Telling It Like It Is

Aug 20th, 2011

The other day a reader remarked that I "sure do praise a lot Republicans lately." I am not sure this is altogether accurate. I will concede that there a lot of un-elected Republicans and conservatives I truly respect. That is because they aren't bat shit crazy.

This brings me to Bruce Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett is an economist whose work I read daily and cite often. Yes, he was an instrumental member of the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations. He is also a man of reason and, dare I say it, even political bravery. He very nearly achieved pariah status in the "conservative" community with his 2006 book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.

This week, he drew a lot of attention for simply telling it like it is:

"Rick Perry is an idiot and, uh, I don't think anyone would disagree with that."


One Bruce Bartlett was more effective than one million progressives chanting the same line in unison could have been.

It is now more important than ever that we prevent the same sort of ideological hijacking of the left that we have seen with the Tea Party on the right. For all those who are grumbling about third parties and primary challenges to the President, I would like to remind them that we failed to turn out in the last election. We also failed completely to politic the independent voter with the work of any of the many allies we actually have on the other side of the aisle. This isn't the first time a fellow like Bartlett has said what we want to say more effectively. It's just that we usually don't pay attention.