of the GOP, Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward and Instapundit impresario Glenn Reynolds ponder the trouble caused by Gov. Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin. The modern Republican Party is a hot mess, says Mangu-Ward, and a couple of wacky governors aren't going to make or break the party of Lincoln in 2012. Reynolds longs for the days when no one cared about politics much.

Read all about it here. Second installment here. Read the first installment here. Whole thing here.

Comments

[?]

So the one saying all the libertarian-sounding stuff, he's not from around here, and the one regurgitating all the conventional press "wisdom," she's running the place. Associatively.

You probably shouldn't have hyped this.

[Syd]

I doubt Sanford's scandal or Palin's resignation hurt Republicans in general much at all. The Democrats seem to have weathered Rod Blagojevich and Eliot Spitzer's scandals and they're a lot more embarrassing.

Where the parties do get hurt is if there is a scandal and the party leadership tries to cover it up.

[LibertarianBlue]

The party isnt in trouble because of two dingbats doing dingbat things. The party is in trouble because their is no small government leadership. Granted Steele is ok but he seems to stumbles over himself. Newt? Give me a break, he simply wants to run for president thats why he has crawlled out his hole recently. Give me some new and intellegent blood please.

[24AheadDotCom]

Title: +1 for unintentional, unmentionable-because-I'm-a-gentleman hilarity. Reason comes through again.

[TheZeitgeist]

"Give me some new and intellegent blood please."

In a strange way, you could say the GOP is inadvertently culling its herd of pretenders.

Besides, the slimiest, nastiest, sunofabitch-type scandal brewing right now is the still-detonating John Edwards deal. His former top aide just gave some undoubtedly damning testimony to the Grand Jury investigating the slush-hush fund out of Edward's campaign. And he's also signed up for a book deal involving Edward's bastard child and a fuck-tape of all things.

Sanford's an amateur compared to that slimeball.

[Episiarch]

Whoah, did LoneBozo just post without saying something about IllegalImmigration? Is this a first?

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

[LibertarianBlue]

TheZeitgeist,

Wait new stuff came out about Edwards? Clue me in.

[TheZeitgeist]

@LibertarianBlue:

Enjoy...

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/10534

This thing is just simmering away, but now that the Grand Jury has their turncoat I think, expect everything to fall apart pretty quick once the indictments come down.

Its so much fun to watch these assholes trip over each other while throwing one another under the bus. That Andy Young stooge took the fall for the bastard kid, but the post-election hush-money dried up when the bagman - a trial shark named Fred Baron - shoved off his mortal coil last year following a cancer battle. With no more cash, and Edwards obviously unable to siphon personal funds (I bet his wife has the bank(s) on speed-dial, she's a lawyer, hard to siphon out of collective estate) both that flakoid Rielle Hunter and Mr. Young are turning on him. Sorta like when the baby spiders eat mom...disgusting but fascinating, and natural.

[TheZeitgeist]

Even the NY Times can't ignore it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/us/politics/30edwards.html

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm hoping for Gary Johnson to come running out of retirement for 2012, swashbuckling into Washington and cutting taxes and government and legalizing drugs!

Johnson/Flake 2012?

[The Angry Optimist]

what was, exactly, that Reynolds and KMW were disagreeing about? I mean, I saw "Point" "Counterpoint" in the titles preceding their writings, but nothing approaching that in the paragraphs.

[LibertarianBlue]

TheZeitgeist,

Wow, Edwards is one huge scumbag this will surely kill any hope he has to return to politics. But yea he Sanford, Sptizer, Craig, Vitter are nothing compared to this clown.

Ben Kenobi

That would be an awesome ticket. But you know that establishment wont allow that. I mean come on ending the drug war? That such a socialist idea! lol

[SIV]

I mean come on ending the drug war? That such a socialist idea! lol

I'm probabably responding to a troll but the Drug War is a Progressive policy program.

[TheZeitgeist]

@LibertarianBlue

Yeah, Edwards is definitely the Emperor of Slimeworld. The closest I can see as an analog is Ensign.

The punditocracy keeps wondering when all the damage from these fools will impact Republicans at the polls. But all the Republican scandals seem to be based on just dopey guys (Sanford), closeted rainbows (Craig), weird mommy-issues (cue Vitter-in-diaper), or Standard Issue Gary Hart Implosion (Ensign). All these are moral failings.

But its the Democrats who actually are breaking laws and bringing politics into their moral failings. Blagojevich - and by collusion - Burris are utterly corrupt and play with Senate seats like party swag-bags. Edwards was hiding bastard-child problems and asking other people to fall on their swords in exchange for illegal kickbacks siphoned via a mini-Enron financial shell-game involving his campaign funds!

I'm not waiting for the Republican brand to be tarnished by their scandals, I'm amazed the Democrats get away with various, quite powerful members of their teams committing serious crimes!

[Syd]

TheZeitgeist | July 10, 2009, 5:59pm | #
Besides, the slimiest, nastiest, sunofabitch-type scandal brewing right now is the still-detonating John Edwards deal

Damn it, I knew I forgot somebody. Spitzer, Blagojevich and Edwards, the Democrats' trifecta scandal. (Jefferson started his too early to be included.)

I'm a Democrat. I just like to remind people who attack one side for this sort of thing that there's just as much on their side.

[Les]

I'm not waiting for the Republican brand to be tarnished by their scandals, I'm amazed the Democrats get away with various, quite powerful members of their teams committing serious crimes!

But you're not saying that Democrat scandals and crimes are more serious and numerous than Republican ones, right?

[mark]

How is what Sanford did any different from what Bill Clinton did?