Wingnuts: ignoring culture warriors Edition

QOTD, Patrick (PA commenter): Most smart people, when shown facts that prove them wrong, do not continue to say the things that were proven untrue. I wonder why this doesn't apply to republicans.

Sully: Malkin Award Nominee "Is it safe to say that Democrats were willing to protect pedophiles but not offer the same protection to servicemen and women?" - Sean Hannity on the gay hate crimes bill.

BarbinMD (Daily Kos): Tony Perkins on the National Council for a New America

When I first wrote about the National Council for a New America (NCNA), the new GOP group whose goal is to rebrand the party listen to Americans be determined, I pointed out that the so-called values voters were the first victims of the Republican's latest effort to stop the bleeding, given that they had planned to ignore abortion, same-sex marriage, and immigration as issues that America cares about.

And Tony Perkins agrees (which really must chap his ass):

In another step away from its conservative roots, Republican members of the House unveiled The National Council for a New America in hopes of recasting the Party's ailing identity. The effort only underscores the Republicans' present identity crisis, as the GOP leadership kicked off the campaign devoid of the values that once caused voters to identify with the party.

The group's priorities, which were unveiled at a pizza parlor press conference, include the economy, health care, education, energy, and national security. Notice anything conspicuously absent? Former Gov. Jeb Bush explained the values void by saying it was time for the GOP to give up its "nostalgia" for Reagan-era ideas and look forward to new "relevant" ideas. [...]

Turning away from those fundamental truths would be a death knell for the GOP as little would be left to distinguish the Republicans from the Democrats.

The NCNA is the gift that keeps on giving; from its shifting messages, to holding their first "outside the beltway" meeting inside the beltway, to Rush Limbaugh calling the shots, and now, hacking off the head of the Family Research Council, the NCNA has been a godsend ... to Democrats - both for the opportunities to mock and as another sign that the ongoing schism in the Republican Party between the wingnuttia and the extreme wingnuttia continues.

• Steve Benen adds:
  

  I can only assume this kind of talk will become louder and more prevalent, because the religious right no doubt realizes they're losing clout. The NCNA ignored culture/social issues, as did the "Resurgent Republic" project and most of the "Tea Party" rhetoric. There's no shortage of talk from Republican leaders -- on the Hill, on Fox News, within the RNC -- and practically no one is out there arguing that bashing gays and limiting reproductive rights should be the basis for a GOP comeback.

  The more the religious right movement feels ignored, the more it's going to rebel. And the more the movement gets noticed, the more Republican leaders will be put in a bind -- embrace intolerant culture warriors stuck in the past, or distance the party from a large part of its base?

  What I suspect will happen is that Boehner, Steele, and others will start quietly telling religious right leaders, "Don't worry, we're still with you. We're not talking about your issues, but this is just p.r."

  Except, that won't work for groups like the Family Research Council and their ilk. The whole point of a culture war is to take the religious right's issues to the public and putting "the family" up front and center.

Jay Newton-Small (TIME Swampland): This Week's Cover

Here's this week's cover story by Michael Grunwald on the state of the Grand Ole Party. An interesting tidbit: Joe the Plumber is leaving the Party in disgust. An excerpt:

So are the Republicans going extinct? And can the death march be stopped? The Washington critiques of the Republican Party as powerless, leaderless and rudderless — the new Donner party — are not very illuminating. Minority parties always look weak and inept in the penalty box. Sure, it can be comical to watch Republican National Committee (RNC) gaffe machine Michael Steele riff on his hip-hop vision for the party or Texas Governor Rick Perry carry on about secession or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann explain how F.D.R.'s "Hoot-Smalley" Act caused the Depression (the Smoot-Hawley Act, a Republican tariff bill, was enacted before F.D.R.'s presidency), but haplessness does not equal hopelessness. And yes, the Republican brand could benefit from spokesmen less familiar and less reviled than Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, but the party does have some fresher faces stepping out of the wings.

The Democratic critiques of the GOP — that it's the Party of No, or No Ideas — are not helpful either. It's silly to fault an opposition party for opposition; obstructionism helped return Democrats to power. Republicans actually have plenty of ideas.

That's the problem. The party's ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it's not a majority agenda. The party's new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem to fit the national mood, and it's shamelessly hypocritical, given the party's recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times, not to mention its continuing support for deficit-exploding tax cuts in bad times.

I asked Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel about this same subject in an interview not too long ago, here's his take:

We have a long time to go but I'd still bet on us in 2010. If you look at history, I mean it happened in ‘72, people talking about the dominance of the Republican Party because of Richard Nixon's trumping. In 1980 they were saying that about Ronald Reagan. I just think that anybody that tells you that they can predict the future -- I mean ‘64 to ‘66 and then '68 -- I don't think anybody should be in the business of predicting two years out let alone 10 years out. That said, first, we have a New York 20 race that should've been a lay down for the Republicans and it wasn't. Second, I think what Republicans tactically and strategically are saying today is a mistake. And, third, look at long-term trends in the country, the ascending groups in the population are Democratic by proclivity of three-to-one and the descending groups are Republicans in almost every group. You know, you see the rise of the Hispanic vote, the rise of the young voter, the professional couple, as a larger proportion of the electorate; those are all Democratic in proclivity.

Benen: IF AT FIRST THE TALKING POINT DOESN'T SUCCEED....

George Will just can't seem to stay away from environmental policy, no matter how much trouble it gets him in.

On Sunday, Will argued on ABC's "This Week" that Toyota's Prius is only affordable because the company "sells it at a loss, and it can afford to sell it at a loss because it is selling twice as many gas-guzzling pickup trucks of the sort our president detests."

The conservative pundit liked the observation so much, he repeated it in his Washington Post column today.

[Obama] says: "If the Japanese can design [an] affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same." Yes they can -- if the American manufacturer can do what Toyota does with the Prius: Sell its hybrid without significant, if any, profit and sustain this practice, as Toyota does, by selling about twice as many of the gas-thirsty pickup trucks that the president thinks are destroying the planet.

Will already seems to be backpedaling, at least a little. On Sunday, Toyota sold every Prius at a loss. On Thursday, Toyota sells every Prius "without significant, if any, profit." What constitutes a "significant" per-sale profit? Will doesn't say.

We talked a bit yesterday about Will's latest error, but this item helped explain the facts in additional detail.

By George, Toyota and independent analysts say the Prius is a money maker for Toyota, and it has been since 2001.

As we noted last week, Toyota and Honda, though both struggling in the recession, are making about 300,000 yen (US$3,100) on each hybrid they sell, a number similar to what they are making on gasoline-only cars, according to Japan's Nikkei. The Nikkei adds that "Toyota appears to have earned gross profits of around 100 billion yen (US$1 billion) on its sales of second-generation Prius hybrids last year." And in spite of the recession, pre-orders are rolling in for the third generation, solar-roof-optional, 50-MPG 2010 Prius hybrid.

For years, the research and development costs that Toyota poured into its flagship hybrid car had kept it from earning true profits, something that it sought to quietly play down. While the company still doesn't reveal exact figures, financial analysts have backed up the company's claims.

But as Mike pointed out recently, "since [R&D] can be spread over many vehicles, over a long period of time, and since it can help automakers future-proof (a lot of hybrid tech will probably be useful in plug-in hybrids and electric cars), it would probably cost more not to make those investments." [...]

Ultimately, the Japanese automakers profits from hybrid cars can't be completely verified. But that doesn't mean they aren't making profits -- and evidence suggests they are, and increasingly so.

Maybe Will should stick to baseball?

Benen: PARTISAN SCRUTINY...

Karl Rove thinks Democratic senators are much meaner than Republican senators when it come to Supreme Court nominees.

Republicans ... generally do not treat Supreme Court nominees as roughly as do Democrats. Consider their treatment of President Bill Clinton's picks for the high court. Ruth Bader Ginsberg [sic] was confirmed by a 96-3 vote in 1993. The following year, Stephen Breyer was confirmed by a vote of 87-9. There were no fireworks at either hearing and nothing close to what Democrats did to Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

That's one way of looking at it. The other way is to realize that Ginsburg and Breyer were consensus choices that Orrin Hatch had endorsed before Clinton even nominated them, while Bork was a radical ideologue that even many Republicans were uncomfortable with, and Clarence Thomas was a right-wing jurist who apparently sexually harassed Anita Hill.

Other than the overwhelming differences, though, Rove's comparison is the kind of sharp insight we've come to expect from the Wall Street Journal columnist.