Exit Stage Right

ASSUMING there’s still time for some good, old-fashioned recriminations about the recent unpleasantness at the polls, I’d like to vent my most enduring complaint about the Republican party and Homo republicanus generally: Republicans have an infuriating tendency to read their stage directions instead of their lines. They tell the audience about their characters’ motivation, their blocking, staging, lighting, whatever. But they never just play their part.

I first noticed this way back in 1991. KKK nutter David Duke had won a seat in Louisiana’s house of representatives in 1989 and was letting the national press use him against the GOP generally. Pres. George H. W. Bush needed to denounce Duke in the strongest possible terms. Instead, what he said was: “We have-I have-want to be positioned in that I could not possibly support David Duke because of the racism and because of the very recent statements that are very troubling in terms of bigotry and all of this.” Positioned?

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Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg is a National Review contributing editor.

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ASSUMING there’s still time for some good, old-fashioned recriminations about the recent unpleasantness at the polls, I’d like to vent my most enduring complaint about the Republican party and Homo republicanus generally: Republicans have an infuriating tendency to read their stage directions instead of their lines. They tell the audience about their characters’ motivation, their blocking, staging, lighting, whatever. But they never just play their part.

I first noticed this way back in 1991. KKK nutter David Duke had won a seat in Louisiana’s house of representatives in 1989 and was letting the national press use him against the GOP generally. Pres. George H. W. Bush needed to denounce Duke in the strongest possible terms. Instead, what he said was: “We have-I have-want to be positioned in that I could not possibly support David Duke because of the racism and because of the very recent statements that are very troubling in terms of bigotry and all of this.” Positioned?