Just say no to Nancy Reagan

17 November 2010 |permalink | email article

Hugh Hewitt, the right-winger with a national radio show and a Washington Examiner column, is not happy with Nancy Reagan. With due respect he’s upset with her proposal that the first Republican debate of the 2012 season be held at the Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California’s Simi Valley in the spring of 2011.

Hewitt is outraged about the idea and considers it an insult to conservative activists and new media which seems odd since there’s generous right-left split. He rants that a quick rejection by GOP candidates of the presumptuous declaration of inevitability by NBC and Politico.com that they would be in charge would go a long way toward recognizing that these outlets, like most of the Beltway-Manhattan media elite went for President Obama in 2008 and won’t be allowed to dictate the terms of the 2012 race.

These outlets, he says, are “significantly biased toward to the left, and not just to the president, but to the whole Beltway culture inherently big government oriented and dominated by the conventional big-government wisdom about every debate. Can we be honest? They are all liberals.”

Very few Beltway media voices retain any connection to the conservative grass roots or the GOP’s base. Hewitt believes the questioners would all be liberals, not remotely in touch with the concerns and passions of the party’s primary electorate. He suggests such liberals asking MSM questions would be far different than opinion journalists of the center-right, and “I suspect far less intelligent and challenging as the questions posed by my panel.” Not to worry. With a large GOP primary field and scores of debates long before the primaries – involving journalists from the left, right and center – Hewitt’s paranoia about the Reagan Library launch is ill founded. He owes the former First Lady an apology. 

What they said

“I just do not think she has those leadership qualities, that intellectual curiosity that allows for building good and great policies.” – Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, on track to win her write-in campaign and retain her seat, slamming Sarah Palin to Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. On Obama: “I will tell you, I am not one of those who wants Obama to fail. If he does well, that means the country is doing well. We don’t have time as a nation to spend all of what we do blocking.”

“Going to work with Jerry Brown is not recommended for anyone who is not in perfect health, who requires more than six or seven hours of sleep a night, who needs either private praise from the boss or public recognition for his accomplishments.” – Biographer Robert Pack, in his 1978 book on the former governor, describing it as an around-the-clock endurance test.


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