And I have a question I want to ask. But first, I want you to glance at a mirror for a moment.
That's a kid calling America's first black President a monkey at a rally full of your own activists.
How did that happen, exactly? I have a theory about that...
I think it started with your party's acceptance of willful ignorance, not just as an unfortunate byproduct of partisan politics, but as a legitimate and laudable strategy:
Which led to the inevitable:
Please take a moment to consider how many within your party trust this woman, take her seriously, and actually believe her claims have merit. Really consider that fact. And watch this while you consider it, please:
Demonstrating willful ignorance has proven over the last short while to be the easiest way for a Republican to rise rapidly through the ranks: Mr. Wurlzerbacher got sent to Israel as a correspondent and landed a book deal; Ms. Bachmann has regular national interviews; former Gov. Palin went from being a corrupt executive to one of the most recognizable figures in America and a major player within the party; and Orly Taitz...well, she's likely to be disbarred, and judging by her web site she's barely able to form sentences, so I expect she's got Michael "insert unsubtle stereotype here" Steele's job waiting for her in just a few years.
The really scary stuff comes from the ground-level activist, perhaps whom you've seen at rallies around town but never bothered to sit down and explain the world to, possibly because they scare you:
(Late Substitution -JR)
And with crowds like this behind them, party and movement leaders find it easy to engage in the same sort of racism:
But considering that hanging effigies of local Congressmen and calls for slipping nooses around Democratic leaders' necks are now taking place:
...I suppose it's probably a blessing that this is all that kid had to work with:
But that was not a photo in a vacuum--that was at a rally with a decent attendance. And I bet that kid's parents were congratulated for having raised such a fine boy more than once, rather than chastised for letting him out of the house with a sign like that.
So, is that how a kid ended up thinking that spending his afternoon calling the first black President a monkey would be okay? I don't know. But here's my real question for the Republicans in the hall tonight:
Where do you think the Republican Party is going to go next?
My guess?
I hear that mobs are fun!
Is this really the same Party you joined?
Update: Sorry for the brief photobucket outage--I knew I was pulling too much bandwidth. Say what you want about the rec list, but it generally just means there's a greater pressure to do obnoxious stuff like "edit" and "monitor." And fixing photobucket wasn't free, either. Damnit, I need coffee. -JR
UPDATES II-III SYNTHESIZED: Photobucket kept my pictures up just long enough for me to exceed my bandwidth limit and necessitate purchasing an expensive "pro" plan from them, then pulled most of the photos down. That's a crappy business practice, and I hope they enjoy having this diary serve, in part, as a monument to their unscrupulousness and censorship.
FINAL UPDATE: For those so inclined, one of the photographers whose work is featured here happens to be a Kossack, calistan, who just so happens to have posted a tip-able comment on this very diary. Just sayin'.