Getting the band back together at CPAC
February 26, 2009 12:54 pm ET by Jamison Foser
Continuing the Right's ongoing efforts to relive the 1990s, David Bossie will introduce Newt Gingrich at the Conservative Political Action Conference tomorrow.
Bossie and Gingrich were key players in the right-wing's efforts to undermine the last Democratic president. Gingrich was, of course, Speaker of the House; Bossie was a key staffer for Rep. Dan Burton's unintentionally-hilarious investigations of the White House.
While many conservatives seem to think that duplicating their conduct during the 1990s is the best way to deal with a new Democratic president, Gingrich and Bossie should serve as a cautionary tale - both men lost their jobs due in large part to their overzealous attacks on President Clinton.
Gingrich resigned his Speakership (and seat in congress) in disgrace after Republicans lost seats in the 1998 elections in large part because of public disgust at the GOP's obsession with the Lewinsky matter. Earlier that year, Gingrich had vowed to never again give a speech as Speaker without bringing up Lewinksy.
Bossie's obsession with attacking Clinton cost him his job, too. Bossie and Burton's investigation was a bumbling Keystone Cops routine that involved investigating Socks the White House cat, subpoenaing the wrong people (they kept getting confused by Asian-American surnames) and shooting up Burton's vegetable garden in an effort to prove that Vince Foster was murdered.
Bossie finally went too far even for House Republicans when he released doctored transcripts of Web Hubbell's prison conversations, falsely making it appear that Hubbell was implicating Hillary Clinton in wrongdoing. That led Gingrich to order Burton to fire Bossie, telling Burton: "I'm embarrassed for you, I'm embarrassed for myself, and I'm embarrassed for the [House Republican] conference at the circus that went on at your committee."
UPDATE: In case you're wondering what they're up to now, David Bossie is an author and "documentary" producer, among other things, and Gingrich is a Fox News contributor.
Whether or not newt and this other Republican stooge are actively involved in the design and manufacture of The New Republican Party, is unimportant to the task of raising and salvaging that submerged wreck.
Because at present the real work in resurrecting the Republican Party nationally, is the work of Democrats, who have it in their power to fracture their own political party nationally, into as many pieces as their fueding and selfishly blind hearts desire.
That's one way to both raise a sunken wreck (to continue the analogy) or to sink a perfectly seaworthy vessel: cut it up into as many pieces as the task requires...
Of course, once the first cut is made, the thing is no longer a boat, but just parts of a boat: and a boat rendered into separate parts, no longer floats (unless it's a Boston Whaler, which due to the design of it being a fiberglass shell filled with a styrofoam-like substance, all the parts of the thing, if cut up, they all float just fine: it's near impossible to sink a Boston Whaler)...
OK, enough with the boat analogy: the point is about the task of fracturing the Democratic Party nationally into as many pieces as possible (but into two pieces at least), and that work is being done right now, by the Democratic Party itself...
Not by the Democratic Party so much, as by those who form the maniacal rogue elements of it, and who think the stunning and historic reversal of political fortunes these past 3 years or so (which have swept Democrats into an almost absolute authority over Congress and our Federal Government), by those who think that reversal was because of them and their efforts...
When in fact this reversal was entirely due to the American People at large, and in total.
At present, there is an enormous pry-bar being inserted into the heart of the Democratic Party nationally, for the purposes of prying that party into two pieces at least... for the purpose of tearing Democrat from Democrat, and reducing the single party nationally, into simply two or more fractious coalitions.
MoveOn.org, thank you.
Because it's all about them, isn't it... I mean, it isn't enough that Democrats have been swept into so much political power by the American People, as to make for as much of a majority by one party in D.C. as I can recall... ever, really.
Of course, the American People did this for no reason at all to do with MoveOn.org (more in spite of them I think), but because of BUSH and IRAQ and the old (now sunken) REPUBLICAN PARTY...
But let that not stop the maniacal rogue interests of MoveOn.org from trying to crack the Democratic Party into two pieces nationally, and forcing their Public Policy opinions onto our Congress.
That's how you sink a boat (to return to the analogy): you cut it up into pieces... and with the first cut, the thing takes on water... and once rendered into even just two pieces, the thing is no longer a boat, but is now something that concerns Marine Salvage, as a sunken wreck to be raised (like the Republican Party is now).
Unless it's a Boston Whaler.