It is impossible for some in the media and in the conservative movement to conceive of American politics without a Republican Party. It is a failure of imagination but also of moral spine. The Republican National Committee declares that the party will unite around whomever is the nominee. The Republican Jewish Coalition, whom I contacted, cannot bring itself to condemn Donald Trump for feigning ignorance about David Duke and refusing three times to disavow him and the KKK on cable TV. (Thankfully, the Anti-Defamation League did not make the same error.) Otherwise thoughtful talk show hosts like Hugh Hewitt proclaim that Republicans must support Trump if he is the nominee because Hillary Clinton is worse.
I happen to disagree with Hugh Hewitt….well almost. I could never support Hillary Clinton. But if Trump indeed becomes the GOP standard bearer there is no guarantee my support would go to the billionaire. I might very well sit out the presidential race (the emphasis there is on the word might). The reason being my lack of conviction that Trump would be any better than Clinton.
Ms. Rubin said, “otherwise thoughtful talk show hosts like Hugh Hewitt.” Was she suggesting that because he gave an opinion that was contrary to hers, the talk show host pulled it out of a hat? Except for his strange obsession a losing Cleveland NFL franchise–Hewitt has a reputation of being one of the more thoughtful radio hosts.
Let’s broaden the scope a bit. For the past year, Hewitt has been interning potential GOP candidates a few times a week, hitting them all with his brand of tough but fair questions. Above and beyond that Hugh Hewitt is participating as a questioner in each of the CNN/Salem debates.
Unless she entered the business 20 seconds ago, Rubin knows damn well that Hewitt has to remain neutral (or as he calls it, he has to be Switzerland). And when it came to Trump’s KKK stupidity the radio host criticized Trump’s words as a mistake. What he couldn’t do is personally condemn the bloviating birther, at least he couldn’t do it without losing his neutrality, denying his audience the access to the candidates they’ve had over the past year, and losing his chance to ask tough questions during the debates.
Hugh Hewitt did not say (nor would he say) that Trump (or any other candidate) is his favorite Republican, he just expressed his opinion that the billionaire birther would be better for America than Hillary Clinton.
Allow me to suggest that Ms. Rubin has not thought this through (and she rarely does). Rubin has this nasty habit of relentlessly bashing conservative’s. In 2012 without being open to her readers, she relished in a non-official role of being a Romney spokesperson. And tried to condemn ever candidate to his right.
Or as Patrick Pexton who was the WAPO ombudsman until Mid-2013 said as he called for Rubin’s firing:
She was oh-so-wrong about Mitt Romney, week after week writing embarrassing flattery about his 2012 campaign, calling almost every move he made brilliant, and guaranteeing that he would trounce Barack Obama. When he lost, the next day she savaged him and his campaign with treachery, saying he was the worst candidate with the worst staff, ever.
Pexton finished his commentary on Rubin with:
Rubin was the No. 1 source of complaint mail about any single Post staffer while I was ombudsman, and I’m leaving out the organized email campaigns against her by leftie groups like Media Matters. Thinking conservatives didn’t like her, thinking moderates didn’t like her, government workers who knew her arguments to be unfair didn’t like her. Dump her like a dull tome on the Amazon Bargain Books page.
For 2016 Rubin’s favorite was Chris Christie, at least for a while (now she’s settled on Marco Rubio). Being a conservative basher, even before the campaign heated up Rubin was ripping Ted Cruz. And just like a liberal (or like Donald Trump) she wasn’t attacking Cruz by saying what was wrong with his policies, no like a three-year-old she called him names.
Ed Kilgore called her out on the dishonesty:
Jennifer Rubin, who is about the most certain general-election GOP supporter this side of Reince Priebus himself, referred to Cruz as an “extraordinary liar.” Knowing Rubin, she will repeat and sharpen this characterization of the Texas senator, along with other attempted assassinations of his character, record, and electability, on a very regular basis.
She even said that Cruz was like Clinton
The point is Jennifer Rubin is a dishonest woman, she is dishonest with her readers. She claims to be a conservative but all she does is slam conservatives. She slams Hugh Hewitt for saying the Republicans should support the Republican candidate, when it’s a position most Republicans take. And she criticized the radio host for remaining neutral in a race where she knows very well he has to remain neutral, at least publicly to guarantee his listeners access to the presidential candidates.
Maybe to the readers of the very liberal Washington Post Jennifer Rubin is a conservative, but to the rest of us conservatives she is nothing more than an arrogant liberal.
Its time for Rubin to stop claiming to be what she disparages—conservative. Or maybe its time for the Washington Post to hire a real conservative to blog from the “right side” of the issues. Why not hire someone like Ed Morrissey of Hot Air or since he has a mega-sized blog to run, maybe they should pick someone else. I understand that guy who runs the Lidblog is pretty good.
