Seriously and no snark. I just can't get all hopped up on sending out mental zap rays on people just because they're a member of this our that political party. We well know that no political movement has a monopoly on virtue or is free from vice or corruption.
Lately I've been blogging over on the National Review of all places -- it's rather more authoritarian (no diaries unless you are of the anointed, moderated comments) than here. I use the same nom de blog as here. Some people are reasonable over there, but there are many for whom "liberal" means "Satan", and various degrees of secessionists roam about. I see them refer to Democrats, liberals and "the Left" as "the enemy", and they mean it, or at least appear to.
But I don't think we need to return the favor. People can be wrong, stupid, corrupt fools, but not the enemy. So in that spirit, I'll name some of the Republicans I like.
* John Boehner. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this guy is just a hoot. I think he genuinely likes the President also. Oh sure, he tells whopper after whopper, but it's in a way that is something like he doesn't expect you to believe him, but he's just doing his job here! Can you imagine having to deal with the wingnuts in his caucus every day?
* Michael Steele. This guy is a political professional who's got a lot of interesting things to say, and he does it without trying to provoke or belittle people. I've seen him a lot on Rachel's show, and I think they get along well, and that's good. I like moxie, and Steele has it -- remember when he ran for Senate in Maryland as a Republican and had signs printed up which said "Democrat Mike Steele" -- gotta love that.
* Eric Cantor. Okay, the guy is an obsequious toady, the carbuncle on the backside of the Republican warthog, the Grover Dill to Grover Norquist's Scut Farkus. But, like Boehner, he seems refreshingly free of any sort of genuine belief in any sort of the rubbish that he's got to spout, and of course is interested in power only.
That's better IMHO than the sort of mechanical ("Let 'em die") cruelty that one sees at least in the followers of Rand Paul and his homunculus father, if not those two individuals themselves.
It's also kind of endearingly pathetic how Cantor is trying to ham up a southern accent in an effort to seem like some kind of good old boy. I mean, who hasn't done stupid things to seem cool?
I don't think Cantor would actually start chewing tobacco and driving around in the General Lee, which is more like that idjet Senator "Macaca" Allen, a carpet-bagger from Southern California and Confederate flag lover.
Newt Gingrich What, you like that self-besotted buffoon? Well, yes, he's that. But what's not to love about a guy who campaigns on a moonbase and wants nine year olds to be janitors? He's been running for president for the last 126 years, and he's a grifter's grifter. But he has a weirdly inventive mind, and I have to say, I find that he always has something interesting to say, unlike Romney, who almost never had anything to say.
So while I don't agree with much or most of what these folks have to say, and I've identified a few of the many ways they've been wrong, bull-headed corrupt or just plain dorky, I still feel that I can regard them with some amity.
Let's not be surrendering our core beliefs, but let's recognize, as I stated, that being wrong, as our political opponents often are, is part of the human condition. And we're not immune either.