The Ice Flow

Kathleen Parker today has an opine piece on “easing the death panel” fears. She calls out Palin for her comments that are “made for tabloids” and then goes on to explain that because of this “hyperbole” we “risk overlooking troublesome language in the end-of-life section of the House health bill, a.k.a. Section 1233 of H.R. 3200.” Precisely what this “troublesome language” is never made quite clear, because she never actually quotes from the bill, rather she interprets it, and in so doing, gives credence to the extreme position by landing somewhere in the middle between reality and insanity. This demonstrates the problem with the media’s constant creation of the perception that both sides are always valid and the truth is in the middle. If one sides distorts the truth to ludicrous proportions, then the “middle” can be completely out of balance. Such is the case in Parker’s piece.

She creates for us the artificial argument of how we, as a society need to balance the needs of the patient with the needs of society in an age where we can be kept alive artificially, longer, and expensively. The problem here is in the premise that this has something to do with the bill, and without this premise everything else falls flat. The bill has nothing to do with that. The bill is not trying to reconcile the needs of society with the needs of the patient. It is not dealing with those eventualities of end of life care. It is dealing with how to pay for the counseling long before end of life care becomes an issue. All the bill is allowing for is the patient the opportunity to be the exclusive person that determines what happens to him or her in a situation where they are in a situation where death is inevitable at a time when they are able to do so. Again, let me repeat this, the bill is about paying for end of life counseling, it is not receiving end of life care. All the confusion about this bill are a direct result of conflating these two entirely separate things.

These other “vague” issues that aren’t discussed in the bill aren’t discussed for the same reason that ice cream isn’t discussed, they don’t have anything to do with the bill. She’s asking, quite literally, why things that have nothing to do with the bill are not in the bill. There are no vast, unspecified powers left to the Secretary as she implies. Essentially the powers addressed to the secretary are specifically enumerated and really boil down to determining who is qualified to be a counselor for end of life care, who can serve as a proxy in emergency situations, and what constitutes a hospice. In short there’s absolutely nothing in the bill that implies, or that can be inferred to mean that the government in any way, shape or form can overturn a decision made by an individual.

Parker then goes on to “elucidate” that, “It would be nice to think that everything goes as patients intend, but we can safely assume that when human error collides with bureaucratic efficiency, nightmarish enforcement scenarios could ensue. Likelihoods morph into certainties when, as this bill sets out, primary-care physicians aren’t necessarily involved in the consultations. As proposed, a variety of health-care practitioners would do.” So allow me to elucidate her “elucidation.” We can safely assume that because of bureaucrats a nightmarish scenario will certainly ensue because health care practitioners aren’t involved in the decision making process. So what we’ve got now is the logical equivalent of a death panel, just dressed up in prettier language. The problem though is that her possibility that turns to inevitability isn’t even a possibility. It’s all built on the false premise that what this legislation is about is the balance of social needs versus personal needs. All this legislation does is allow people the opportunity to legally say, when they are able to, what should happen to them. Period. There’s nothing, no hint that “bureaucrats” can override your decision. The variety of health care practitioners are just that, health care practitioners. And they are counseling you on end of life services, not making determinations for you, and certainly not overriding decisions made by you.

Building upon her now wholly fallacious argument Parker goes on to add outright law to fallacy. “Not least, the bill is an enabling document that leaves great discretion to the secretary of health and human services to develop guidelines that ultimately could change the character of what seems to be offered.” Where does it say that? Nowhere. One has to wonder, if this is the case, why haven’t you quoted from the actual bill anywhere in your piece? She then goes on to suggest that if patients don’t participate in end of life consultations there could be penalties attached! This is complete fiction! There’s nothing to suggest that anywhere in the bill.

She finally concludes that everything would be settled if there were simply language indicating that it was not mandatory. What Parker doesn’t acknowledge though is that there is nothing in the bill that says it is mandatory. In fact the bill only says that end of life consultations will be paid for, not mandated. There’s nothing in the language that even remotely suggests that this is mandatory. The great irony of this debate is that the intention of the bill is the exact opposite of what it’s being portrayed as. The intent is simple, you, and you alone should be able to make the decision about what happens to you. It is fair and reasonable that you should be able to have a discussion with a physician in reaching this decision, and that discussion is going to cost money. All this bill does is say that discussion is going to get paid for. All it does is say that not having the money shouldn’t preclude you from being able to make this decision. It is patently wrong to describe it as anything else, or to suggest that nefarious forces, or well meaning, but ill fated forces are going to result in your early demise against your wishes. So, Kathleen Parker, you can dress it up in prettier language, but your argument is built on the same premise, and it remains just as much hyperbole as the argument you condemn.

Posted by TIF Staff at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

There are two kinds of blogs. The first is blogging to an event which happened. It’s isolated and about that one thing. The other is more of a commentary, and sometimes these brew for a very long time until a certain confluence of events causes it to rise to the surface and spill itself out into an entry. There’s been a blog brewing in me since I started blogging and that has to do with the whole notion of “balance” in political reporting, how this is different from intellectual honesty, and how much and how desperately we need much less of the former, and much more of the latter.

The way that political reporting is done now is that there are two talking heads that come on, one representing the “Republican” side and the other representing the “Democratic” side of things. Ergo everything that happens is seen in this prism. Objectivity then becomes defined as what lies in the middle, what is in between those two sentiments. Truth is not the goal, the center is. If we are searching for intellectual honesty though, truth matters, not the middle because truth and the middle might not always be the same. Much concerning the events of Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin in recent days demonstrate the difference here.

With Sarah Palin the “balanced” story that is beginning to take shape is that she was harangued by a host of meritless ethics charges that forced her to spend so much money on defending herself that she simply had to step down as governor in order to go on speaking engagements that would allow her to make the money to pay her legal bills. This has the semblance of neutrality in appearance, diminishing her fault in quitting. It also amplifies the effect of some of the more frivolous ethics charges. Additionally it lets slide a certain suggestion that the ethics charges and investigations are all the fault of the Democrats. Finally, by extension it provides that all of the “attacks” on Palin are unfair. Palin is being rendered a victim who is being forced into doing the only thing that she can.

As to the ethics charges the fact is that the laws are the reason that she has had so many of them filed against her. Certainly the majority of them are frivolous—and cheap to defend. I don’t know exactly how she’s spending her money on her legal team, but I don’t think that wearing the Arctic Cat logo is what cost her half a million dollars. The major allegation for which she has been investigated and not cleared of is the Troopergate scandal, where she was found guilty of breaking the law to unduly use her position to get a man fired for personal reasons. She launched her own investigation of herself and surprise, found herself innocent but she didn’t need to spend money to defend herself against her own investigation. So here’s the bottom line on this and the line that you aren’t getting from the mainstream media, the ethics violation she spent the majority of that money defending herself against was true! There’s no “balance” there, no middle ground, only truth. The truth is she acted unethically, got investigated for it and convicted for it, and now she has to pay for it. That’s the intellectually honest position here. It might be “biased” in the sense that it paints her in a bad light, but truth and bias can go together.

Furthermore the “unbiased” version has the media “unfairly attacking” her. Precisely which “attack” is “unfair” is hard to say. Often Katie Couric’s “hard-hitting” interview is cited as an example. Again though, we have to distinguish between truth and intellectual honesty here. One of the favorite tactics of the right is to question, “What if Obama….” Well, let me poise this question then, “What if Obama weren’t able to cite a single Supreme Court case other than Roe vs. Wade?” Would the Republican talking heads be all over that? (Being fair to Katie Couric, her question wasn’t “Can you name another Supreme Court case, it was “What other (than Roe v. Wade) Supreme Cases do you disagree with?” It never occurred to her that Palin wouldn’t be able to name any. She asked the same question to Biden, who answered it). It’s incredible to me that from the conservative crowd Couric took more heat for asking Palin the question than Palin took for not being able to answer it. It wasn’t a “Gotcha!” question, it was a legitimate question, and the outrage over again demonstrates that there is a difference between balanced and honest. Incredibly, the right wing spin machine is encompassing this, and other valid questions regarding her qualifications which arose during the campaign in with the unfair ethics violations. In essence what has become the middle ground is that any and all criticism of Sarah Palin is unfair. The truth is that the vast majority of the criticism of her is valid, but since that validity paints her in a bad light, it’s perceived as bias, and in order to remove the bias the msm has to remove the accusations.

Lest I get carried away with this train of thought though, my point here isn’t that Palin is an unqualified candidate, that she’s unlawfully used her position, or that she has all the curiosity of a 100 year old cat, it’s that there’s a different way of thinking that conservatives and liberals have, and we can see it in the Palin scenario. The conservatives begin with what they believe, then based on their belief, they form a thought process. Finally in order to support that thought process they utilize certain facts. For instance Palin quits. The right wing faithful “believe” that she is right. Therefore they need a thought process to vindicate her quitting. That thought process is that she was being unfairly attacked and she would do a better job of serving if she didn’t have to defend herself against these unfair attacks. Then, in order to qualify their thought process they point to some unfair attacks on Palin, and since some attacks are unfair, they all must be unfair. In their mind the only way to be fair is to be free of bias, even if that bias is steeped in fact.

Liberals on the other hand begin by establishing the fact, then based on the facts they form a thought process, and then based on that they form a belief. So here for instance, they begin with determining things about Sarah Palin. She isn’t able to answer basic questions about civics, she has been found guilty of using her position to get someone fired, and she quit her job Governor of Alaska in the middle of her first term. Putting those facts together (and they are facts) we form a thought process that suggests her interest is not in somehow bettering her state or the nation (as evidenced by a rudimentary knowledge or curiosity in civics) but rather in utilizing her position for gain (as evidenced by her history of doing so). Then based on all of this we form a belief or bias that her quitting is not due to her inability to adequately help her people out and pursue some higher calling as she suggests; rather it is base gain, again as her history suggests. This may be bias, but it is fair bias.

Taken from another perspective look at Obama’s recent trip to New York, and the cost it entailed. The Conservatives began with the belief that it was wrong, then they calculated the cost, and then they determined that Obama wasted that much tax payer money by going to New York. They don’t question their belief structure on this at all to determine whether their questions are fair or not. They don’t ask whether they (or for that matter the Democrats or anyone else) ever questioned Bush for doing similar things, when he took trips to Crawford ranch, or to Maine, or to anywhere else for that matter. They don’t question whether or not a sitting President should take a public airplane to get to New York, without any sort of security detail if he is on personal business, and they don’t question whether a sitting President should ever be allowed to go outside of DC for personal reasons. A new, bizarre and thoughtless standard is raised around a “belief” and only the facts that fit that belief are allowed to be considered.

Recently I was talking with an online friend about Palin quitting and in response he said that Obama had already spent more money than Bush. While this is so blatantly and completely untrue on so many different levels that it’s literally mind boggling that someone could believe it, people believe it. I Googled the argument just to see what would come up and sure enough, there’s all these “projections” of how much money Obama is going to spend verses Bush. How exactly these projections are targeted is beyond me, but somehow I don’t believe they are unbiased. What’s striking though is that these “projections” have turned into “already spent”. Now there’s one detail that is omitted in all of these things. Relatively speaking Obama hasn’t spent that much money, even considering the wars, the auto bailout and the stimulus package. The reason for this is that Obama has yet to pass a budget. The current fiscal budget was passed by Bush, so when I see these charts showing how much money Obama has spent, I note that it’s categorized as money spent “under” Obama. Yes, Obama is President, but that’s not his money he’s spending. Secondly, the higher the deficit goes, the greater the amount of money to pay off the interest on the debt goes. Ergo, Obama has less money to play with than Bush, but that’s on Bush, not Obama. Thirdly, more than 80 percent of the entire debt has come under Reagan or the Bushes. Now the Republicans want to make it out that they are these budget hawks, though they never were while Republicans were President. Again, their belief comes first, and the facts that don’t support their beliefs are not considered.

So then all of this ends up back to this whole middle ground argument, where the less curious voters say, “well you have you your talking points and they have their taking points.” The conclusion then is that since both have talking points, both sides must also have valid points. However, talking points are only valid if they are 1) true and 2) intellectually honest. Very often on the conservative side they are not—not because conservatives are stupid—but because they begin with belief. The ones making the points can either be deliberately deceptive (which I think is the case with the likes of Cheney and Rove) or ignorantly deceptive, such as with Bush and Palin. Either way though it is deceptive. Meanwhile, those like Obama, who go out of their way to be fair, to speak both sides, are portrayed as the other extreme. So the average, moderately informed voter sees that there is even truth and even deception in both sides, although one side is trying to deceive (or has been deceived and is honestly being deceptive) and the other side is trying to be honest. If you take the middle of that then you end up with something is unfair, and though it is midway, it is also biased in the sense that it paints the truth different than what it is, and this in turn has a more favorable representation to the deceiving party than the honest one.

The extreme right is dragging us down a path cloaked in fallacy and dishonesty and the MSM in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle seems eager to appease. Recalling the type of rhetoric that was used in Palin’s speeches, I hope that this gets curbed very soon. There’s only so much half truth the country can take. The media, not the blogosphere needs to be the place that checks the truth and reports it. They need to do so fairly, and without bias, and the best way to do that is to get away from talking heads and interpretations of the news, but to simply just get back to saying what the facts are. The truth may not be “balanced” but it is unbiased.

Posted by TIF Staff at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Two of the biggest things in the news at the moment offer an intriguing perspective on the Republican Party. First as Obama has nominated for his first Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor the debate heats up over whether she is going to "legislate from the bench" we all know the real debate is whether she is going to be judging based on a particular segments religious beliefs and that it has nothing to do with legislating or the constitution. Second there’s been a great deal of conversation about the subject of waterboarding lately and whether or not that constitutes "torture, a practice advocated by the same folks who oppose, or will oppose the nomination of Sotomayor based on their religious beliefs.." It surprises this blogger that no one points out the inherent conflict in these two positions. On the one hand they trumpet their opposition to things like abortion and gay marriage based on their biblical beliefs; on the other they ignore other biblical charges such as "love your enemies" as the advocate for torturing their enemies instead. One has to wonder, as they put on their WWJD bracelets if they’ve ever asked themselves the fundamental question, "Would Jesus "do" waterboarding? "

Normally on my blog I like to gather the facts and just present an argument, here though the discussion is not so much about facts, as it is an observation. The facts themselves are relatively self evident so I won’t spend a lot of time establishing them, I’ll just state them. The Christian right is set on seeing their values established on the entire nation, and perhaps even the entire world. Have you ever noticed though that the things they are always pushing tend to have more to do with regulating other people’s conduct more than their own? They want to make sure that other people follow their principles. Whether its abortion, abstinence only education, outlawing gay marriage or civil unions, or what kind of books we’re allowed to have in public libraries, they seem far more concerned with what other people do wrong than what they do or advocate doing that is wrong.

Now I want it to be understood, I agree with them morally on most of these issues, but I disagree that my private beliefs are somehow of enough more importance than anyone else’s that it means that they should be legislated. I am a Christian, and a very sincere one at that. I find it interesting when people have questioned the validity of my faith based on my disagreement with them on the political front, as it demonstrates to me that in doing so how much the conflation damages the perception of what the Christian faith actually is. It’s a faith which is established not on the premise that we need to impose our morals on others, but rather that we, having sin, are in need of salvation. I bring this up because it begs the question, why would people whose entire belief structure is based on the notion that they can’t keep a certain moral code want to legislate it on those who don’t even have the same belief structure. It’s hypocrisy of the highest order!

Then there’s a second hypocrisy, which is the hypocrisy of the non-biblical things they advocate for. First there’s the matter of taxes. Jesus was literally asked the question, "Should we pay our taxes." He wisely replied, "Do you have a coin?" When shown a coin, he asked again, "Whose picture is on the coin?" The answer was, "Caesar’s." Jesus then said, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s." In other words, if you’re going to use the money (and all the other things that the government provides) then pay the taxes that make that happen. The anti-tax position of the Republican Party is anti-biblical. How their tax money is spent is similarly umbilical. The Biblical charge to "remember the poor (Gal. 2:9) is unambiguous yet the Republican Party seems to do a better job of remembering to blame the poor for being poor. There are a host of biblical charges which suggest that at least 1/7 the of a property owner’s income was to go to the poor in fact. There was for instance, a Sabbath year every seven years . During those years the farmer was supposed to let that land and whatever grew from it was to be left for the poor, the stranger and the animals. On top of that when harvesting his crops anything that fell to the ground was to be left for the poor. Putting these two things together God intended that more than 1/7^th of our wealth be set aside strictly for the care of the poor. The hypocrisy is seen again.

Their position on gun control and the corresponding argument is also umbilical. Jesus said, "If someone asks for you cloak, give him your tunic also." Then two sentences later he said, "It has been said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you , love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." One has to assume that Jesus’ reaction to having someone rob him would not be to pull out a gun and put a cap in the offender’s head, but rather it would be to ask, "Is there anything else I can get for you." One also has to inquire as to what His position might be on waterboarding with the above passage in mind. Would Jesus hold down a person suspected of terrorism and pour water down his throat making him fear for his life? Again the hypocrisy is evident. .

Nowhere does the New Testament ever advocate a Christian government but it does demonstrate that the life of a Christian is a result of Christ’s inward governing. If one accepts Biblical theology then one has to recognize that without Christ the Christian life is impossible, yet the Republican Party would like to legislate their version of Christian living. It begs the question, why then are the Christian right so set on imposing these laws. Right wing theology is not about being "Christian" it’s about being selfish, even to the point of making it illegal to offend them. One of my personal favorite passages in the Bible is from Philippians where Paul says, "Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ who…humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross." The mind of the Christian then is to be selfless, not selfish. It is humility, not pride. That’s not to say that the Christian way is to surrender his own moral character or beliefs; rather it is to say that there are things more important and more relevant to being a Christian than forcing moral beliefs down other people’s throats.

When one considers the Republican perspective on virtually anything a pattern starts to emerge. Whenever it concerns someone else being inconvenienced or imposed upon the Republican view is very pro government. Whenever it comes to themselves being inconvenienced or imposed upon then it suddenly comes anti government. At one point Jesus asked, "Hypocrites! Why do you point to the splinter in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own?" The Republican platform is full enough of unbiblical and unrighteous views, yet the Christian right is selective in failing to notice those things. They need to start working on their own set of flaws before they start worrying about everyone else’s if they’re really worried about "What Jesus would do."

Posted by TIF Staff at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Two of the biggest things in the news at the moment offer an intriguing perspective on the Republican Party. First as Obama has nominated for his first Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor the debate heats up over whether she is going to "legislate from the bench" we all know the real debate is whether she is going to be judging based on a particular segments religious beliefs and that it has nothing to do with legislating or the constitution. Second there’s been a great deal of conversation about the subject of waterboarding lately and whether or not that constitutes "torture, a practice advocated by the same folks who oppose, or will oppose the nomination of Sotomayor based on their religious beliefs.." It surprises this blogger that no one points out the inherent conflict in these two positions. On the one hand they trumpet their opposition to things like abortion and gay marriage based on their biblical beliefs; on the other they ignore other biblical charges such as "love your enemies" as the advocate for torturing their enemies instead. One has to wonder, as they put on their WWJD bracelets if they’ve ever asked themselves the fundamental question, "Would Jesus "do" waterboarding? "

Normally on my blog I like to gather the facts and just present an argument, here though the discussion is not so much about facts, as it is an observation. The facts themselves are relatively self evident so I won’t spend a lot of time establishing them, I’ll just state them. The Christian right is set on seeing their values established on the entire nation, and perhaps even the entire world. Have you ever noticed though that the things they are always pushing tend to have more to do with regulating other people’s conduct more than their own? They want to make sure that other people follow their principles. Whether its abortion, abstinence only education, outlawing gay marriage or civil unions, or what kind of books we’re allowed to have in public libraries, they seem far more concerned with what other people do wrong than what they do or advocate doing that is wrong.

Now I want it to be understood, I agree with them morally on most of these issues, but I disagree that my private beliefs are somehow of enough more importance than anyone else’s that it means that they should be legislated. I am a Christian, and a very sincere one at that. I find it interesting when people have questioned the validity of my faith based on my disagreement with them on the political front, as it demonstrates to me that in doing so how much the conflation damages the perception of what the Christian faith actually is. It’s a faith which is established not on the premise that we need to impose our morals on others, but rather that we, having sin, are in need of salvation. I bring this up because it begs the question, why would people whose entire belief structure is based on the notion that they can’t keep a certain moral code want to legislate it on those who don’t even have the same belief structure. It’s hypocrisy of the highest order!

Then there’s a second hypocrisy, which is the hypocrisy of the non-biblical things they advocate for. First there’s the matter of taxes. Jesus was literally asked the question, "Should we pay our taxes." He wisely replied, "Do you have a coin?" When shown a coin, he asked again, "Whose picture is on the coin?" The answer was, "Caesar’s." Jesus then said, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s." In other words, if you’re going to use the money (and all the other things that the government provides) then pay the taxes that make that happen. The anti-tax position of the Republican Party is anti-biblical. How their tax money is spent is similarly umbilical. The Biblical charge to "remember the poor (Gal. 2:9) is unambiguous yet the Republican Party seems to do a better job of remembering to blame the poor for being poor. There are a host of biblical charges which suggest that at least 1/7 the of a property owner’s income was to go to the poor in fact. There was for instance, a Sabbath year every seven years . During those years the farmer was supposed to let that land and whatever grew from it was to be left for the poor, the stranger and the animals. On top of that when harvesting his crops anything that fell to the ground was to be left for the poor. Putting these two things together God intended that more than 1/7^th of our wealth be set aside strictly for the care of the poor. The hypocrisy is seen again.

Their position on gun control and the corresponding argument is also umbilical. Jesus said, "If someone asks for you cloak, give him your tunic also." Then two sentences later he said, "It has been said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you , love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." One has to assume that Jesus’ reaction to having someone rob him would not be to pull out a gun and put a cap in the offender’s head, but rather it would be to ask, "Is there anything else I can get for you." One also has to inquire as to what His position might be on waterboarding with the above passage in mind. Would Jesus hold down a person suspected of terrorism and pour water down his throat making him fear for his life? Again the hypocrisy is evident. .

Nowhere does the New Testament ever advocate a Christian government but it does demonstrate that the life of a Christian is a result of Christ’s inward governing. If one accepts Biblical theology then one has to recognize that without Christ the Christian life is impossible, yet the Republican Party would like to legislate their version of Christian living. It begs the question, why then are the Christian right so set on imposing these laws. Right wing theology is not about being "Christian" it’s about being selfish, even to the point of making it illegal to offend them. One of my personal favorite passages in the Bible is from Philippians where Paul says, "Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ who…humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross." The mind of the Christian then is to be selfless, not selfish. It is humility, not pride. That’s not to say that the Christian way is to surrender his own moral character or beliefs; rather it is to say that there are things more important and more relevant to being a Christian than forcing moral beliefs down other people’s throats.

When one considers the Republican perspective on virtually anything a pattern starts to emerge. Whenever it concerns someone else being inconvenienced or imposed upon the Republican view is very pro government. Whenever it comes to themselves being inconvenienced or imposed upon then it suddenly comes anti government. At one point Jesus asked, "Hypocrites! Why do you point to the splinter in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own?" The Republican platform is full enough of unbiblical and unrighteous views, yet the Christian right is selective in failing to notice those things. They need to start working on their own set of flaws before they start worrying about everyone else’s if they’re really worried about "What Jesus would do."

Posted by TIF Staff at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

By Kelly Scaletta

The morning after the election I watched, dumbfounded, as Joe Scarborough insisted that this election is not a mandate, that America is “still a center-right country.” The rhetoric followed and then for a while that’s all you heard from the right-wing media machine. They insisted, they spun, they spat, they sang, they did whatever they could think of with whatever emotions they had to get across this single message, that ideologically the nation still agreed with them, the “liberals” just won because of the economy, which really, wasn’t their fault after all. Six months later the Republicans may be feeling the earth has moved under their feet as the song goes, but in reality, the earth has stayed right where it was the whole time.

There’s been talk about how the Republican Party is on the edge of extinction. I don’t believe so. There are two things Republicans have in common with cockroaches, they both scurry when you shed light and you can’t get rid of either one of them. So Republicans will survive and, sorry to say, they’ll probably be

seated from Minnesota. The Dems could be holding 62 seats before the next election even rolls around, and unless there’s a huge shock coming from the Minnesota Supreme Court, there will be a minimum of 60. Then, when you start looking at the ‘10 elections it’s easy to see things getting worse for the Republicans. Hutchison is going to resign to run for Texas governor. Her vacated seat could be won by Houston mayor, Democrat Bill White. Richard Burr’s seat in North Carolina could be lost; his seat has flipped parties five consecutive elections. Vitter’s seat in Louisiana is not secure by any stretch. Murkowski in Alaska, Bunning in Kentucky and Thune in South Dakota are all in trouble. Finally there’s the open seat in Florida which the Dems have a real chance of picking up. So what are the Republicans doing to protect these seats? They’re digging into their most odious rhetoric and pushing away anyone who might trend closer to the center. In a sense Specter’s move really is indicative of this. The Party moved, not Specter, and one day he looked up and found out he was a Democrat again. Consider the facts.

• The Republicans didn’t cast a single vote for the stimulus bill. It was a pretty bold move by Obama. The Dems had won the house by a large enough majority that he could have stiff armed the Republican Party. Instead he sat down and talked to them about the stimulus bill. He even conceded to them their two biggest concerns. What did he get in return? Not a single vote and a lot of complaining about Pelosi and partisanship. Most Americans looked at that scene and got disgusted. To them it looked like Obama offered a gracious hand and the Republicans bit at it like yakking dogs. Republicans seem to forget that “bi” in “bipartisan” is for two. That means both parties have to give a little. It was clear from that little display that Obama and the Democrats were willing to go that far when they didn’t have to while the Republicans seemed petty and small minded. Even more incredulous was their defense about spending too much money, while most of them had cast votes time and time again for record setting Bush budgets. Once again, Obama looked the moderate and they looked extreme.
• They’ve been hammering Obama on Guantanamo, torture and the trials. They’ve been suggesting, implying and at times outright stating that Obama’s plan is to set hardened terrorists running about freely in the US, even on the government dime because he’s decided that even accused terrorists have basic human rights, and should have, for instance the right to a trial to determine if they are terrorists before they are treated like one. He’s not closing Gitmo to free terrorists, he’s just determined that it isn’t necessary to have Gitmo in order to try them. They actually have the right to know what they are accused of and who is accusing them, little things like that. Here’s the thing about that though. He’s also annoying a lot of the liberals by not releasing more photos because they could be inflammatory, putting troops in danger. He’s geared things up in Afghanistan, he issued the kill order on the Somali pirates. He’s not backing down, he’s been strong and Presidential, but he hasn’t been extreme, to either one side or the other. What the Republicans aren’t getting here is that Obama is the moderate and when you call a moderate extreme, it makes you look extreme.

• Literally, not hours after Obama gave a well received speech at Notre Dame calling for Americans to not demonize one another over the abortion/choice debate, Alan Keyes was on national TV (ok Fox News) calling Obama evil. Do you need to say anything else about who looks like the moderate and who looks like the extremist here? Evil? Really?
• More than two thirds of Minnesotans think it’s time for Coleman to concede. Yet he won’t, and Pawlenty doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to encourage him to do that. He’s playing national politics over state politics, not a popular thing for a governor to do, especially when the national political game he’s playing is to prevent the agenda of the President that his state just overwhelmingly voted for to get through. The fact that two thirds of the voters are saying it’s time for Coleman to step down means that half of Coleman voters think he needs to stop dragging this thing out. Tim Pawlenty should have been a front runner for the ‘12 ticket, and that’s probably why he’s playing the national game . Instead he might not even last as governor. The longer he allows this thing to drag out the more furious the Minnesota voters are going to get. For all their high minded rhetoric about bipartisanship the Republicans are a sniveling group of partisan hacks and moves like this show just how much that’s true. They don’t realize how much this is hurting them. Franken has been uncharacteristically silent about a lot of this. He’s shown restraint, and that shows moderation. Again, the Democrats look moderate while the right wing is being exposed as extreme.
• Even the moderate Republican voices are being muted by the extreme Republican voices. First Michael Steele and now Colin Powell are getting silenced over the likes of Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh might be popular with 10 percent of the nation but the other 90 percent think he’s a right-wing-nut-job-blow-hard. And no, he’s not just an entertainer, you have to be entertaining to be an entertainer. He’s a hate-monger and there’s a willing appetite. The problem is that those who gobble it up are extremists, and deference to extremists makes you look…well, extreme.

The more you look at the post political landscape the more apparent it becomes, the Republican Party isn’t dying it’s moving even further to the right. Specter’s move to the right was necessitated to some degree by the near certain nomination of Patrick Toomey, extremist in the primary. Sarah Palin is being flaunted as the next Presidential candidate in spite of the disaster she presented as a VP candidate. In most of the tough elections they are facing the candidate furthest to the right is probably going to win the primary, and that’s going to make it very hard for them to win in the general election. So why do they keep insisting on pushing this agenda, even though that on virtually every matter—the war, taxes, health care, gun control, marriage or civil unions for gays and choice—Americans don’t agree with them? It’s simple. Because they don’t really get that most Americans don’t agree with them.

They live in a little protected bubble where dissent is not allowed, tolerated or heard. When it is heard you get ousted. Every item of belief is detailed and packaged and sold and if you think, if you don’t agree, you get ousted. Most critically it’s all shrouded in religiosity, and made to be God’s word. To have doubt is to doubt God Himself. To have thought is to rebel against God. It’s even been revealed lately that Rumsfeld was tacking bible verses onto pictures of the war and

us where we are now, the Republican Party has become a cult, and the problem with cults is that the people who are in them never question it’s what they are in, all the way up to Phenobarbital pudding and cyanide Flavor-Aid. Eventually this brand of Republicans, the “neocons” are going to eat the metaphorical pudding and go the way of the dinosaur, but sadly the Republican elephant will continue to roam the earth and one day share it with cockroaches. The earth isn’t moving, it’s just moving on, and fortunately, not too far into the future, without the neoconservatives. That brand of Republican is a thing of the past.

Posted by TIF Staff at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)