Oh, Meghan, Karl Rove Is Just A Shy, Sensitive Boy From Utah

Back on the Schadenfreude Front, I was intrigued by this Top 10 list at Salon:

Here’s a sampling of 10 reasons given by some of the Republican Party’s leading lights — including Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich and Meghan McCain — and why the party failed so miserably, and what it needs to do in order to make a comeback.

1. Bobby Jindal:

“We’ve got to stop being the stupid party. ... Certainly, we need to stop making stupid comments.”

But Bobby, you are the guy whose idea of cutting wasteful spending from the federal budget is to stop monitoring volcanoes, and you said that just two months before Alaska's Mt. Redoubt erupted. Some places in the U.S. need to worry about volcanoes!  That's why we should budget money to monitor them!

Stop making stupid comments? That's what Republicans like you do!

2. Lindsey Graham:

"But most people…on public assistance don’t have a character flaw. They just have a tough life. I want to create more jobs and the focus should be on how to create more jobs, not demonize those who find themselves in hard times."

"But as Michael Tomasky points out at the Daily Beast, it’s hard to see how any truly “conservative” proposal could help those struggling to stay economically afloat. From voucherizing Medicare to privatizing Social Security, the G.O.P. agenda adds up to a life on the economic margins for all but the well-off...."

4. Newt Gingrich:

"Newt Gingrich ... implied that the GOP needed to stop insulting potential voters — a pretty novel idea coming from a guy, as digby notes, who, throughout the presidential campaign, referred to Obama as 'the food stamp president.' "

 6. Peggy Noonan:

"But the Tea Party-style of rage is not one that wins over converts and makes people lean toward them and say, “I want to listen to you.”

But, Peggy, rage is the common thread of all Republican rhetoric. That's how they fire up their own troops! Without rage, Republicans have no motivation. Persuasion begins first with listening, and Republicans don't listen well.

7. Ralph Benko:

"The enormity of (and surprise at) the defeat of Romney is a huge setback — and perhaps fatal — to the Bush Mandarins’ hegemony over the GOP. If so, the potential re-ascendency of the Reagan wing of the GOP will prove very bad news for liberals and excellent news for the Republican Party. The Reagan wing now can resurge. A resurgence already has begun."

But, Ralph, there is no Reagan wing! It never even really existed.  Reagan presided over an orgy of defense spending, which sparked an economic recovery that made everyone feel good.  And Reagan died a long time ago, and people can't even really remember what he was like! It's not like there are frustrated Reaganites out there unable to make themselves heard.

 8. Mike Murphy:

"Look, there’s a huge donor revolt going on. I mean, we have now lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. This is an existential crisis for the Republican Party, and we have to have a brutal discussion about it. We alienate young voters because of gay marriage, we have a policy problem. We alienate Latinos — the fastest growing voter group in the country — because of our fetish with so-called amnesty when we should be for a path to immigration. And we have lost our connection to middle-class economics. We also have an operative class and unfortunately lot of which is incompetent. We don’t know how to win. So, this isn’t about new software in the basement of the RNC. It’s not about a few Spanish language radio ads. It’s a fundamental rethink that begins with policy because the country is changing and if we don’t modernize conservatism, we can go extinct. The numbers are the numbers."

Well, no one learns much from brutal discussions. Simple reality is a more-promising start.

Nevertheless, it was Meghan McCain's rant against Karl Rove that made me wince. No sting from a lash hurts quite as much as being insulted by a sorority sister like Meghan McCain. She stops just shy of calling Karl Rove fat and ugly. It makes me want to hug and console poor, misunderstood Karl. If this is what Meghan McCain says in public, I can't imagine what she says in private (except, possibly, she says exactly the same thing in both spheres):

I hate Karl Rove. I have hated Karl Rove before anybody else hated Karl Rove. I hated Karl Rove when I was, like, 14 years old. I hate — hate — Karl Rove. I think he’s an idiot, a pretentious blowhard, and I think he was ruined a lot of things for the Republican Party during the Bush administration. All these millionaires that keep giving him $400 million for him to not win one election — maybe it’s not working! Maybe it’s not working. Give me five freakin’ dollars — I’ll tell you for free what we gotta do. You can’t keep going and trying to get white men, because they’re dying off; it’s not a demographic anymore. We need the single women. But you don’t care. Seriously, I hate Karl Rove. Karl Rove needs to go away and retire, and just crawl back to the hole he emerged from…Everybody hates Karl Rove; he’s like a Bond villain.