Chupacabra Report

I enjoy “Intelligence Squared,” the Oxford-style debate show on NPR and this week I heard a doozy.


The line-up this week was unusual; all Republicans. They were:

Laura Ingraham, a conservative talk show host who makes a nice living scaring old people on Fox News and selling books smearing President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Mickey Edwards, an eight-term congressman from Oklahoma who was primaried out of his seat in 1993 after the House Banking Scandal.

David Brooks, an establishment weather vane for the New York Times.

And finally Ralph Reed, the former “right hand of God,” who escaped prosecution for his part as a bible-thumping shill for Jack Abramoff’s Indian casino shakedown and then got whipped in his campaign to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Georgia.

The motion for debate was “The GOP Must Seize the Center or Die.”

Before the debate each audience is polled on the motion. They are again polled after the debate and the side that makes the most headway wins. This audience initially supported the motion 65% to 14% against.

Next, the four panelists argued over who were the real conservatives, and whether Ronald Reagan was a saint or merely a hero. Quite entertaining if one likes that sort of thing.

Afterwards, 65% of the audience again favored the motion, but now 28% were opposed. So Reed and Ingraham, the ‘opposed’ side, won the debate, and no doubt went home that night happy that they had proven their point, that the ‘Party of God’ ought to go on its merry way, pushing for a heavily-armed theocratic plutocracy that bashes gays and immigrants.

Some win. I think this shows the future of the GOP; a hell-bound snowball. With such ideologically pure leadership, this party that just a decade ago plotted a ‘permanent majority’ will end up in the wilderness on the strength such pyrrhic victories. Demographics aside, as a great Republican once said; “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”