I am Elephant, hear me roar

There are two competing narratives coming out of the Republican Party today.  One is from former President Bush who is all agush about the Tea Party. The other is from elephant establishmentarians who are now saying that Sarah Palin and her Tea Party compatriots cost the Republican Party the U.S. Senate.  The Democratic party may be in shambles, but the GOP is in the middle of its own little civil war.  As these intraparty factions fight, are we possibly seeing the potential for some kind of third party movement or break?

Politico has the Dubya story which stems from a Sean Hannity interview that will be viewable on Fox tonight should you care to see it.  I don’t, but hey to each their own.

Former President George W. Bush says the tea party movement is a sign that “democracy works in America.”

In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity set to air Monday night, Bush heralds the grass-roots conservative movement as a “good thing” for the American political system.

“I see democracy working,” Bush said. “People are expressing a level of frustration or concern, and they’re getting involved in the process. And the truth of the matter is, democracy works in America.”

“It’s a good thing for the country,” he added. “It inspires me to know that our democracy still functions. What would be terrible is if people were frustrated and they didn’t do anything.”

Bush is not a popular figure among many tea party supporters, who criticize his decision to bail out some of the country’s largest banks in the fall of 2008.

Still, the former president said he welcomed the movement, pointing to tea party involvement in Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s special election win in Massachusetts as the point when things began to turn around for the GOP.

The Hill has the party establishment line on Palin and her Tea Partying rogues. This sounds like dueling sound bites to me.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) cost the GOP control of the Senate, a powerful House Republican said.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (Ala.) said that Tea Party-backed candidates endorsed by Palin underperformed against their Democratic rivals, costing the GOP key pickup opportunities.

“The Senate would be Republican today except for states [in which Palin endorsed candidates] like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware,” Bachus said at a local Chamber of Commerce event last week, the Shelby County Reporter wrote Sunday. “Sarah Palin cost us control of the Senate.”

Bachus is one of the most visible Republicans to criticize Palin, a Tea Party icon, for her political activities during the election season. Some Republicans have privately groused that Tea Party-backed candidates who were not electable prevented the GOP from taking control of the upper chamber.

The Alabama congressman noted that candidates backed by the Tea Party fared well in the House but “didn’t do well at all” in Senate races.

This narrative is almost as strange as the competing ones coming from the Democratic Party over Nancy Pelosi and her future leadership position. The Hill has an interesting statement from Congress Critter James Clyburn on Pelosi and the elections.  Blue dawgs are planning on a challenge to Pelosi.

Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) leadership had “nothing to do” with Democrats’ losses in last week’s election, the No. 3 House Democrat said Monday.

Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) blamed the poorly-performing economy for the party’s electoral drubbing, which saw them lose around 60 seats in the House, along with their control of the majority.

“It has everything to do with an environment that we found ourselves in that had nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi or the people that we had on the field,” Clyburn said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“We’re very introspective about this, and we are having discussions as to how we should go forward,” the South Carolina Democrat explained. “And I think that my party feels that this had nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. It had everything to do with an economy that was close to collapse.

While, the NYT Op-Ed page is basically calling for Congress Critter Pelosi’s head.

Ms. Pelosi announced on Friday that she would seek the post of House minority leader. That job is not a good match for her abilities in maneuvering legislation and trading votes, since Democrats will no longer be passing bills in the House. What they need is what Ms. Pelosi has been unable to provide: a clear and convincing voice to help Americans understand that Democratic policies are not bankrupting the country, advancing socialism or destroying freedom.

If Ms. Pelosi had been a more persuasive communicator, she could have batted away the ludicrous caricature of her painted by Republicans across the country as some kind of fur-hatted commissar jamming her diktats down the public’s throat. Both Ms. Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, are inside players who seem to visibly shrink on camera when defending their policies, rarely connecting with the skeptical independent voters who raged so loudly on Tuesday.

It seems like there are fractures in both parties that stem from the behavior of the inner party sanctums that don’t seem to feel any need to change their ways or their power brokers.  How much establishment ‘shellacking’ will it take for them both to look at the polls and realize no one likes them?

If  ever there was a time for some one to step up with a voice of sanity and reason, now would be it. And I don’t mean Jon Stewart over at Comedy Central either.  I still find the idea of a third party an appealing pox and check on both their houses.  Anything would be better than the current zoo.

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