This will (hopefully) be a kumbaya post.
My first two entries, The Astonishing Lameness of Barack Obama and The Deadly Folly of Climate Inaction, charged Team Obama with very serious and potentially fatal political blunders over the last year and a half culminating in the demise of a climate bill in the Senate last week.
They were not, shall we say, well received in the Kos community. Some of my favorite comments slamming me were: "The astonishing lameness of this diary." "Are you dating Lindsey Graham?" and "Sarah Palin is that you tweeting again?"
But, getting back to kumbaya, let us consider the question "Are Republicans a danger to democracy?"
Where to begin? I think most of us would probably start with Richard Nixon and his psychotic paranoia, enemies lists, domestic spying, dirty tricks, break-ins, cover ups, and his devotion to a race-baiting Southern Strategy.
Oh, the good old days for the Grand Old Party. How quant Nixon seems today.
A decade later, Ronald Reagan normalized some of these basic political strategies and tactics and sprinkled in his own flavors of Iran-Contra, BCCI, October Surprise, perception management, contra drug trafficking, assasination manuals, El Mozote, and propping up brutal dictators around the world from Pinochet to Noriega to Marcos to Saddam.
Bush Sr gave us Lee Atwater and Willie Horton and a strange illegal but short-lived war in Panama. He also tried to steal the 1992 election by breaking into Clinton's State Department files and portraying Clinton as a communist sympathizer who tried to renounce his American citizenship. Thankfully, that October Surprise blew up in the GOP's face when it was revealed that the only proof of such outrageous claims were staple holes in Clinton's passport file. That's right, America. In GOP Land, Staple holes = renouncing your citizenship.
What fun the Clinton years were. Man, that was a blast. You had Vince Foster's "murder." The cocaine trade "personally overseen" by Gov. Clinton in Mena, Arkansas. You had the Arkansas Project, accusations of rape, the Whitewater nonsense... All of which of course culminated in the impeachment of a president for lying about sex. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We know the Constitution says you can only impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors. But, we're going to include covering up a consensual sexual relationship just for kicks. And, what the hell, let's waste millions of dollars and countless months dragging the country through all that.
Oh, dang, the votes weren't there to remove President Clinton from office -- there's that pesky Senate. But, not to worry, we'll make all of this the centerpiece of Junior's campaign and we'll promise to "restore the honor and dignity to the White House."
Bush Jr -- it just gets better, doesn't it? From stealing the 2000 election to attacking Max Cleland to running on the spurious charge that "Democrats aren't interested in the security of the American people" to outing a CIA agent to domestic spying and torture and mushroom clouds and the Patriot Act to Abu Grhaib and Bagram and Guantanamo and black sites and rendition. Lying us into a war in Iraq, a country that never attacked us, never threatened to attack us, never had the basic capability to attack us, never even really had any interest in attacking us. Lying about pre-9/11 warnings. Lying about who attacked us on 9/11. Lying about tax cuts for the rich. Lying about deficits and budgets and the costs of the prescription drug bill. Lying about climate science. Letting oil companies draft our energy policy. Letting lobbyists run rampant under the K St Project. Letting Wall St get completely out of hand. Letting Interior Department regulators get high with, sleep with, draft the permits with the folks they were supposed to be regulating. Letting Brownie do a heckuva job. Letting Kenny Boy run California's energy economy into the ditch. Letting the overall American economy fall completely apart.
Thank you W.
And now, for our final event, introducing Fox News/Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachman/Andrew Breitbart/Freedom Works/Energy Citizens/America's Power/Ron Paul/Sharron Angle/the Tea Party/the birthers/the death panels/the unanimous opposition to everything Obama's trying to do/the "You Lie!" Joe Wilson/the "Baby Killer" Randy Neugebauer/The Family/C St House/the RNC strip club tab/the warning from John Boehner (of all people) to stop getting wasted with attractive female lobbyists/and more, so much more!
I think you know your party has lost it when it opposes a $787 billion stimulus bill that saved 2 million jobs and kept the economy from falling into a Great Depression on the grounds that it contributes to the deficit. But then that same party turns around and supports extending deficit-driving tax cuts for millionaires for about the same price tag on the ground that you shouldn't raise taxes in a recession. Only to demand that we find a way to pay for a few billion dollars in unemployment benefits. Come again?
And then you apologize to BP for the mean government forcing them to pay for the environmental damages of the Gulf disaster. Okay.
And you tacitly and not so tacitly give a wink and a nod to political violence by celebrating the right of radical right wingers to attend political rallies packing heat and you encourage these protesters to be "armed and dangerous" in opposing the Obama agenda. Yikes!
And you oppose health care reform because you claim it's a government take over of the health industry even though there is no public option and the centerpiece of the reform package is a private insurance exchange first promoted by Republicans. Uh-huh.
And you oppose an economy-wide, market-based cap-and-trade system because it's too big, only to oppose a much more limited utilities first cap because it unfairly lets the rest of the economy off the hook. And you call for more nuclear energy and offshore drilling only to continue to oppose a comprehensive approach that would deliver more nuclear and drilling. And you say we should invest government subsidies in clean energy technologies... only you oppose government spending. But then you turn around and support tens of billions in tax breaks for Big Oil and King Coal. Hmmmm.
And you oppose repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell because the military opposes it, but when the military opens the door for repeal, you still oppose it in spite of the new position of the military. What???
And you oppose comprehensive immigration reform because we need to crack down on the border first and you still oppose comprehensive reform even when it cracks down on the border first. Interesting
And you support a bipartisan deficit commission until Obama supports it and then for no coherent reason you oppose the same commission plan you just cosponsored. Puhleeze.
When you have a major political party that has lost its mind and has engaged for so long in such schizophrenic behavior and sinister dirty tricks to manipulate and agitate the public, this is a very serious danger to democracy.
It retards the ability of the general public to rationally debate the major issues of our time. And it robs America of balanced, bipartisan policy-making where legitimate differences are discussed and worked out.
These are some crazy times and being a Republican today seems to give you a license to be as crazy as you want to be. And it seems to just keep getting crazier and crazier.
I'd like to close with the lyrics for Glen Hansard's "Lies" from the wonderfully romantic movie Once, which mean something a bit different in this context:
I think it's time, we give it up
And figure out what's stopping us
From breathing easy, and talking straight
The way is clear if you're ready now
The volunteer is slowing down
And taking time to save himself
The little cracks they escalated
And before we knew it was too late
For making circles and telling lies
You're moving too fast for me
And I can't keep up with you
Maybe if you slowed down for me
I could see you're only telling
Lies, lies, lies
Breaking us down with your
Lies, lies, lies
When will you learn
The little cracks they escalated
And before you know it is too late
For making circles and telling lies
You're moving too fast for me
And I can't keep up with you
Maybe if you'd slowed down for me
I could see you're only telling
Lies, lies, lies
Breaking us down with your
Lies, lies, lies
When will you learn
So plant the thought and watch it grow
Wind it up and let it go