The target is now strapped with firmness to Scott Walker's back. And if this, from former W. speechwriter Michael Gerson, is an indication of what's to come, there will be blood, for The Dynasty is already aiming its arrows with lethal precision:
When Scott Walker pronounced himself agnostic about President Obama’s patriotism and Christian faith, it must have seemed like a clever formulation….
[Yet a] politician who tried this form of passive aggression before also got criticized for it. During the 2008 Democratic primary fight, Hillary Clinton said that Obama was not a Muslim "as far as I know" — sounding more like one of the wackier speakers at a CPAC convention….
For Walker, this is more of a paper cut than a chest wound. But for the Republican Party, which some Americans associate with religious exclusivity, it can’t be good for a front-runner to sound religiously exclusive….
Questioning [Obama's] affirmation [of religious faith] involves a serious charge — an accusation of the worst sort of cynicism.
The worst of cynicism — scarcely a charge suggesting a mere paper cut; and a characterization of Walker as "one of the wackier speakers at a CPAC convention" — a forbidding portrayal of unelectable extremism.
There's no need to wonder how the Bushies will go after him. They're advertising the time, place and manner of their collective hit: Scott Walker, they'll relentlessly thunder from the stump and on air and in print, is the very breed of intolerant wingnut that has reduced the party to a regional joke, put the White House out of reach, and even further constricts its electoral appeal. Such an assault may have little positive effect for Jeb in sparsely populated caucus states like Iowa, but there's always the Establishment vote in — and many more delegates from — New York, California, Florida, and so on.
The Bushies are well aware, as I am, of the power of wingnutism among the GOP's hardest-core base. They also know they'll have months to frame Gov. Walker as a self-destructive blend of Palin, Santorum, Gohmert and Torquemada — and plenty of graft and Establishment mob associates to do it with. They will, as well, have the freedom to attack at will, because Walker will be spending most of his time dodging questions about his latest rabble-rousing, rather than piecing together any kind of coherent campaign.
Will the Bushies' bushwhacking work? Well now that's the fundamental question, which they, I suspect, will formulate thus: Do you fellow Republicans want a real shot at the White House? Or do you just want another shutout earned from a cheap politician huckstering his cheap thrills?