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Home Front: Politix
Bob Inglis says he can't identify with 'hard right'
2009-11-14
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis said Thursday he faces an anti-incumbent, "throw-the-bums-out" mood among voters similar to the one he rode to victory when he was first elected to Congress in 1992.
"Now I am the bum, so I've got to figure out how to help people understand that maybe your local bum isn't so bad after all."
"Now I am the bum, so I've got to figure out how to help people understand that maybe your local bum isn't so bad after all," Inglis told reporters and editors of The Greenville News.
What if he actually is bad and refuses to realize it? What if he's entrenched, comfortable, fat and happy, and getting along with the other side perfectly fine? What if he regards the Congressional perks, the toadies and the flacks and the free parking as no more than his due?
The Greenville Republican, who faces four challengers in June's Republican primary election in the 4th Congressional District, said voters were already worried about the future before the recession and banking collapse struck. The Chinese economy is on track to replace the U.S. economy as the world's largest, "and that's a blow to the American psyche," Inglis said. "You put all that together, and you have a toxic stew for incumbents."
It'd be a blow to our psyche because it's not something that should be. There's no reason we should have ceased being competetive, no reason we should have ceased being the world's commerce center -- except that a combination of seedy politicians and Malefactors of Great Wealth fed so rapaciously from the public trough that they actually tried to eat the entire boodle.
Inglis also said there is a struggle within the Republican Party now that the coalition of social and economic conservatives and pro-life Democrats that Ronald Reagan built is "running on fumes."
Getting uncomfortable with the libertarian wing of the party, is he?
Inglis said he considers himself a part of the "religious right" and can't identify with a new group that has emerged within the party that he called the "hard right." "I'm concerned about abortion," Inglis said. "It's very much a concern to me. The hard right really doesn't care about abortion. They just want you, government, out of their pocketbook, by golly."
I always think of the "religious right" being further to the right than I am. I agree with them on lots of things, but the agreement's not always comfortable. For instance, I'm against abortion, too, but only by about 51 percent: It's taking a human life, but I also know enough people who shouldn't have been allowed to breed in the first place to feel like their kids would have been better off to have never been born. Some few of those -- more than a third, not much more than half -- go on to make a liar out of me and do well despite Mom and possibly Pop's shortcomings, which is what keeps me in the "no" camp. I see nothing wrong with doing away with an embryo when it's still in the snot stage, but once it's started with a heartbeat and fingers and toes and and a butt it's a person. "A woman's right to choose" at that point should be limited to what she's gonna name it and who she's gonna name as the father. That's because -- rape excepted -- her actual "right to choose" involves deciding whether or not to keep her pants on. Being a free person means dealing with the consequences either way.
A few weeks ago those people were called libertarians, the kind who probably hadn't voted for Representative Inglis in the past because they don't like the "religious right".
[edit 1:17 pm ET: My apologies, I forgot to highlight this bit when I wrote it last night.]
Even though I'm pretty conservative in lots of ways, I still regard myself as a libertarian -- I'm conservative in the sense that I want to preserve what used to be a pretty nice country and a pretty good system of government. That was a setup that allowed an awful lot of individual liberty, which in consequence allowed the invidual the freedom to do great things. Having the government out of our pocketbooks preserves that freedom. If we're working until the end of May or early June to pay our taxes then the system is busted -- we've allowed ourselves to become chattels of the political class. They've bound the mouths of us kine treading the grain, as the Chrisian right might put it.
Inglis said "hard-right" activists have told him that they are willing to let people without health insurance "die on the steps of the hospital" to make a point about the problem of "free riders."
Except that doesn't happen. Under current law the hospital must treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay or legal status. Should ObamaCare actually pass into law, I trust that requirement will continue to obtain. So that point is a straw man. Quite possible the people he's quoting are straw instead of flesh and blood, too -- a good reporter would ask him their names, locations, appearances for verification purposes.
"As a religious right guy, I'm thinking there was a guy named Jesus who had some things to say about these kinds of concepts," Inglis said. "And I don't want to live in a society that lets a few test cases die on the steps of the hospital. I can't go there."
I would certainly vote against him in the primary if one of his opponents met two criteria: budget balancer and war monger. Not a gullible fool or a liar, unlike Mr. Inglis, would be nice, too.
I'll bet if they look hard enough the people of his district can come up with somebody who represents their interests a little better than Mr. Inglis.
Posted by:Fred

#4  And by hard right, he means the work-a-day little people. He's been whoring at the Élysée Palace for so long and thinks he's now the Sun King.
Posted by: ed   2009-11-14 12:16  

#3  18 years does seem to be a long time to be in one political office, doesn't it?

Mr. Inglis should try something different, something that would challenge him. Let a new person fill the job in the House. Inglis could run for the Senate, for Governor, for mayor of a town in his district.

Or (gasp) he could turn to the private sector and make stuff for a living. I suspect he's good at something. Or maybe get an academic job somewhere; those are cushy (don't I know).

Time to move on, Bob. You can leave ahead of the crowd or in their grasp.
Posted by: Steve White   2009-11-14 11:57  

#2  You're a good example of the kind of republicans that need to be voted out, Inglis.
Posted by: Parabellum   2009-11-14 08:52  

#1  "Now I am the bum, so I've got to figure out how to help people understand that maybe your local bum isn't so bad after all," Inglis told reporters

You sleep with the dogs, you get up with fleas. It's time to move on professional politician [he was first elected to Congress in 1992].
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-11-14 06:48  

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