Richard Lugar

Maddow Producer: On Foreign Policy, GOP Has Gone From Dominant to ‘Cringe-Worthy...Pathetic’
By Tom Johnson | December 21, 2015 | 8:48 PM EST

Though Steve Benen, who's also the primary blogger for the MSNBC program's website, is a true-blue liberal, he thinks highly of the foreign-policy chops of some recent Republicans. In a Thursday post, Benen wrote that GOPers such as Richard Lugar and Brent Scowcroft were “learned” and “approached international affairs with [a] degree of maturity.”

That was then; this is now. Benen touched on, among other things, Ted Cruz’s pledge to “carpet bomb” ISIS and Marco Rubio’s remark that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was “not a mistake” to build a case that today’s Republican party “approaches foreign policy…with all the maturity of a Saturday-morning cartoon…The national GOP candidates are speaking to (and for) a party that has no patience for substantive details, historical lessons, nuance, or diplomacy.”

Santorum Schools CNN's Crowley on What 'Moderate' and 'Willing to Work With the Other Side' Mean
By Noel Sheppard | June 17, 2012 | 11:17 AM EDT

Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on Sunday gave CNN's Candy Crowley a much-needed education on what "moderate" and "willing to work with the other side" mean in Washington today.

Appearing on State of the Union, Santorum correctly informed his host that the kind of Republican she wants in office "means doing what the other side wants only doing it slower instead of doing what is necessary for this country" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Eleanor Clift: 'Tea Party Will Cost the Republicans Control of the Senate'
By Noel Sheppard | May 12, 2012 | 5:25 PM EDT

In the wake of Richard Mourdock's landslide victory over Republican Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana's primary Tuesday, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift made what some might consider a staggeringly stupid prediction on Friday's McLaughlin Group.

"The Tea Party will cost the Republicans control of the Senate" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Time Mag’s Scherer Hails ‘Incredibly Eloquent’ Lugar Manifesto, Compares It to Eisenhower’s Warning
By Brent Baker | May 11, 2012 | 9:23 AM EDT

The Washington press corps always love it when establishment Republicans scold conservatives for trying to “purify” the party, and Time magazine’s Michael Scherer did not disappoint. “Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar did not go quietly, after losing his primary contest Tuesday in Indiana to a Tea Party-backed challenger, Richard Mourdock,” Scherer wrote the next day in a Time “Swampland” blog titled “The Importance of Dick Lugar’s Farewell Warning.”

“If there is one thing the American people need to read today,” the former writer for the far-left Mother Jones directed, “it is his farewell missive, which may prove to be as prescient and long lasting as Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 exit speech warning of the coming military industrial
complex.”

NBC's Williams: Defeat of 'Old-School Moderate' Lugar 'Ending the Era of Centrist Republicans'
By Kyle Drennen | May 10, 2012 | 5:38 PM EDT

Joining the rest of the media in mourning the primary defeat of Republican Indiana Senator Richard Lugar on Tuesday, on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams praised the "old-school moderate" who "was attacked for working to compromise with the White House" and lamented: "His defeat comes close to ending the era of centrist Republicans in the Senate."

NYTimes Monica Davey Sobs Over 'Collegial Moderate' Sen. Richard Lugar's 'Sad' Exit After 'Mean' Campaign
By Clay Waters | May 10, 2012 | 7:26 AM EDT

New York Times reporter Monica Davey was in Indianapolis to cover the Tea Party toppling of the moderate, establishment Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana: "G.O.P. Voters Topple Lugar After 6 Terms." Davey barely concealed her regretful tone:

Richard G. Lugar, one of the Senate’s longest-serving members, a collegial moderate who personified a gentler political era, was turned out of office on Tuesday, ending a career that had spanned the terms of half a dozen presidents.

Media Mourns Lugar Loss as a 'Tragic' Blow to 'Bipartisanship'
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 9, 2012 | 2:53 PM EDT

ABC’s Good Morning America treated last night’s loss of long-time serving Republican Senator Richard Lugar, to the more conservative Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock, as a sad sign of the end of bi-partisanship. In the 7am half-hour of Wednesday’s show, ABC’s Josh Elliott declared Lugar’s loss was an “earthquake of great degree” and eulogized Lugar as a senator who was “well-known for his willingness to reach across party lines.” Later on in the 8am half-hour Elliott called Lugar’s loss “a massive political headline” as he reported: “A long time voice of bipartisanship...has been defeated.”

CNN’s Erin Burnett, on last night’s edition of Outfront, also cast the Mourdock victory as a bad omen for Washington, as she worried, “So are the only people willing to find the middle ground disappearing from Washington...This is pretty tragic that we have gotten to this point where working together is a negative thing.” (Video after the jump)

Open Thread: Bad Night for RINOS and Unions
By Matthew Sheffield | May 9, 2012 | 9:54 AM EDT

(Note to commenters: This post is the first one on NB which uses Disqus for commenting purposes.) While liberals have been waxing rapsodic about Greece and France voting for wasteful socialism, conservatives last night have two victories to be crowing about in Wisconsin and Indiana.

In Wisconsin, government reformer Scott Walker received more votes in the GOP primary than his Democratic challengers did in their primary. In addition, the greedy government employee unions' hand-picked candidate, Kathleen Falk, went down in defeat.

Moderate Sen. Lugar's Struggles With Tea Party Mark 'Identity Crisis' in GOP, Claims New York Times
By Clay Waters | May 16, 2011 | 3:23 PM EDT

The New York Times’s biased Tea Party reporter Kate Zernike profiled Indiana’s veteran moderate Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, one of the Times’s favorite Republicans, on Sunday’s front page: "Running on Moderation in Immoderate Times."

With Sen. John McCain making conservative noises on illegal immigration, Lugar may be the best bet for the Times to foster its dream of a moderate (i.e. toothless) Republicanism to counter the Tea Party, one that accommodates Democrats and supports, as Lugar did, President Obama on issues like amnesty for illegals. In November 2010, Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer marked Lugar as a brave "maverick" who had refused to succumb to "hyper-partisanship and obduracy," like the rest of the G.O.P., presumably.

AP's Shameless Headline As Dem Senators' Opposition Prevents DREAM Act Cloture: 'Republicans Block Youth Immigration Bill'
By Tom Blumer | December 19, 2010 | 8:49 AM EST

If you look at the description of yesterday afternoon's U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote Number 278 ("A bill to amend title 28, United States Code, to clarify and improve certain provisions relating to the removal of litigation against Federal officers or agencies to Federal courts, and for other purposes."), you'd never know it had anything to do with illegal immigration.

But it did. It was a cloture vote (60 needed to get the measure to the Senate floor) about about the so-called "DREAM Act," granting de facto amnesty to a vast number of illegal immigrants for entering college or joining the military. It has been a Democratic Party-"inspired" initiative with heavy Republican opposition from the get-go. It could easily have passed if the Democrats had been able to hold their membership together while picking off a couple of squishy Republicans.

They got their squishes: Republicans Murkowski (AK), Lugar (IN), and Bennett (UT) voted yes. That should have given the measure 61 votes. But Democrats Baucus (MT), Hagan (NC), Nelson (NE), Pryor AR), and Tester (MT) voted no, while Manchin (WV) did not vote. The measure's 55-41 support was not enough to move it to the next step.

So whose fault was it that the DREAM Act failed? A bitter, unbylined Associated Press report give us the wire service's "objective" take: