This is an article I wrote for the JHU newsletter for this week. Like with all of my articles, much of the info is from DKos and NYTimes, so none of this information should be news to anyone here. I'm just asking for feedback. Grammar, misquotes, jokes that fell horribly flat - constructive criticism is both welcome and desired (and if something outright sucks, please say so). My main concerns are:
Should I change the names of the CDs being bundled with 'Michelle Bachmann's Great Hits'?
Is there any paragraph that you think is unnecessary/any two that could be condensed to one? It should be 800-850 words, and I have almost 1,000.
Is the overall point of the essay (the Repubs are being spoken for by loons and need to find a new voice) well articulated, or is it lost in the nonsense?
If there's anything that isn't clearly explained, any points made without sufficient evidence to support them - please tell me!!
Thanks for all your helps guys - so far I've gotten great feedback on my previous articles, I always appreciate it!
The Republican Party is a Farce
The New York Times recently printed an article about Ezekial Emmanuel and his contribution to the current health care debate. Citing criticism he’s received from the conservative opposition, the Times dropped four specific names: Palin, Bachmann, McCaughey, and LaRouche. To quote James Fallows, "Was Zsa Zsa Gabor not available?"
There are a few key conservative names that anyone following politics is accustomed to hearing. Besides Palin, Bachmann, and McCaughey, we get barraged with the rants of Rush Limbaugh and the tears of Glenn Beck; we laugh at the slips from Michael Steele and the lies from Dick Cheney; and those familiar with the ‘gang of six’ can’t help but scratch their heads at the purpose of Chuck Grassley in the health care debate.
No one will deny that the Republican Party has yet to find its leader. But who are these lunatics that it allows to stand in front of a microphone and shovel garbage into the minds of the American people? And why hasn’t anyone denounced their nonsense?
Much of Fox’s new reality show, "When Republicans go Totally Out of Control", started with a simple piece of documentation. ‘Birthers’ wasted an extensive amount of the 24 hour news broadcast over the course of the summer (if you can call anything that MSNBC, CNN, and FNC broadcast ‘not waste’), thankfully fizzling into obscurity once they were able to peddle the ‘death panel’ nonsense to their dinner guests. But can anyone forget the sobering figure that was released from a Research 2000 poll in late July? A whole 58% of self-identified Republicans answered ‘no/not sure’ to the question ‘do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States?’ Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. LLC Inc. filed a suit on behalf of an American soldier, Stefan Cook, who refused to take orders from his commander in chief because he "isn’t eligible to be President". I’m pretty sure that people with the intelligence of Mr. Cook shouldn’t be eligible to represent my country in wartime.
Once the health care debate began, however, the headless chickens on the right found an entirely new falling sky to ruffle their feathers over. Betsy "Read Between the Lines" McCaughey, former Lt. Governor of New York, began the entire ‘death panel’ debacle, but it was Sarah "Whiners Never Quit, but Quitters Always Whine" Palin that spread it en masse through her Facebook account. (Originally created as a social network for Ivy League schools, Facebook has shown an apparent decline in repute when Sarah Palin can effectively use it as a podium.) Despite being nothing more than outright fabrication, ‘death panels’ have spread through the health care debate like wildfire, reaching so deep into the sentiments of the lesser-informed that the house actually removed the section in question from their bill. Several weeks ago, Grassley himself dove head first into the fray and propagated the myth at a town hall in Iowa. Anyone with stock in health care reform should be disheartened by the fact that the future of responsible health insurance is being shaped by unsubstantiated lies.
Of course, I’d be doing everyone a great disservice if I forgot the wingiest nut atop the hill: Michelle Bachmann. Not willing to be outdone by Jim Jones himself, Bachmann called her followers to "slit their wrists" and become "blood brothers" in the fight against health care. I wish I were making this up, but sadly no amount of psychedelics could drive any rational person to utter the suicidal ‘call to arms’ that Bachmann considers part of her job. This is the woman who called fluorescent lighting a "massive Big Brother intrusion into our homes", blamed the economic meltdown on "blacks and other minorities entering the middle class", and rallied the residents of Minnesota to get "armed and dangerous" for Obama’s environmental reform, quoting Thomas Jefferson in saying that "having a revolution every now and then is a good thing." I can only scratch the surface of her madness in this piece, but I strongly recommend that someone compile a CD of ‘Michelle Bachmann’s Greatest Hits’ and bundle it with "Condescending to Black People" by Michael Steele and "This IS My 6-inch Voice" by Chris Matthews. Look for it on iTunes this November.
Honestly, I could write a novel on the ramblings of such Republican figureheads as Palin and Bachmann, the sheer fabrications of Beck and Limbaugh, or the harsh hypocrisy of Sanford and Ensign, but I’m unfortunately limited to a mere 800 words (and Al Franken already beat me to the punch multiple times). The fact is the Republican Party needs some serious renewal. No longer should one of the major political parties in this country be represented by religious zealots convinced that the end times are more important than the present times; no longer should this party be spoken for by demagogues who simultaneously instill immense fear while calling upon violent and revolutionary imagery; no longer should this party be catering to parents who send their children to the first day of school with aluminum foil hats to protect them from socialist indoctrination (okay, I made that one up).
The Republican Party has given us some of the most effective and venerable politicians in our nation’s history (sorry guys, but Reagan wasn’t one of them). Once the party of personal responsibility, civil liberties, and fiscal conservatism, it has now become the voice for fascist religious fanatics and greedy corporate CEOs. But there is still time for – dare I say it? – change within the party. Strong moderate voices such as John McCain and Olympia Snowe should be placed front and center, while demagogues and gaffe-machines like Bachmann, Palin and Steele get pushed into the shadows. The 2008 Republican Presidential ticket was strong and respectable until someone found Alaska on their map. Why must such a great party continue to shoot itself in the foot?