Frank Rich on the "Useful Idiots" of the GOP
"By
latching on to O'Donnell's growing presence, the Rove-Boehner-McConnell
establishment can claim it represents struggling middle-class Tea
Partiers rather than Wall Street potentates and corporate titans.
O'Donnell's value is the same as that other useful idiot, Michael
Steele, who remains at the Republican National Committee only because
he can wave the banner of 'diversity' over a virtually all-white party
that alternately demonizes African-Americans, Latinos, gays and
Muslims." - From Frank Rich's column of October 3.
The Tea Party's "War on Competence and Professionalism"
"I want to go back to the Michael Castle-Christine O'Donnell
difference, which is Michael Castle was a professional, not even a
politician. He was a professional legislator. He was a serious guy. He
thought about this stuff a lot. You may think he's right or wrong. But
it also strikes me that there's a kind of war on competence and
professionalism going on here. And these insurgent candidates, one of
the biggest things they have to advertise is, they've never done it
before." - Times Magazine contributor James Traub on the October 7 edition of the CNN talk show "Parker-Spitzer."
If Only We'd Heeded the Nonpartisan Warnings of Obama the Wise
"In
January, during his first State of the Union address, President Obama
predicted that a U.S. Supreme Court decision would 'open the
floodgates' of money into campaigns. He warned against elections that
are 'bankrolled' by powerful interests. Now that flood of cash has
arrived, mostly into new organizations that are working on behalf of
Mr. Obama's adversaries and are not required to disclose their donors.
The money is helping Republican candidates take advantage of a wave of
anger and dissatisfaction across the country." - Michael Shear's October 7 post on the paper's political blog "The Caucus."
You can read the full slate of the latest Times Watch Quotes of Note here [1].