Dick Armey Profile in NY Times Magazine
Michael Sokolove does a fair job in portraying the former Denton congressman and majority leader’s second act as the lead organizer of the conservative protest movement. Many on the other side properly ask where all the Tea Partiers were when the Bush Administration and a Republican Congress were running up huge deficits. I admire Armey because he was fighting his own party every step of the way, as this Salon piece from 2004 shows.
In the New York Times article, Armey refers to ”those nitwits who took over after we left.” He means Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney (”Deficits don’t matter”), and Karl Rove, whose political strategy consisted of (a) paying for two wars on a national-debt credit card, and (b) trying to create a “permanent Republican majority” by buying off large segments of the population with massive entitlements like the Medicare prescription bill, which Armey fought against. Give the guy credit for consistency back when opposition made him an outcast in his own party. To my mind, that makes him worth listening to now.
Tidbit: Much as I like Armey, it’s also interesting to find out that his protesting earns a salary of $550,000 a year. Wowza.
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I’d protest puppies for $550K a year, but I wouldn’t have the voting record to back that up.
Glad he’s out trying to make things happen.
Does not anyone see the contradiction in being a corporate grassroots organizer? Even as the teapartiers rally against Wall Street, they’re being supported by same. Pawns.
Dick Armey Tea Bagging is awesome.
I don’t care about K Street politics or politicians who long ago abandon Denton (is that “local”?) or fumbling senate campaigns. That’s why I don’t stay umbillically attached political coverage here on FrontBurner.
Dear protester-type people who need leaders:
I will do that for half of what Armey’s charging you.
Love,
Me
Yes, Armey earns a salary for “running” a grassroots organization. Why doesn’t Wick find it “interesting” that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al also are highly-paid “organizers”? Or Michelle Obama? I can’t believe Wick would even take note of Armey’s compensation without some balance from the history of largely liberal, paid “grassroots” organization.
There are many reasons to admire Armey: his astonishing threshold for cognitive dissonance, his polemical abilities, etc. But I don’t think that consistency should be admired for its own sake; judging from the quotes in the article, he seems to still subscribe to an Milton-Friedman-esque theory of the ideal economy – one that’s been largely discredited in the past year. (I especially like the line about how getting a doctorate from Harvard doesn’t mean you’ve thought about something. Um, wha?) Dismissing attempts at healthcare reform as unnecessary power grabs is short-sighted and simplistic and, I think, fairly easy to do when you make ten times what the average family does.
One would think that pro-business politicians would back reforms that took some of the onus off small businesses that are buckling under the strain of ridiculous premiums… but one would also think that the ethical conflict between working for a pharmaceutical lobbying firm and having a side business lobbying against health care reform would be readily apparent. The article didn’t mention anything about that one, though…
Ummh, I think it is the Keynsian theory that once again has been discredited in the past year…………..