Saturday, December 18, 2004
Christie Whitman: GOP Too Conservative
Christine Todd Whitman, whose moment of greatest fame was in 2000 when conservative Republicans leaked this photo of her to the news media in order to ensure that those gosh-darned feminist pie-wagons shut their traps about making her Bush's Veep, and who later went on to a short stint as Bush's first EPA appointee, has apparently found a spare spine out in the back storeroom and strapped it on. According to this NYT piece (which can also be found at TruthOut), she's written a book in which she warns that the Republican Party is going much too far to the right:
Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor and Bush environmental official, says in an upcoming book that Republican moderates must speak up or the party could move so far to the right that it will lose its influence and strength. [...] The main focus of Whitman's book "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America," is on her desire for moderate Republicans to regain control of the party. The more conservative wing of the party has claimed much credit for Bush's re-election. [...] Whitman says fellow moderates, such as former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, were instrumental in Bush's re-election win, often campaigning with him in battleground states. The role of moderates is to bring the party back to its center, she says. "It is time for Republican moderates to assert forcefully and plainly that this is our party, too, that we not only have a place but a voice, and not just a voice but a vision that is true to the historic principles of our party and our nation, not one tied to an extremist agenda," she says.Of course, this doesn't fit in with the GOP/Media's and Vichy Democrats' shared storyline, which is that The Right Wing Won It For The GOP (Which Is Why Democrats Must Keep Moving Ever Rightward Themselves). So don't expect to see Katie Couric interviewing her on the Today show any time soon -- unless it's to attack her book's premise. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the only places she gets airtime to hawk her book will be Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and Air America.
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