I know the some Repluplican elected officials, certain talk radio hosts, various right leaning political pundits, some oh-so polite left leaning members of the media (Willie Geist) feel its time for Cliven Bundy to become a non-story. I get it. He is a proven racist and perhaps giving a racist a megaphone is a (to quote CNN) "bad thing". But in my mind this story is just getting started, in fact the real story has blossomed if only the main stream media and frankly the left will have the temerity to continue digging into what this story is really all about.
This Cliven Bundy story is a story of a political party that is a haven for racists and the leadership of the Republican party has refused to take responsibility for the bad actors within it's ranks. This is not to say that all Republicans are racists but it is to say that most all Republicans are aware that many racists inhabit their party and I have yet to see a credible leader of the GOP with ambition for higher office shame the party for allowing these rank people to hide in plain sight amongst them.
Also, isn't the fact that this Cliven Bundy was every embraced by GOP leadership the real story? Isn't this a major scandal? We have two political parties and one of the parties has been given carte blanche to call our president every name in the book. The GOP has been allowed to force Obama to show his birth certificate, to call him an Muslim, to openly attempt to delegitimize his Presidency.
When will the media or some leader of either party rub their noses in their mess. They need to be publicly lashed for embracing rhetoric that enables and emboldens the Cliven Bundy's of the world. Cliven does not happen in a vacuum. Cliven is a reaction to the GOP debates of 2012. When not one GOP candidate would take a 10-1 tax for spending cuts deal because it would imply a candidate was willing to compromise with our black president.
I get that the media believes it to be impolite to remind the GOP that when people like Newt call Obama a Kenyan anti-colonialist it was a domino in the chain to Cliven Bundy. I understand the media doesn't want to make Republicans feel bad about having the "crazy uncles" who spout racist, anti federal gov, anti obama, frankly anti-american rhetoric. I am sure it seems mean to remind the GOP leadership that Reince Preibus is pushing for laws to suppress the black vote in state after state. It must be uncomfortable to remind Republicans that it is the conservative justices who deemed the Voting Rights Act not needed anymore because racism no longer exists.
I am of the opinion any mediate who lets the GOP off the hook for this affair is doing nothing more than giving them cover to harbor the next Cliven Bundy and I begin to question what lies within their hearts.
This is the not epilogue, this is the preface. It's high time the GOP was shamed into coming back into the fold of rational - reasonable action. Stop voting to kill Obamacare, stop blocking jobs bills, stop ignoring climate change, stop trying to suppress the vote.
It's time the GOP have their noses soundly rubbed into the shit Cliven Bundy has left on the living room floor of our nation. Allowing the GOP to squirm away without a full throated mea culpa do nothing but enable the next Bundy, the next George Zimmerman, the next Oklahoma City bomber.
I am not at all comfortable with letting the GOP off the hook because I know they have not learned their lesson.