Blogosphere line of the day - a cartoon character? - Granite Grok

Blogosphere line of the day – a cartoon character?

I was listening to Hannity when he was interviewing / speaking with Sarah Palin when she had this line:

“These Republican operatives seem to have the fighting instinct of Mr. Snuffleupagus,”

The context:

“Al Sharpton says there’s a war on Blacks. Howard Dean says that there’s a war on Latinos. Then, of course, there’s a war on the poor — throwing granny over the cliff — and, you know, even Mitt Romney hates dogs because he put a kennel on top of the car,” Hannity said. “But yet Republicans don’t seem as willing to fight the same way. I’m a little concerned about it…why repudiate people who will fight fire with fire?”

…“This phony, hypocritical, one-sided call for a cease-fire by the left and their lapdogs in the media. These leftists politicians saying ‘that’s going to be off the table, that’s going to be off the table,’” she said. “And then for the Republican operatives who are high-paid consultants to candidates agreeing to take things off the table — that’s no battle plan for victory on our side — on the common-sense constitutionalist side. It’s ridiculous.”

These Republican operatives, Palin maintained, “seem to have the fighting instinct of Mr. Snuffleupagus,” a Sesame Street character whom she said was always hiding, backing down and running the other direction. This, Palin maintained, isn’t what America needs.

I agree.

While there are some on the Left that may actually believe civility should be in play – and often, are the “useful idiots”.  Some are really pacifists – and I can go along with that.  There are also those that will NEVER give in (e.g., Obama’s attack dog, Axelrod) and are always in “chew’em up”mode.  The rest, however, often are just bullies.  They are SO used to Republicans giving up and cowering to their political correctness threats, they have grown accustomed to not worrying about losing political ground.  Why not, as all they have to do is growl a bit and their opposition just goes crawls away with their tails between their legs.

When I started up in local politics, there was an older gentleman who sternly told me that Republicans should always “walk softly and not make waves”.  My retort was “yeah, look where that got you in 2006 and 2008 – tremendous victory loss for Rs all the way around.  If you are not, or cannot, defend or argue positively in the arena of ideas, you should lose – and the Republicans did just that.  “Shhhh” is not a winning strategy at all – it makes you look impotent and after the election, they WERE impotent.  Being civil nowadays only gives permission for the other side to jam it to you – you only can win ONLY if the other side is SO over the top that Political Correctness isn’t even an issue.

Otherwise, why make your side look weak?  While Americans like underdogs, they don’t like dishrags as underdogs.  They want people to fight and fight well.  Sure, you need the ideas and you need the ability to get your message out.  It seems like Obama’s crew has no problem in assuming the attack dog role – its nice to see the beginnings of Mitt’s campaign not pulling a “McCain redux”.  It does sound like Mitt himself is sharpening up his rhetoric and certainly (as it has been noted at a number of different sites) that his “quick response video unit” has been very quick on the uptake to put on the gloves and climb into the ring.

Us?  We have no problems in doing a “mix it up” – we just smile, for we are not Mr. Snuffleupagus

Mr Snuffleupagus

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