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Why I appreciate presidential candidate Joe Walsh -- for now

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

For example, Walsh launched his campaign with a welcome apology, of sorts, effectively repudiating much of what he said about former President Barack Obama and others in his years as a congressman and a radio talk show host.

During an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Walsh expressed regret that he "helped create Trump," sometimes "went beyond the policy and idea differences, and I got personal and it got hateful."

Indeed, Walsh pushed the same "birther" conspiracy theories that Trump infamously did and falsely called Obama a Muslim as recently as December 2016. He didn't get around to apologizing for a tweet Stephanopoulos brought up that said Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California "can say dumb things" and get away with it because she's a black woman.

But to go through all of Walsh's past incendiary remarks about race, urban crime and underdeveloped countries (about which Walsh used the same barnyard language that had been attributed to Trump) would take all day.

Trump's takeover of the Republican Party has been so effective that party leaders are expected to erect further structural safeguards, if necessary, to protect his expected nomination. That's prudent, since every incumbent president, beginning with Gerald Ford in 1976, who has faced a serious primary opponent was weakened enough to lose reelection.

I expect Trump may simply ignore his GOP competitors, however many there may be, and get away with it. At least, Walsh took Trump's divisive remarks and refusal to apologize to task, which moves the ethical ball in the right direction.

 

He may not have a prayer of winning the nomination, but Walsh could give his fellow Republicans a place on the ballot to express their dissatisfaction with how their party is being defined by the incumbent at the top of the ballot.

Yet, I am also wary of Walsh's fast whip-around in his espoused beliefs and approach to politics. His reputed soul-searching comes at election time a little too conveniently for comfort. Such is the consequence of the steady creep by show business into our politics and governance, first in the television age and now in the Twitter age.

It is an age in which the most startling and angry voices along the right-left battle lines crowd out such niceties as reason, civility and compromise. Sometimes the noise is enough to make me long for the other Joe Walsh.

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)


(c) 2019 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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