J. Cal’s Corner – Obama Speechwriter: McCain & Graham Are Faces Of Successful GOP

Jon Favreau, President Obama’s former chief speechwriter, is over at The Daily Beast imparting more of his indispensable wisdom — this time about conservatives.

Writes Favreau, “The conservatives have finally purified the Republican Party, dispatching moderate infidels in primary after primary, demanding fealty to their agenda of huge tax cuts and drastically lower spending.” This may come as a shock to conservatives who continue to be frustrated with the Republican Party’s lack of conservatism. Who could these conservatives be to whom Favreau refers?

“These are Republicans like Chris Christie, who has witnessed the vital importance of robust federal aid in the wake of a terrible storm. These are Republicans like Jeb Bush, who has tried to reform public education without completely dismantling it. These are Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the handful of senators who have sought compromise with Democrats over issues such as immigration reform and finally ended the historically exceptional blockade of perfectly qualified executive-branch nominees so that the president can fill the jobs his administration is required to perform.”

Oh, okay, Christie, Bush, McCain and Graham are conservatives who purified the Republican Party. Riiiight. But these “small-government” conservatives, according to Favreau, are again battling for the heart of the Republican Party. This time, however, it isn’t a battle with the moderates. It’s with the “no-government” conservatives, like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. (Marco Rubio is straddling the line between small-government and no-government.)

Now I know that Favreau is not ignorant enough to believe this nonsense that Paul and Cruz actually advocate complete anarchy, that they, for example, support a complete dismantling of public education. Obama voters may be that uninformed, but Obama speechwriters strike me not as ignorant, but as crafty. Favreau knows full well that he is misrepresenting the position of conservatives. The question for me is, why? It may be simple reinforcement of liberal talking points to low-information voters.

I suspect, however, that it was written out a desire to move certain politicians away from the conservative moniker. Paul, Cruz and Rubio could care less what Favreau writes. But some politicians — whose names may or may not be John McCain and Lindsay Graham — actually desire to be called moderate mavericks by the Left; they dislike being called small-government conservatives. They’d like to receive kudos for being the reasonable centrists that Favreau said once existed in the Republican Party.

As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out on multiple occasions, liberals always show you who they fear. They don’t fear McCain or Graham, but they do fear the rise of Rand, Cruz and Rubio. This is Favreau’s subtle way of reinforcing the moderates’ instincts to stab the “wacko birds” in the back, thereby halting any conservative momentum in the Republican Party before it starts.

Crafty.