There is NOTHING more irritating than a reformed smoker

Poking around Huffington Post, I found this little gem written by Frank Schaeffer. Schaeffer is the son of an (apparently) famous evangelical minister who woke up, dropped out, and lived to tell the tale. Director and author now, he had a few words about the GOP I found interesting given my most recent political post. That is to say that he ponders the post-McCain Republican Party.

Schaeffer doesn't go in for all that flowery talk.

The Republican Party has lost the hearts and minds of reasonable Americans of all faiths and ideologies. Independent voters, young people, black people, Hispanics... the list goes on, and now includes even most white men (like me), most white women, in fact most everybody has left the Republicans. Who stayed? The sorts of people who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with men, that Senator Obama is "a Arab," that President Bush was correct in thinking that it was "God's will" that we go to war with Iraq, that torture of prisoners is OK, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, that the problem with the American economy is what little remains of government regulation of our banking and financial institutions, that freedom equals being allowed to go to gun shows where an eight-year-old is allowed to fire an Uzi submachine gun and shoot himself in the head...

I can't decide if I just like this article because the writing is so powerful or because his thoughts mirror my own. But when I encountered that last sentence, I actually read it twice just so I could enjoy it again. Well, I enjoyed everything but the kid shooting himself in the head. But you know what I mean.

But the Party is in tatters and a period of reflection and rebuilding is in order. Schaeffer has some suggestions.

The choice for the Republicans, in the face of their impending overwhelming defeat, is clear: is the Republican Party going to become the permanent refuge for stupid people or will it change and stop catering to the village idiots?

In becoming a party of rubes, the party of eternal war (and therefore eternal debt!), the party that despises the big cities, hates the universities, says that one part of America is more patriotic than other parts, in fact hates (and fears) anyone not like them or worse yet, is suspicious of anyone smarter or more educated than they are, the Republicans have doomed themselves to be the party of stupid, fearful and close-minded bigots.

I enjoyed the hell out of this article, but I don't know whether I should be honored or afraid for having an insider from the religious fundamentalist movement agree with me.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Some more interesting tidbits from Schaeffer. He talks about his father's treasonous statements from the pulpit that make Jeremiah Wright look not so bad after all. And I don't know how I missed this, but he wrote an open letter to McCain and Palin about inciting their rally participants to violence.

What's Up with the Republican Party?

Are they just having a group meltdown or something? After failing to get behind Sunday's bailout plan, some members of the House leadership blamed the failure of the bill on a harsh, but hardly over-the-top speechlet by Nancy Pelosi on the House floor. After the failure, the coward Republicans jumped on her like white on rice and said that her speech caused otherwise supportive representatives to vote against the bill--the same bill that everyone seems to agree is necessary to keep America from plunging into a deep and lasting economic recession.

This is an obvious and blatant lie. Congresspersons don't have feelings. Well, at least not in the performance of their jobs. If they did, they would never have been able to say the things, point the fingers and compromise in the way that politics demands. And as Barney Frank aptly put:

Frank: “We don’t believe they had the votes and I think they are covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this: somebody hurt my feelings so I will punish the country. I mean that’s hardly plausible. And there were twelve Republicans who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America but not if anybody insulted them. I’ll make an offer: Give me those twelve people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”

My question is: what the heck is going on with the Republicans? After ruling Congress for 20 years with an unstoppable coalition, they have fallen apart and it's every man for himself. Is it GWB's low approval? Is it that their positions aren't resonating with the majority of Americans anymore? Is it that they are showing themselves to be the self-serving slime that most politicians are? Even then, party leadership can usually hold things together over the short-term to act in everyone's best interest....or at least the best interest of the party.

I can't imagine that if the economy tanks the Dems are going to be the one's left holding the bag. Can these guys not see beyond next week, or is November the only thing that matters to them? Sadly, I suspect the latter.