Friday, December 2, 2011
Presidential politics GOP field: 'Liars, demagogues, ignoramuses'
Posted by Max Brantley on Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 8:30 AM
Amusing takedown by a writer for Der Spiegel on the Republican presidential field. Or it would be funny if so much of it wasn't based on actual utterances and actions.
Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn't make such a big deal about it.Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they've been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what's still the most powerful job in the world. As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.
It's true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it's just not that funny anymore. In fact, it's utterly horrifying.
It's horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They're ruining the reputation of the United States.
They make George W. Bush look like Einstein, the writer says.
Hey, that dummkopf can't talk about our pledges like that, can he?
Comments (11)
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I can't pinpoint the exact year the tipping point was reached but the slow devolution of the party of Lincoln into it's current incarnation as the party of Jefferson Davis is almost complete. It began in earnest in the 60's with the civil and voting rights acts. Maybe the tea party pushed it over the cliff. Faustian bargains extract a terrible toll.
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I'm beginning to wonder what putting up with what goes for politics in the Republican camp says about our people in general. Dummkophs, indeed.
Who recalls John Danforth? Twenty year Republican senator from Missouri, Bush's Ambassador to the UN.
He's embarrassed:
“I’ve been watching some of these Republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible,” he told KTRS in St. Louis yesterday. “It’s embarrassing for me as a Republican to watch this stuff,” he added, calling out audiences for applauding the candidates’ morbid boastings....."
"It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people. We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.” They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/…
(posted previously)
I believe John Danforth is also an Episcopal priest, probably retired. It's about time for the people my wife and I refer to as "real Republicans" to speak up and speak out about the deplorable state of the Republican Party today. I've never voted for a Republican, but I do remember a time when Republicans being in power didn't terrify me.
"It began in earnest in the 60's with the civil and voting rights acts."
That's nonsense Outlier, Below is a breakdown by party of voting on LBJ's Civil Rights Act:
By party
The original House version:[13]
Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:[14]
Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%–34%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version:[13]
Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%–31%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[13]
Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%–37%)
Republican Party: 136-35 (80%–20%)
Scrapper, after those votes the Dixiecrats left and joined the Republicans. How many of those Republicans who voted for LBJ's bills do you think could be elected today?
I hate to say it, but I get a knowing laugh whenever I say Rick Perry is George W. Bush's dumb cousin.
So here's Rachel Maddow and Frank Rich dissecting the "Murdoch Primary."
You know. Ex-man-of-god-ex-governor-ex-heavyweight-ex-POTUS-dropout-ex-Arkansan Mike Huckabee's boss.
"Fox News, [Maddow] said, had adopted the canny strategy of telling its viewers 'not to trust anybody else' and to 'deride and essentially wage war on all other media sources.'"
It gets better. (If it didn't get worse for America's future.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/r…
Norma, that's the best, informative thing I've read about R politics in ages! I'm sharing, widely.
I must plead ignorance about most of Fox News. I wondered about Romney's precipitous fall in the polls until I just learned he was the critter at the FOX Hunt.
Outlier, it started in 1964 with Barry Goldwater, but the "Southern strategy" was really refined in 1968, when it elected Richard Nixon. Lyndon Johnson's historic civil rights laws had angered the South so much that the politically-savy Nixon realized that he could turn the party of Lincoln into the party of reaction. Nixon, as evil as he was, was one of the most astute observers of American political trends. He saw the uprising in the South against the civil rights measures of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and realized that he could bring these resisters into the Republican fold. Southern Democrats really were only Democrats because of the Civil War anyway, and it was easy to lure them away. I would say that the turning point for the creation of the modern Republican political philosophy was 1968.
Paul Krugman summed it up beautifully a week or so ago in the NYTs. To appeal to the Republican base you have say things that are clearly false; i.e. you have to be clueless or a phony. Most are clueless. Romney knows better, and it shows, so he looks phony. Newt's great advantage is that he is not burdened with a conscience and can say anything as if he believes it. If Newt's elected, he will, at least, be unencumbered by anything he said to get nominated.
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