Tag: the republic

If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.

Lindsey Graham, a supposedly freely elected leader of this country sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States, Senator from South Carolina. Breathtaking. This was said. In public, in America, in 2013. And Graham is generally considered a cool-headed moderate. The last vestiges of the old republic have been swept away.

THIS IS NEXT

The clearest statement I’ve yet seen on where the GOP goes from here is available from this piece that quotes that lovable scamp, Newt Gingrich:

“Look,” Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said the other day (on the air, to Bill O’Reilly), “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence… . I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact.” For diversity’s sake, he added that “the historic version of Islam” and “the historic version of Judaism” are likewise menaced—which is natural, given that gay, secular, fascist values are “the opposite of what you’re taught in Sunday school.”

Warnings of violence from the ever mysterious, yet surprisingly well organized “other” couched in a pseudo-religious patina. Welcome to the next four years; Campaign 12, ‘Merica Decides! has begun.

GOP: look out, Constitution Party, Here we come. Absolutely determined to become a predominantly southern, crazily religious splinter of a party. The real question, then, is: will the new major party be to the left of the current Democrat? Wouldn’t surprise me, actually. All depends on the economy.

But Joy Behar knew better

Sometime, in the far future, when they are writing the definitive history of that mysterious entity known as the United States of America, you know, the one that went through this odd, transformative period that no one can really explain, still, even here in the far future; when they are writing that history, they’ll come to the point where they write “But Joy Behar knew better.” Joy Behar, defender of (whatever’s left of) The Republic. She’ll be right there by Cicero.

Richard Cohen, of all people, lays it out for us in the WaPo. Check this out:

Last week, one of the co-hosts [of The View], Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig – an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

“We know that those two ads are untrue,” Behar said. “They are lies.”

[…]

“Actually, they are not lies,” he said.

Actually, they are.

Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Read that last line again. And then read it again. And then rub your eyes (but not too hard). And then double check the link above isn’t some sort of Russian redirect intended to cleverly sap your accounts and steal the time-share you’ve got way out in Bermooda. “Actually, they are.” See, that wasn’t too hard. But our man Cohen ins’t going to leave it there and start in with the hacktackular James Carville™ excuses. No sir:

[Continuing directly] McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most.

[…]

[McCain’s] opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir – the person in whose hands he would leave the country – is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

[…]

McCain was […] going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can – as he did in South Carolina – renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won’t work.

God save Joy Behar. She was The One who could get through to Our Media Elite, the Serious People who run things around here. Too late for the Republic, and all that, but at least we may be spared the final indignity of going down in a blaze of “glory” under a McCain/Palin administration.