If You Read One Op-Ed Column This Week, Read This One

David Brooks always makes me think when I read his New York Times column. But with his latest column about Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and their impact on the Republican Party, I wonder if it will make his Republican readers do the same.

Brooks’s words jumped off the page. He writes in part:

Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity.

The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.
The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Tweeting Bob’s Manifesto

When news broke Sunday that Republican Bob McDonnell had written some right wing crazy stuff in his graduate these submitted for his masters and law degrees from Pat Robertson’s CBN University, now Regent, I decided that I would read every word of his writing and tweet the best parts. I just finished.

I’ve been amazed at how effective this has been in drawing people’s attention to this document. I set up a special URL for McDonnell’s thesis — I called it http://bit.ly/BobsManifesto and linked to it in most of the tweets I’ve put out since the story broke. The traffic has been surprisingly significant.

I hope people read it Mr. McDonnell’s thesis in its entirety and the news coverage about it. In an new editorial in today’s paper, the Washington Post calls Bob McDonnell a “culture warrior”.

“…in his 14 years in the state’s General Assembly, Mr. McDonnell did aggressively pursue a socially conservative agenda largely in line with his thesis. As governor he could do the same, although he would be constrained by a legislature at least partly controlled by Democrats. He could not ban abortion and contraception, but he could help restrict access. The Bob McDonnell who wrote that thesis would make a divisive, disruptive and partisan governor — a sharp departure from the tradition of generally pragmatic executives who have helped make Virginia one of the better-managed states in the union. Virginians deserve specific answers about where the thinking of his early middle age has shifted, and where it remains consistent.”

I agree 100 percent!

Bob McDonnell’s Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

Bob McDonnell, the right wing social conservative who’s the Republican nominee to be the next governor of Virginia wants you to believe he’s a moderate.

He’s not.

Sunday’s Washington Post has the latest evidence of Bob McDonnell’s true colors: the 1989 graduate thesis he wrote for his masters and law degree from Rev. Pat Robertson’s CBN University (now Regent University).

Among the tidbits the thesis reveals according to the Post:

McDonnell, “described working women and feminists as ‘detrimental’ to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over ‘cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.’ He described as ‘illogical’ a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.”

And that’s just the beginning.

McDonnell says, “Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future — not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven’t thought about in years.”

There are several things lacking from this explanation.

First, it would lead you to believe that his record as an elected official is any different than the right wing babble which is in this thesis. It’s not. In fact the Post points out that as a Delegate and as Attorney General, McDonnell has pursued 10 of the 15 policy goals laid out in his thesis.

Second, McDonnell’s explanation would have you believe that he wrote this as an undergraduate when he didn’t know better. He didn’t. He wrote this after he had already earned an undergraduate degree and a masters degree at other institutions. He was 34 years old at the time.

Third, he claims he hasn’t thought about this in years. That’s not true. He brought up the thesis in an interview with the Washington Post, telling the paper earlier this year that, “I wrote my thesis on welfare policy”.

As the Post points out, McDonnell wrote this document, not as a college student, but as a 34 year adult. In it, he laid out a 15 point plan for the GOP. As an elected official, he’s pursued 10 of these 15 goals according to the Post.

It’s bad enough that McDonnell went to Pat Robertson’s university and law school. But now that he needs the votes of moderates to get elected Governor, he’s trying to cover up his real feelings.

Don’t be fooled. Watch Bob McDonnell talk about the Garden of Eden and his views of marriage.

Fortunately, McDonnell’s opponent, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, is running a strong campaign, but he needs your financial help. Please visit his website and make a campaign contribution.

It’s important.

Have You Had Enough of the GOP Mob?

Have you seen the wingnuts who’ve crashed the Congressional town hall meetings of Democrats to shout down any discussion of health care? A new Democratic National Committee asks if you’ve had enough of the GOP mob. Well have you?

Rep. Bob Goodlatte is a Birther, Rep. Eric Cantor Blames the Media

I wonder if Betty Hill were alive today if she would be a "birther"?

My favorite commentator on Twitter, PourMeCoffee, nailed the whole “birther” nonsense. (You know, the “birthers” are these paleoconservatives who deny that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S. and therefore is not eligible to be President under the Constitution.) PourMeCoffee compares these nut jobs with the late Betty Hill, who believed that an outer space alien arrived in a U.F.O.  and abducted her and her husband.

As PourMeCoffee wrote, “This is what those wishing to engage the birthers are up against. Love your crazy! Hug it and hold it and love it right! Betty did. Never, ever let it go!”

Cue Virginia’s own, Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Roanoke.

What are you sorry for Gov. Sanford?

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is apologizing again. This time with a Sunday op-ed column in the largest paper in S.C. — The State.

In response, the chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party, Carol Fowler, issued the following statement, which I just love:

Mark Sanford’s vague apology in Sunday’s papers is fine as far as it goes, but he doesn’t say what he’s apologizing for. Turning his back on the people of South Carolina? Abandoning his family? Dumping his responsibilities for weeks? Or 6 1/2 years of ignoring our public schools and the children in them? When my children were small and had to say they were sorry I always made them specify what the apology was for, to be sure they knew. Does Governor Sanford know?

The Moralistic Hypocrisy of the GOP: That Was Then, This is Now

As you consider the reactions of various Republican elected officials to the recent sex scandals involving their own — e.g. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) — I think it’s helpful to looks and see what these same Republicans said when Democrats couldn’t keep their pants zipped.

The easiest place to find examples of the moralistic hypocrisy that’s plagued the Republican Party in recent years is the Clinton impeachment matter. Check out the impeachment votes of the  House Judiciary Committee, the full House vote and the two Senate votes as well as the comments made about President Clinton’s behavior.

I particularly think it’s interesting to note that both Ensign and Sanford voted to impeach President Clinton, yet both are insisting that they remain in office following their own sexual indiscretions.

This makes me their political beliefs are inspired by the great political philosopher Micky Dolenz.

(As an aside, why is that our nation’s female pols don’t cheat nearly as much as their male counterparts?)

Undermined Trust: Why Sanford Should Resign

When President Clinton admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a backbencher Congressman remarked to CNN in 1999, ““If you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

That Congressman represented Charleston, S.C. at the time. He went on to become the Governor of the Palmetto State. His name: Mark Sanford.

Newt Gingrich undecided in Va. Governor’s race

Okay, okay. You don’t believe this headline, do you? (I don’t either.) But this is what Newt Gingrich, the discredited former GOP House Speaker, wants you to believe.

Yesterday, Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future sent a letter to Virginia gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds seeking their support for Gingrich’s effort to defeat the  American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009, better know as the Cap and Trade bill. The bill, which was authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee and may come to the full House floor as early as next week.

In this letter, American Solutions describes the bill as a “new and complex national energy tax system”  which would “dramatically raise taxes on every single citizen of Virginia and kill Virginia jobs.” 

Cue the scary music please.

Katherine Harris calls Iranian election for Ahmadinejad

Former Congresswoman & Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris declared that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had carried Florida in Friday's election. Photo credit: UPI

June 14, 2009 — TEHRAN – Tonight former Florida Congresswoman and ex-Fla. Secretary of State Katherine Harris declared that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election to another term as president of Iran in an election held Friday, beating back a challenge from reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Although the results had been announced on Friday evening by Iranian authorities on Iranian State Television, according to Harris, her certification makes it official.

She made her announcement at a hastily called news conference at the Tehran Grand Hotel in Tehran’s central business district.

Frank Rich on Fox’s Shepard Smith

In his New York Times column this morning, Frank Rich writes about the how the right wing crazies are calling for the head of Shepard Smith at Fox News. Smith, who dared to take seriously the Fox News motto of “we report, you decide”, crossed the right wing nut jobs when he essentially called them that. Watch.

In my view, Rich nails it when he writes of the paranoid chapter of the right wing nut jobs:

What is this fury about? In his scant 145 days in office, the new president has not remotely matched the Bush record in deficit creation. Nor has he repealed the right to bear arms or exacerbated the wars he inherited. He has tried more than his predecessor ever did to reach across the aisle. But none of that seems to matter. A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies — indeed, of the 21st century itself. That minority is now getting angrier in inverse relationship to his popularity with the vast majority of the country. Change can be frightening and traumatic, especially if it’s not change you can believe in.

What I want to know is when are the Republican elected officials of this country going to denounce this kind of scary demogogery from its right wing. From what I can tell, the Republicans I watch most closely — those here in Virginia — are silent. Or worse, they endorse it in their own party chairman, Pat Mullins. (Exhibit A: Bob McDonnell, GOP nominee for Governor of Virginia.)

In my view, that’s a failure on their part. A failure to lead. Why am I not surprised?

The Republicans and Judge Sotomayor

I’ve been amused today to watch the anti-Obama Republicans grapple with how they can oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. To understand just how boxed in they are politically, it’s helpful to review their history.