'GOP Civil War' Is a Media Invention

Really, everybody's fine with the tea paries
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 21, 2010 1:44 PM CDT
'GOP Civil War' Is a Media Invention
Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell addresses supporters after winning the Republican nomination for Senate in Delaware, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010, in Dover, Del. O'Donnell upset Rep. Mike Castle.   (AP Photo/Rob Carr)

You may have heard about the alleged “civil war” going on between the Republican party establishment and those tea party upstarts. Well, don’t believe a word of it. The media loves a fight, but “it takes two to tango, and it takes two to fight a civil war,” writes Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. And “there are no worthy Republican opponents to the tea parties.”

You won’t find a single full-throated tea party opponent in the so-called “establishment.” True, many opposed Christine O’Donnell, but that was for tactical reasons, not ideological ones. When tea partiers won in Alaska, Florida, and Pennsylvania, the establishment gleefully gave their moderate opponents the boot. “And how did they respond to the alleged barbaric, uncouth, tea-fueled hordes storming the Beltway castle? ‘Lower the drawbridge!’” (More Christine O'Donnell stories.)

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