Recently I observed with some true astonishment the Joe McCarthy ‘I have in my hand a list’, claims of no less than the Senate Majority Leader, one Harry Reid, that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes in 10 years, based on some phone call or other origination which he said he himself wasn’t sure of, and would not produce. Instead he just said ‘The word is out, Romney hasn’t paid taxes in 10 years’
I’d ask if he has no decency. But there is no point. Since the interregnum from 2004-2006 Harry Reid has enjoyed taking it bent over from Soros and MoveOn. He concluded after seeing Kerry lose by what is today in america a significant margin, that money+extremism in message=victory. Worse still, he convinces the entire democratic leadership in both houses that this is the way to go.
Now claiming that 80 democrats in Congress are actually communists (a claim made by Rep Allan West) is not exactly taking a route to working together, but if one looks at where the democratic party was in 1964 and where it is now, and where the republican party was in 1964 and where it is now, it would be very difficult to argue the republic party has moved as far to the right as the democratic party moved to the left.
But Reid, in trying to convince us by shouting Romney hasn’t stopped beating his wife yet, has illuminated something far worse.
These sets of tactics make it obvious that if Obama wins, the republicans as a party have no place to go but more serious resistance, and it will be difficult to AVOID the conclusion that only more extreme charges and situations are the correct tool to convince the American people that the democrats are a worse choice than the republicans.
Harry Reid is unquestionably the worst majority leader in my memory, and that goes back to LBJ as leader in the Eisenhower Admin, and Pelosi and her cohorts are the worst leaders of the House as well and my memory there goes back to Sam Rayburn.
Why is this so?
Their actions are so partisan they have crossed the bridge from party affiliation to frankly unpatriotic. Their demonization of a PERCEIVED TRUE ENEMY makes it impossible to cooperate.
If Hubert Humphrey could avoid saying what needed to be said about Strom Thurmond, because the nation NEEDED both sides working together the day after an election, WHAT THE HELL IS HARRY REID DOING?
He is saying that power matter more than the nation.
That is where the democratic leadership is today, and it’s clear if you look at what leadership said in the aftermath of Reid’s outrageous and disgusting execution of this strategy.
That is why the democrats look so vicious on the attack and the republicans look so ineffective in response.
When the republicans inevitably catch up, will all this have served us in any way?
If Reid is simply executing the strategy of the campaign for president, why WOULDN’T the republicans respond in kind. After all, if we had attacked Cuba in 1962, the USSR would surely have responded in Berlin. That analogy is PRECISELY how Democrats today view the Republican opposition.
EXISTENTIAL ENEMY. Sooner or later the reverse view ont he other side of the aisle MUST PREVAIL. That is the consequence of these kinds of unrelenting attacks, of continuously calling republicans right wing extremists. Nor can the claim be made that calling SOME democrats socialists is equally denigrating, considering the embedding of Social Security, and Medicare, in our society and thinking, ESPECIALLY when the president let’s his slip show when he goes off teleprompter.
It is wrong, unpatriotic and bears out the worst worries of the Federalist papers over factionalism.
The founders hammered out a way to get past SLAVERY (and that was just ONE fundamental issue dividing 13 separate societies) to found a nation out of PURE PRACTICALITY, and they did it all holding their noses knowing damn well a terrible solution of some kind lay ahead. These little men today seem to me to harbor the END of the entire affair. They would rather portray the other side as evil, than hold their tongues and their minds, and concentrate on finding PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS.
These are little men.
And we have elected them.
1 comment:
There is no longer any genteelity (to use a word one of our own founder's here loves) in politics. They can no longer even civilly agree to disagree even when despising the other fellow's position. Everyone wants to be a bomb thrower. Everyone wants to take the other guy down as hard and fast as possible. Deliver a body blow that knocks them so far back on their heels that they not only can't recover enough to respond but completely forget what they really shoud be concentrating on.
And while the most aggregious seem to come from the democratic pols the repubs have their nown attack dogs. Except over there it comes from the media (oh yes). I can turn non Fox News commentary shows anymore. Too many firearms around the house. The TeeVee would be in peril. Self aggrandizing idiots like Hannity and that pompous bore O'Reilly and Aw Shucks Huck make me want to put a round or a brick through the tubes. Joseph Farrell & his friends over at WND and even Rush drives me a little nutz sometimes (but I still listen to him).
Now they may not have risen to the no taxes in ten years level but the whole birther thing has not done us any favors.
Part of the problem is America herself. I think I wrote about this long ago. WE have lost our genteelity. We have forgotten how to say sir or ma'am. Open a door for a lady or just hold it for the person coming in or out right behind you.
We like the tawdry. We like the crass. Look at the crap on primetime. We don't want to think about who we're voting for just give us the lowdown and dirt and we'll decide from there which devil is worse than the other.
I don't know if all of America thinks that way. I doubt it. But nmany do and more importantly the pols (especially the Ds) think we do and the media largely think we do.
And many of those that don't these days are too busy trying to figure out how to stay afloat. And so instead of the unprecedented employment crisis taking the stage in this election, who said what and when did they say it at a chicken joint does. Give us a smooch, baby.
Instead of an economy going down the tubes we're talking about ten year old tax returns and THIS from a man who won't release his own.
Instead of what's happening nin Syria or Iran we get soundbites of gaffes.
And if America doesn't wake up stand up and DEMAND better from their leaders, we're not going to get it.
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