NLS and GOP cuteness

After a hectic May and a respite from das blog, I come back to see Ben Tribbett under assault…ah, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

This is nothing new.  It just seems silly, like getting annoyed at your spouse because they left the seat up.  There’s nothing to get upset about, it’s just their nature (yep, I am hoping SWMBO sees this).

The Mason Conservative takes issue with the language Ben used in a recent post where he labeled a Fairfax supervisor a “miserable rhymes with witch“.   I wouldn’t use this language, and hope that in the future Ben doesn’t give in to such linguistic emotion.  Nonetheless, while anyone can get fired up about whatever they want to, this seems to be relatively small potatoes. It is clear this was less a direct attack on Ben’s editorial stylings than a collateral attack on Ben’s claims regarding the Mark Tate allegations…and that is what makes the MC post interesting. You see, toward the end of the post MC asks who would take Ben Tribbet’s word over that of Shaun Kenney…and frankly, in the fact set we have out I don’t know that is a question MC really wants to be asking.

You can say what you will about Ben, but What You See Is What You Get.

I have met the man, and to some degree taken his measure. He is a bleeding heart in the best sense of the word. He knows what he knows and what he thinks, and wears his heart on his sleeve. He fervently wants change, and isn’t real careful sometimes how he phrases things in pursuit of that change. He will call a spade a spade-no facades up over at NLS!

Besides, anyone who can eat a meal while my WMD #3 is climbing all over a booth and not do or say anything along the lines of “restrain your child”-a restraining impulse not always exercised by my father-gets high marks in my book.

Ben’s does engage in the sometimes purple prose he deploys-as seen above. Sometimes he overstates the case, but he is careful about his facts, and he offers up the best statistical analysis of anyone in the Virginia blogosphere. Example-while all sorts of folks are wailing and gnashing their teeth about the effect of the Faisal Gill nomination on the GOP chances to hold the 51st HD, Ben is the only person I have seen who has noted the potential impact it has on Jay O’Brien in the 39th SD.

That is why I find it a little suspect all this yelling about who to trust. If Ben’s account is true, then there are some loose lips and some bad doings at RPV/VCAP. I doubt Ben would be this vehement about things if they did not happen (at least that which he has knowledge) exactly as he said. I also cannot help but think that Ben has no reason to get into this unless his part of this drama happened exactly as he said. Ben has no dog in this fight…but other parties mentioned do. You note that the various denials offered only address bits and pieces of the Tate Legal Drama, or else devolve to ad hominem assaults…not the kind of blanket refutation you would hope that RPV could render.

There is another reason that Ben’s whole explanation and account rings true to me…this is exactly the kind of namby pamby cutesy way of doing things the Virginia GOP has engaged in for the last few years.

Rather than offer a vision of where they want to lead Virginia and create a strategy to get there, the Va GOP instead chooses to pick short term tactics to try to win the current election-and when the tactic fails there is nothing left to fall back on. The Hitler/Death Penalty adds were supposed to bury Tim kaine…it didn’t. George Allen’s campaign operatives were going to cauterize the “macaca” wound…they didn’t.

The GOP ascension of the 1990’s was based in basic nose to the grindstone politics…and the demises since then have been based in a failure to do the same. If RPV and VCAP and the rest want to take out Mark Tate, do it at the ballot box. Don’t rely on these outlandish schemes. Do it the old fashioned way…at the ballot box.

Cut the cuteness, get back to basics, and lead. Then you won’t have to worrry about what Ben writes or how he says it.