Every time I think Star political columnist Matt Tully could not stoop any lower to grovel at the feet of the elitist insiders, he finds a way to prove me wrong. This morning, Tully
explains to us how it pains him deeply to even comprehend why the voters could possibly think of turning Richard Lugar out of office after thirty-six years in the Senate. After discounting his bipartisanship, his globalist thinking, his willingness to compromise, his failure to spend more time in Indiana because he's been too busy reducing the nuclear threat of the former Soviet Union and his age as possible reasons for voter dissatisfaction, Tully throws his hands up in the air in utter disbelief.
It seems to me that what we need now more than ever in D.C. -- as well as at the Statehouse or City-County Building -- are more Lugars. Meaning: more serious-minded lawmakers who are measured in tone and focused on complex policy issues that, while crucial, don't always fire up the party faithful. Seriously, when you consider the mess that is Capitol Hill, do you really think Richard Lugar is the problem?
He's not . . .
In the end, though, many elections, particularly low-turnout primaries, are driven by partisan die-hards and the uneasy and sometimes angry mood among the electorate.
That's hard to overcome. And so, as hard as it is for some of us to comprehend, Lugar heads into this election season facing a real battle.
Yeah, that's it. The voters are just too angry and too stupid to know what a good thing they have in Dick Lugar. Demonstrating his hypocrisy has no limits, Tully won't even discuss the fact that Lugar gave up an Indiana residence more than three decades ago for his permanent digs in Washington where Congress has increased the national debt by more than 400% and turned the country into a dying, dependent welfare state. Tully will save all of his anger for a politician like Charlie White who he thinks should be forced from office because he used the home of his ex-wife for a voting residence for a few months while he was in between marriages. That's a much worse sin than Lugar's reliance on a home he sold more than three decades ago as his voting address when the reality is that a hotel room is the closest thing Lugar has to a home in the state he is supposedly representing in the U.S. Senate. I'm not sure whether it's Lugar or Tully who is more out of touch with Indiana voters.
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Mr. Tully seems to write, often, with an unusual set of blinders (a term taken from horse racing, I believe). While I have not yet made up my own mind on Senator Lugar, he is the favorite of (yet another) Presiden Obama, who is fond of saying, "compare me to the alternative, not the almighty."
To not look closely at Mr. Lugar's tenure would be like claiming a Super Bowl victory only after ignoring a goal-line flag in the 1st quarter, backed-up by multiple replays.
Mr. Lugar's ascendency from 1967-1976 has so many red flags one might think one had found one's way into a Communist Party meeting (I am, of course, attempting over-the-top irony). Lugar went from School Board President to Senator in 9 meteoric years (if one forgets the IPD corruption scandals, repeated, year-in and year-out raids on his mentor's friends' gambling joints, and a few other dicey matters).
Mr. Lugar's sponsorship by corrupt Republican Party leaders like the "look-but-don't-touch" L. Keith Bulen (i.e., Bulen's life-long affair with Indianapolis illicit gambling, strip clubs and under-the-table money) and the morally shaky former City-Council President Beurt SerVaas (supporter of Apartheid South Africa; likely profiteer from those who put Mandella in jail for 30 years; salesman of parts for W.M.D to Iraq (and hauled before Congress to account for it); sponsor of break-ins, bugs and death-by-a-thousand cuts rumors about Hoosier politicians via International Investigators, Inc.))--astounds.
With friends like these, Mr. Lugar might never have worried about political enemies--except in the Replay.
Utilizing over two dozen sources, from Republican stalwart State Senator Larry Borst to corruption watch-dog and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dick Cady, I've attempted to reconstruct Senator Lugar's first quarter. One will not like the seediness, the widespread corruption, or how Mr. Lugar wavered on battling it. One might marvel at how he survived after losing his first Senate bid in 1974 (still working on that story).
No matter what, Mr. Lugar has become one of Indiana's greatest leaders. That should make it easier, not more difficult to look back on how it began. One can argue about whether or not Democrats in power would have been less corrupt, but Unigov pretty much nixed that fantasy game. One can argue that Mr. Lugar is not like those who launched his career, and one may be right.
But the conversation about Mr. Lugar demands we at least have some facts at hand (and I hope I do). I (blushingly) am plugging "Hoosier Hysteria: A Day at the Races," found at the following link:
http://ideaswithoutideology.blogspot.com/2012/01/hoosier-hysteria-day-at-races.html
John Michael Vore
(Part 2) Again, one argues from what's real, not what's imagined. In a democracy, one does not have to be an angel to criticize political figures, i.e., I have shared some of the propensities of Mr. Bulen (with the exception of gambling, and with a gay spin).
On Facebook, I have railed against Mr. SerVaas's pompous, CIA-littered airs--though I have used various not-upfront means to go after sacred cows (as a writer), sexual predators and illicit drug networks.
Just once, I wrote on FB, I'd like to hear those who trumpet their CIA/OSS experience--as does Mr. SerVaas in his Indianapolis Public Schools "hero" bio--to underscore taking down a sexual predator, a priest or coach who molests kids. To go after a bank which screws over its customers, or a company which sells bad drugs.
Just once, Mr. Servaas, et. al…might you use your spook skills to help everyday folks, rather than clients in office?
Why is it folks like Mr. SerVaas always seem to be supportive of amoral, central-controlled governments (or governing tactics), while claiming to be an anti-communist, moral Republican?
By the way, I misspelled Nelson Mandela's name; it should be as it is here: with 1 "l."
It amazed me that Tully says he had to think awhile before writing this. He must be wading in shallow waters because he chose the long hanging rhetoric fruit instead of policy issues, plus the fact that any tea partier who dares questions Lugar is told to 'get real' by Lugar. Not exactly an endearing comment to fellow citizens who may have once voted for the guy. I'd like to see Tully bring some meat to the bones; not just play with the skeleton.
Mr Tully is pointedly wrong in believing Mr. Lugar to be "above the madness in Washington, D.C." He's carried off this facade since police corruption scandals in the 70s, which as it turns out, he knew much more about than he said publicly at the time. He knew, and did nothing, handing it off to his thug army. As I write in my blog, he has had an army of political operatives at the center of Indianapolis (and then Washington D.C.) madness for decades; indeed, the Republicans I write about (SerVaas and Bulen) are, perhaps, veritable hurricanes of intrigue, smear campaigns and under-the-table money.
And Mr. Tully is wrong regarding age--it's not that Lugar, himself, is necessarily too old, but that the political machinations with which he captured office and used to spread a sphere of safety across every judgeship that might hold him and his allies accountable--should be considered of a different era and time, out-of-sync with a new century, etc. etc. Certainly out of synch with either Tea Partiers or Occupiers.
At what point does an elected political leader take responsibility for the storms he comes out of? For the wreckage he leaves behind? One imagines the Senator believes he is invulnerable because he has been; for this reason, alone, a serious challenge from within the Republican party is a good thing--as would be a strong Democratic contender for this Senate seat, once held by Vance Hartke--likely smeared out of office by Lugar's army of thugs when he tried for a fourth term.
In Indiana, given Republican dominance over the last half-century, one must be careful in assigning loyalties. Mr. Lugar's inheritance comes from the Thug-pubs of the Bulen-SerVaas generation; however, through Bulen's "last effort," he was untethered from Nixon, then tied to the Reagan Revolution (Bulen led the effort in the Northeast United States quite well in 1980); Mr. Lugar was considered "moderate," then.
The Pub-Purists--now embodied by Tea Partiers--in fact go all the way back to former Indianapolis Congressman Donald C. Bruce, a founder of the America Conservative Union (with William F. Buckley, and the sponsor of C-PAC, the now infamous D.C. inter-election party); he was sponsored by Eugene C. Pulliam, Star/News publisher (and of Arizona papers, where former V.P. Quayle now lives). The far-right in Indiana has always been backed by some of the biggest money in the state (and country). Tea Partiers, as I suggest in the blog before Hoosier Hysteria, need to better know their own history: even if you think you're breathing new life into "the system," without knowing your history and the history of those views (in between 1789 and now), you're very likely to simply be a pawn of long-standing, monied interests.
There was never much room for "moderates" in the Hoosier Republican party, though it appears the dumping of Whitcomb for Bowen, in the late-60s, gave us Bowen-Orr, Orr-Mutz--then a Bayh blip-decade. Governor Daniels appears to be more in this moderate camp, than not, though as one sees, lineage is tricky. Mr. Lugar's tenure has been marked by the accomplishments one hopes for from a man of his intellectual gifts and non-stick surface. Whether his time is up comes down to how good his opponents stack up, against him. But in order to do that, we need to actually see Mr. Lugar, and I'm not sure that's ever been very possible, whether he was standing right in front of you, or not.
P.S. If there are Thug-pubs (Bulen+SerVaas line), Pure-pubs (Donald C. Bruce line), then there must be, "Mod-pubs..."?
I know who is more out of step with Indiana:
Richard Murdock, the moron whose lawsuit against the Chrysler bankruptcy would have destroyed Kokomo, Indiana, and the thousands of middle class jobs there. Murdock, we recall, in pursuit of money for the rich bondholders Republicans like to represent (while pretending to be stalwart Tea partiers) was willing to flush Kokomo and those jobs down the toilet. At least, Lugar isn't as stupid as Murdock.
Also, I'm betting Dick hasn't misplaced 300 million dollars recently.
So, maybe, possibly, Tully sees Lugar's opponent as the incompetent idiot he surely is and wonders why a guy who is doing a fine job is being kicked out by bran-dead ideologues
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