Understanding What We Must Never Forget

In the last quarter century, there has been a progressive  effort from intellectual iconoclasts to revise history about the Holocaust to besmirch the Catholic Church and particularly Pope Venerable Pius XII.  The criticism stems from charge that the Vatican did not do enough to save Jews during the Second World War, especially considering that the Giuseppe Cardinal Pacelli had been both the nuncio to Germany as well as the Vatican Secretary of State before assume the Chair of St. Peter.  In fact, historian John Cornwell charged that Pope Pius XII was Hilter’s pope, and the Vatican’s inaction weakened the Catholic Church and sealed the fate for the Jewry in Europe.

Soviet Leader Josef Stalin dismissed Papal power in the world by sarcastically quipping “How many divisions did the Pope in Rome have?”  Thus there is the reality that a Vatican condemnation stronger than Pope Piux XI 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (“On Burning Concern” originally released in German) condemning Nazi neopaganism and the “so called myth between blood and state”  would have only worsened the lot for Jews in the still publically obscured holocaust.  

This sensational charge of “Hitler’s Pope” flies in the face of contemporaneous praise of Pius XII as a righteous gentile by prominent Jewish leaders, as well as documentary evidence from the likes of historian Rabbi David Dalin that Pius XII ordered Vatican envoys to aid persecuted Jews in occupied Europe and the Catholic Church opened facilities in the Vatican and Rome to shelter thousands of Jews from the Nazis. 


In fact, it should be noted that there were prominent clergy who were aligned with Hitler–the grand mufti Hajj Amin al-Hussein.  At the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals, there were allegations that the grand mufti  who advised and assisted the Nazis on carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution.  The Ba'athist party was a pan-Arab Socialist party which Ba'athist founder Michel Aflaq saw Nazi Germany as a model and were in power in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the Assads in Syria.   It seems as if these slanderous charges against Pius XII were borne from anti-catholicism as well as exploiting a tragedy by obscuring those truly culpable. 

Holocaust historian Rafael Medoff has published “FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith” which examines the action (or lack there of), attitudes and apathy that FDR and the American government had during the Second World War as it relates to saving Jews from the Shoah.  Medoff charges that the FDR Administration failed to do relatively simple measures which would have saved many Jews, because FDR’s vision of America only encompassed having a small number of Jews.  Medoff wrote that: “In his private, unguarded moments, FDR repeatedly made unfriendly remarks about Jews, especially his belief that Jews were overrepresented in many professions and exercised too much influence and control on society.”  Hence his Administration went out of its way to discourage and disqualify would be Jewish immigrants.  

Had FDR quietly permitted immigration quotas to be filled to the legal limit, it would have saved 190,000.   But the Administration opposed legislation which would have permitted the entry of 20,000 German Jewish childen, supposedly as it would set a precedent that would take away American jobs. 

Medoff also suggests that the US could have bombed concentration (extermination) camps like Auschwitz as the US Army Air Corps would not be diverted as they were  targeting sites that were only five miles away from that infamous death camp that were gassing 12,000 victims a day. 

This sort of nationalistic antipathy towards Jewish refugees is not surprising, considering the post-war antipathy towards Aliyah Alph and Aliyah Bet Jewish immigration as fictionally depicted in Leon Uris’ 1957 epic novel Exodus.  But Medoff’s evidence indicates that FDR was not the humanitarian and champion of the forgotten man myth that has developed, at least as applied to Jews in occupied Europe. 

Medoff’s  thesis needs to be scrutinized to validate its bona fides. Trying to corroborate the slanderous charges in Cornwall’s Hitler’s Pope” discredited it to fair minded historians, but  not before the damage was done in the mind of popular public opinion.  

Although Medoff is a prolific Holocaust scholar, but his interest is not simply in documenting what we should never forget.  Medoff has long postulated that the U.S. State Department has downplayed anti-Semitism in current diplomacy and feeds into a history of Foggy Bottom linguistic sleight of hand to achieve political objectives.  

Being informed by this critque may help pragmatic policy wonks understand the Benghazi bungling, blindness to Ba'-athist atrocities in Syria and ignoring the spontaneous 2009 Green Revolution in Iran.  It also gives context to the Janus treatment of Israel, where President Obama talks a good game about standing with our Israeli partner, but stabs Israel in the back on the Palestinian land issue  regarding the 1967 borders, existential threats from the Revolutionary government in Iran as well as quotidian provocations from the terrorist Gaza State.

h/t: The Daily Caller

An Animated Dr. Benjamin Carson Speaks Out

Dr. Benjamin Carson, MD is the head of pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.  Dr. Carson has been a public figure since gave the keynote speech at the 1997 National Prayer Breakfast when he challenges attendees to “Think Big” when encouraging young people to care about their fellow men, to develop their God given talents to the utmost and to have values and principles in their live.  President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Carson the Medal of Freedom in 2008. 

Dr. Ben Carson receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom September 2008 

When Dr. Carson gave the keynote speech for the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, he touched upon a thornier themes of how Americans freedoms can be impinged by financial imprudence with the impending implementation of Obamacare in front of President Barack Obama.   Since then, Carson has been vocal in voicing his view on politics as he promotes his latest book “America the Beautiful”.

As Dr. Carson is challenging  shibboleths about health care, political correctness and class expectations of viewpoints, liberals have been loathe to appreciate Dr. Carson’s political injections into the national conversation.   After an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Hannity Show, where Dr. Carson seemingly lumped homosexuals with pedophiles and proponents of bestiality as wanting to challenge traditional cultural definitions like marriage.  This prompted eight students to protest Dr. Carson’s slated commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Carson seems to have pronounced this invitation dead in response.

In this agitated environment, Dr. Benjamin Carson gave an animated interview with Mark Levin:



Carson, who has decided to retire from his medical practice, seems intent on continuing to speak out on the affairs of state.  Carson’s message is music to conservatives ears. As Dr. Carson is a soothing speaker sharing conservative views without being associated with Republicans, it should be expected that liberal opponents mired in the politics of personal destruction will continue to lob verbal bombs hoping that it will tarnish Carson’s almost unimpeachable persona.  

It would not be surprising if Dr. Carson aspires for higher elective office.    Thoughtful voters should consider any candidates credentials, their world view as well as their ideas when deciding who should govern them, rather than keying on gaffes, innuendo and tired partisan platitudes. 

The Easter Message for Obama’s Ears

President Obama and his family walked across Lafayette Square to attend Easter Sunday service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.




The presider was the Reverend Luis Leon, who also gave the closing benediction at President Obama’s second inauguration. 

Mr. Obama & Rev. Luis Leon at DC's's St. John's Episcopal Church 

Unlike at the ceremony on the Mall, where Leon’s stated goal was to bring people together, Leon chose to preach politically partisan on the holiest day of the Christian calendar.  Leon preached from the pulpit:

The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back back. For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants  to be on their side of the border...What you and I understand is that when Jesus says you can’t hang onto me, he says you know it’s not about the past, it’s not about the before, it’s not about the way things were but about the way things can be in the now.

Really? Please cite some contemporary examples of captains of the religious right calling blacks to be at the back of the bus. Leon did not do so during his Easter sermon.

As Luis Leon was not able to flee Cuba until 1961 when he was 12 years old, maybe he had already been indoctrinated in the Church of the Poisoned Mind.  But it was Republicans who were intrinsic to passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which the illustrious intellectual Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) filibustered for 57 days along with former KKK grand kleagle Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Vice President Albert Gore Jr.’s father Senator Albert Gore, Sr. (D-TN) also opposed.  

In fact, Republican President Eisenhower proposed a substantial Civil Rights Bill in 1957, but the reality was that the voting rights bill  it was opposed by then Senate Majority Leader (and future President) Lyndon Baines Johnson (D-TX) and then Senator (and future President) John F. Kennedy (D-MA). After the longest filibuster in Senate history of 24 hours and 18 minutes  by then Democrat (future Republican) Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC), the bill which passed was so watered down to effectively kill it.  In comparison, Senator Rand Paul's (R-KY) recent blockbuster filibuster only lasted just over 13 hours. 

Oh, but the clerical bully pulpit alluded to the “religious right”.  OK, since Rev. Leon is playing the prophet, then it should be easy to name the wrong-doers.

C.L. Bryant made a documentary Runaway Slave (2012) in which he urges blacks to run away from manipulation by governmental, clerical and media sources that shackle them as victims on the political plantation.




The Right Reverend Leon’s unspecific indictment of the “enemy” during  the Feast of the Resurrection would probably be considered as leading people astray and perhaps even prostituting an entire people for the sake of power by the Runaway Slave documentarians.

It would be nice if the story was simply a photo op of a lovely First Family dressed in their Easter best clothes.  Or a cynic could chuckle that Mr. Obama walked the one block to church instead of taking a 20 car motorcade six  blocks to the Jefferson Hotel for a dinner party with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) et ali. as he did a few weeks ago.

But President Obama has a tumultuous history with his professed Christian faith.  Obama attended Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago, but pretended that he never heard (or perhaps paid attention to) the provocative and divisive  black liberation theology spouted by the now emeritus pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  

During the 2008 transition, Mr. Obama made a big deal about church shopping in the District of Calamity.  Even though the President took the holy Eucharist at St. John’s Episcopal, he has not made any choice for a local church after four and a half years. Then again, unauthorized Obama biographer Edward Klein quoted Reverend Wright in "The Amateur" (2012) that church was not their [the Obamas'] thing"  but that the Trinity United pastor acknowledged that church was an integral part of politics because Mr. Obama "needed that base.".

So Mr. Obama chose Reverend Leon for both the Easter Service as well as the Inauguration.  That is telling.  Leon was the backup benediction giver after Mr. Obama's initial choice of Reverend Louie Giglio was forced to withdraw after it came to light that in the mid-1990s Giglio advocated ex-gay therapy and cautioned against acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle.   


Reverend Leon represents President Obama's new public orientation, as Obama   came out in favor of same sex marriages only last May. Leon's uniting rhetoric in the inaugural benediction suggested that: 

"With the blessing of your blessing we will see that we are created in your image, whether brown, black or white, male or female, first generation or immigrant American, or daughter of the American Revolution, gay or straight, rich or poor." 

 With blessings like that, no wonder the second inauguration public ceremonies were panned as being the most divisive in our nation's history.  But to be fair to Leon, the Episcopal Church has been blessing same-sex civil unions since 2006 and now Washington National Cathedral will be performing same-sex marriages, which are legal in the District of Columbia. Therefore Episcopalians no longer connect scriptural prohibitions against sodomy and same sex relations as sinful. This might explain why many bible believing Anglo-Catholic churches are swimming the Tiber and joining the Catholic Church's Anglican Ordinariate, like St. Luke's in Bladensburg, MD or aligning with traditional Anglican bishops in Africa, like The Falls Church Anglican in Virginia.

So when President Obama is not on vacation or flying to Florida to have  Sunday golf matches with Tiger Woods and he chooses to hear a controversial, confrontational Easter Sunday sermon, it is significant.

The Easter message can be understood with its  parallel to the Jewish Passover. The children of Israel were freed from their slavery in Egypt by Yahweh’s power and they were put on the path to the Promised Land.  Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross conquered the ultimate wages of spiritual slavery to sin–death.  

It might be worth considering if Rev. Leon’s sermon  was truly uplifting or perpetuating continued political bonds dressed up in Easter finery or spurious scriptural sanction.  The answer may be found in Runaway Slave.   Alas, the message might not be a revelation as much as a lamentation.

Tenebrae Time with the Suspicious Cheese Lords

Mount St. Sepulchre in Washington, DC is a Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America. The Church itself neo-Byzantine design by Roman architect Aristide Leonari in 1899.  The church looks akin to  St. Sophia (Hagia  Sophia) in Constantinople (Istanbul).



The interior of the church resembles a five fold Crusader Cross of Jerusalem. The large bronze baldachin is is supported by columns which depicts the twelve Apostles. The interior is decorated with the Ave Maria and scenes from the life of Mary.

The Friary is the home of Franciscan Commissariat in the nation's capital, and they continue their 800 year tradition of supporting the Holy Land. Part of the charism of the Commissariat seems to be a special celebration of Passiontide.

The Tenebrae service which is celebrated on Spy Wednesday is is resplendent in faith and history, as is incorporates a cappella medieval pieces sung by the Suspicious Cheese Lords (Suscipe Domine Queso).

While they are a consummate choir, the Suspicious Cheese Lords need to practice their polyphonic songs in situ at the Franciscan Monastery.




The Suspicious Cheese Lords in rehearsal for the Tenebrae Service.



Even though the Suspicious Cheese Lords ordinarily sing early music works, one year they chose to perform Arvo Part's De Profundis (1980).







Lighting the Candelabra for the Tenebrae Service.





Extinguishing the candles during the Tenebrae Service.



 The closing of the Tenebrae service is marked by a retreat of the single candle into the crypt.  As the vault to the catacombs is slammed, it sets off an unnerving Strepitus, meant to symbolize the earth convulsing at the death of the the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.

Arlington County Super Stop Super Costly

The first of a string of 24 Super Stops for Arlington (VA) opened on March 11th at the intersection of Columbia Pike at Walter Reed Drive.  Construction on this bus shelter began in September 2011 and only recently was completed.
  



Construction took 18 months longer than anticipated because of lengthy environmental impact statements. 

This shelter  is supposed to have room for ten to 15 commuters in a lit and heated shelter that  provides real time electronic and printed schedules as well as future ticketing for the estimated 16,000 commuters a day.   This first Super Station is thought to be perfectly positioned to promote ethnic restaurants as well as a fledgling night life.  

This little construction project only cost a cool $1 Million..  In fact, upon hearing the cost for the Super Station, one incensed citizen exclaimed “What? That’s ridiculous. From a citizen, from a voter, whoever put that budget through needs to get their butt canned. It’s an outrage.”

This new super costly Super station  does not even provide full protection against the elements.  Arlington County Board Member Libby Garvey (D) observed that:

[The bus shelter is] pretty, but I was struck by the fact that if it’s pouring rain, I’m going to get wet, and if it’s cold, the wind is going to be blowing on me. It doesn’t seem to be a shelter. It doesn’t really shelter you very much . . . you can get pretty soaked in two minutes. 

Anticipating the public protest over the cost of the prototype Super Station, Arlington County officials proclaimed that the bus stop was an investment in the future.  The Walter Reed stop is located near where developers hope to erect new higher density housing units. Many of the stops are slated to also accommodate a proposed $250 million streetcar system on Columbia Pike between Fairfax County and the Pentagon. 

The cost breakdown for the prototype Walter Reed Super Station was $575,000 in construction costs and $440,000 for construction management and special inspections.  Hereafter, Arlington County is taking over construction and it is hoped that construction time will be drastically reduced.

Arlington County Environment Services spokeswoman Whalen McDonald insisted that: “The costs will be greatly reduced with future stops moving forward, as the construction costs for this prototype included a number of first time design and set-up costs.”  Arlington County has budgeted $20.8 Million to do the remaining 23 stations for an estimated $904,000 a Super Stop.  While a 10% projected savings is a good start, it still seems like costly white elephant. 

 Arlington County taxpayers only paid $200,000 of the costs, with the rest of the money coming from the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Federal government funding.   The nascent Columbia Pike street car project is dependent on obtaining 30% of the costs from the largess of American taxpayers. 

Perhaps progressive thinking Arlington County planners were following Portland’s vanguard example of creating “A city that works” through extensive transit networks.  Alas, Portland is struggling under the financial burden of running and maintaining these top rate transit options, yet they had no higher ridership than in Los Angeles (even with free rides in the downtown core).  Aside from the glistening steel of Super Stops, municipalities will have to contend with powerful public union contracts that in Portland allow a transit worker to retire at age 55 with ten years on the job with full medical benefits, no deductible, no employee contribution and co-pays of just $5.  

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) has been hesitant to sign the road funding bill because of taxes and equity issues.  The pending roads legislation would replace the current gas tax with a wholesale gas tax while raising the sales tax, the hotel tax and purchases of new automobiles.  Aside from raising the tax burden, there are concerns that some jurisdictions get a free ride or more projects.  This consternation could result in the future reallocation of resources, sticking localities with the bill.  

One of the major reasons that some states rejected the free money from President Obama’s stimulus earmarked for High Speed Rail was the provision that if ridership did not reach desired goals, the jurisdictions would have to repay Uncle Sam for the free money. 

While government officials should be commended for forward thinking, they must be certain that their thinking outside of the box will be embraced by their constituents, that the project is not pork barrel crony capitalism and that the future funding for running and maintaining these services do not break the backs of their taxpayers.  The Portland Oregon paradigm of cozy construction contracts, inflated operating expenses from gilded municipal union contracts and  uncertain external funding should offer cause for pause. 

h/t: Arlington Now
      Washington Post

Budgeting Time for Barack-etology

As March Madness begins in earnest today, President Obama took the time before his quick Spring Break trip to the Middle-East to fill out his NCAA March Madness Brackets.  

The Celebrity-in-Chief then taped an ESPN segment to explain his choices--

While the POTUS picks have been one in four during his tenure in the Oval, it calls for an even basic question--why is he wasting time on inconsequential items when he has a nation that he should be governing?

As sequestration comes into full effect, and the Obama Administration cancelled school tours of the White House and threatens the Easter Egg Roll (while still having costly golf outings with Tiger Woods and a St. Paddy's Day party), he vexes over college hoops.   As Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) call for US boots on the ground in Syria, additional missile interceptors are deployed on the West Coast for a North Korean nuclear ICBM threat and Iran is close to having nuclear weapons, our re-elected leader plays with Barack-etology? 

The law requires that the Executive Branch submits its Federal Budget by February 4th.  As it stands,  the Obama Administration won't have it done by April Fools Day. 

If it's any consolation,  Barack Budgets have gotten zero votes in  Congress. So it seems that he does better at his Bracketology than budgeting anyways. 

Perhaps we could profit from the POTUS picks and make up the sequestration shortfall.  But considering that he chose safe picks: Ohio State, Florida, Louisville and Indiana, it won't have much of a payout.  Unlike if someone chose in Paddy Pool chose Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the Conclave Championship --The Sweet Sistine. The man who became Pope Francis paid off at 33-1. 

We do not need  bread and circuses.  We need leadership from Washington.  A couple of weeks ago, President Obama went through the motions of a Capitol Hill charm offensive.  Then he cracks wise against Congress when setting foot on foreign soil. It make one wonder if he is serious about the responsibilities as the Leader of the Free World, or if he just seriously enjoys the spotlight and the trappings of the Oval Office.  

Ted Cruz's Boots Are Made for Walking

While he was not as animated as Pat Caddell's caustic comments, freshman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) makes the causal connection between EPA intransigence and economic stagnation at CPAC 2013.  But the Keynote speaking Senator  had some ideas of how to profit from the issue.

Pat Caddell’s Prophetic Philippic Against the Political Class

One of the most striking speeches at CPAC 2013 were Pat Caddell’s remarks on the “Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?” panel.  Caddell indignantly observed:

When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $152 million at the end of the campaign for the “fantastic” get-out-the-vote program… some of this borders on RICO violations. 

Rush Limbaugh was so impacted by Caddell’s caustic comments that he spent nearly twenty minutes of airtime reading the excepts, because El Rushbo could not get his hands on any audio.  

Serendipitously, Politichicks TV Michelle Moons caught Caddell’s emphatic indictments against Mitt Romney and his reliance on self-centered political consultants on video.  Unfortunately, it was shot at an unfortunate angle and has spotty audio quality.   Still, the damning appraisal deserves to be heard by anyone interested in public policy and good governance, so listen again with earphones in necessary.

With this in mind, this animation attempts to put a better face to Caddell’s prophetic condemnation of the Cocktail Party’s Political Class.   Since Caddell often would make asides during his remarks, the audio was slightly edited to keep focused the corrosive effect of crony capitalism among the GOP establishment.





h/t: Breitbart
h/t: Politichicks

Vying for the "Right" Leadership

The so-called Architect of former President George W. Bush’s electoral victories Karl Rove has come under intense scrutiny recently among conservatives for his failures in consulting in the 2012 cycle as well as his Cocktail Party proclivities.  During CPAC 2013 former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin challenged such behind the scenes insiders to “Buck up or stay in the truck”.




Rove responded on Fox News Sunday noting that he would not be a good candidate because he is bald.  Moreover, Karl quipped:  "If I did run for office and win, I would serve out my term and I wouldn't leave office midterm." 




 Clearly, “W’s Architect” for success was taking a pot shot at former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), who resigned with 16 months left in her term.  Of course, this cutting remark fails to consider the fifteen frivolous ethics complaints which cost Alaska $2.5 million to investigate and personally cost the Palins $500,000 to defend against without resulting in  any convictions.  So it depends Karl, and you should not wrap your own sullied interests around either the American flag or a good GOP cloth coat.

Although there seems to have been little love lost between Karl Rove and the maverick Grizzly Momma since Sarah Palin was selected as Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) Vice Presidential nominee, this fight is really not about personalities.   Palin is the lightning rod for Tea Party types and personifies the fight between insiders and outsiders of the GOP and conservative movement.  Passionate partisans think that Karl Rove has declared war against conservatives and Tea Partiers so that Crossroads GPS can select more “electable” GOP candidates. Rove and other insiders postulate that general elections are not decided by the margins but by the middle, so Republican candidates must modify their message and select candidates that will appeal to independents.  

The problem is that the wise guys pre-programmed plan did not pan out in the 2012 election. The Romney Presidential campaign took great solace at election eve that they were winning Independents by a crushing 59-35% in battleground states.  Yet former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) lost the election despite his overwhelming popularity with Independents.  

Although President Obama garnered significantly fewer votes in his re-election campaign, analysis shows that Republican had four million fewer votes than anticipated, which indicates that a number of the disaffected base did not vote.  Some have speculated Romney flip flops on Obamacare or even his evolution about abortion cost him among conservatives.  But there is also anecdotal evidence that the conservative base and Tea Party types wanted their candidates to stand for something and fight.  But Rove’s plans strike them as Progressive-lite and have no fight.

Aside from the electability canard, there is also the dirty little secret about campaign insiders–they personally profit, win or lose,  when they can pick the candidates.  Pat Caddell, a disaffected Democrat who was a Jimmy Carter wunderkind pollster, played the prophet of good governance at CPAC 2013.  When speaking on the “Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?” panel, Caddell proclaimed that: “The Republican Party is in the grips of what I call the CLEC — the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex.”   The GOP gadfly illustrated his point by noting:

When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the “fantastic” get-out-the-vote program… some of this borders on RICO violations. 

Rush Limbaugh amplified Caddell’s assessment by recognizing that consultants decide the media budgets for campaigns and usually choose the vendor.  So when the Romney campaign elects to spend $100 million a media buy, the consultants automatically get 15% of that expenditure, win or lose. 





After McCain-Feingold Campaign finance reform took effect, Political Action Committees (PACs) became extremely important.  In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commissions (2010) which lifted “soft money” expenditures (by unions, corporations and interest groups) but not all of McCain-Feingold so independent Super PACs are still quite important.  The Conservative Victory Project, an off-shoot of Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, made headlines for “declaring war on the Tea Party, although Rove’s approach is allegedly not about moderation but about winning.  Yet a consummate insider like Rove can decide who is electible, despite the dearth of victory in 2010 along  the proclivity for favoring insiders rather than outsiders like Tea Party types and those passionate about protecting liberty.

Contrast the passion which reverberates amongst the Conservative base and dedicated Liberatians by Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) blockbuster filibuster over constitutional concerns.  The energy generated from Rand’s stand drew the spotlight away from insiders like Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who wanted to moderate things  facilitating a fancy dinner party with President Barack Obama and cook up a “Grand Bargain”.  Such a Grand Bargain inevitably would require the GOP to basically cave in on its principles and raises taxes (again) to appear to “solve” the budget mess.  Insiders would love this because it burnishes the deal making reputation of the Cocktail Party to “do something” and be bipartisan, but damn their prior principles and damn the voters. Of course insiders could choreograph the deal to benefit their interests (and line their pockets).

It is unclear if outsiders like the Tea Party, true conservatives and liberatian minded Republicans will reform the Party or if it will remain entrenched to the comfy seclusion of the Cocktail Party. But Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) the freshman who defied the odds and insiders to win his 2012 primary runoff and the general election, embraces the outsiders mantle as seen at CPAC.

To echo a now contrite maverick Senator John McCain's characterization of passionate partisans–will it be the “Wacko Birds” winning or will the Grand Old Party go the Whig way of being the RINO reserve for the Dodo Birds. 

h/t Excellence in Broadcasting