If you care about America’s future, you can’t be happy as extremists take full control of one of our two great political parties.That's exactly right. And, such a party has no legitimate claim to the fealty of voters in a democracy.
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What has been really striking has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party’s leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was “Armageddon.” The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on “the firing line.” And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.
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[T]oday’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.
It's not that the Republican Party is losing its collective mind and becoming utterly delusional; it's that it cannot bring itself to abide by the results of any election unless it is the winner. Others have been down that path, to the world's great regret.
5 comments:
Good point. Republicans should follow the example of Democrats. Lay down, sit down, and shut up, just like they did for the 7 yrs and 9 months when Bush was in Washington.
Now I'm not attempting to equivocate being opposed to Obama's policies because my party lost the election, like you are doing. And I'm not trying to equivocate the attempts to win the hearts and minds of the folks in order to turn this ship around, like your party, and it's teabaggers, have done. Because there is no equivocation.
Using cross-hairs to identify politicians to replace is not the same as publishing home addresses and encouraging the SEIU union thugs and ACORN (your own teabaggers) to surround their homes by the hundreds like they actually did to the AIG executives in Connecticut last year. Did you see those executives interviewed to see if they had received any death threats? Are you seeing the 'targeted' politicians homes being surrounded by chanting lunatics?
If you don't think Republicans should be objecting to this health care takeover when they lost, why is it that Obama is still campaigning for the health care bill when he won?
Can't Ross find any more G.O.P. talking points? Man, don't you get it???? Like PK says there are nuts everywhere but only Republican Party LEADERS are trying to light their fuse and aim them at political opponents.
If the hundreds of thousands of tea partiers can be used as an example, it doesn't seem to me that republican party LEADERS need to do anything to motivate the folks. If you don't like the crosshair symbol,which does seem to annoy you, pick whatever other symbol you like. The only point is to identify the ones to defeat at the polls. Tea Partiers don't have a leader of their own, and some of them are even Democrats. So what's wrong with identifying, or targeting, congressional districts. You don't think Rahm Emanual, or Democrats.com, don't do the same? Get real.
If there's anything I said in the first post you'd like to dispute, please go ahead. Calling it a talking point doesn't mean it is not a fact. Only, I suppose, that you either can't or don't want to debate or dispute it. ??
Funny you should mention the PK radio show. People there refuse to engage in debate as well. To the point of refusing to release comments from 'moderation.'
Fact is, ACORN and SEIU did do what I described. And just yesterday, Obama did have another pep rally for a bill that has already passed and which he'll probably be signing for the last time in a few days. Looks like he just can't take yes, or win, for an answer.
Ross, the President is merely trying to get the facts out, since the crazies that have become the Republican party have refused to admit that this isn't nearly as scary as they had told their followers it would be.
As for the Democrats doing their 7 years of silence, they sure as hell did, and they did it out of fear, because the Republicans played that card for all it was worth in every instance they could. Fear and terror, 9/11, more fear and terror. It was not a good excuse, or a good reason, for the Democrats to do what they did, and if there is anything I can do to make sure that those tactics are never ever used in this country again, I will do it.
The teabag party has been taken over by a bunch of crazies with their panties in a twist over exactly nothing. That is what is so ridiculous about the whole thing. In the beginning there may have been some Democrats involved, but by now I would guess that most if not all of those have stepped back from the ledge, as they have seen what that movement has evolved into.
If you can't see what the Republican party has become you must have your blinders on 24/7, and your deep seated distrust of anyone not a Republican must be complete.
The whining, the lies, the petty foolish acts, they are all delusional, all of the time.
Just sit down and watch John McCain as he turns into that little old man that scared all of the neighborhood children. My god, the man is full tilt enraged and petulant that he lost to President Obama! I doubt he will ever recover. He is losing his Senate race to another loon, Hayworth, and if it weren't so frightening to have to see it happen, it would be laugh out funny, since McCain is the better choice between the two.
The Republican party needs to get a grip, and start caring about America, and not just themselves.
SOS Call anyone who disagrees crazy wingnuts blah blah blah
Let's all gather around the Obama poster and sing instead.
Meanwhile America continues to lose jobs, manufacturing . Take a look at the room you are in and try to find what if anything was made in the US
But not to worry, somehow, with hope and change we can pay for everything for everybody including the generation which we have just raised on the entitlement theory. What was once handouts and something to be embarrassed about are now entitlements.
The job consists of hooking up with all the entitlements one can find.
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