Posted on 04/03/2005 4:15:09 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Anyone would think it was the Republicans who'd lost the 2004 elections, and the 2002 elections, and the 2000 elections. From every corner, concerned "friends" of the party rise to offer "friendly" advice. Norman Lear, who produced all those critically acclaimed issue-confronting heroine-gets-an-abortion '70s sitcoms that seem a lot more dated than ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' these days, has now produced a People For the American Way ad in which a man who identifies himself as a "common sense Republican" objects to any attempt to end the Democratic filibuster of Bush's judicial nominees. As things turn out, the "common sense Republican" has so much common sense he's an official with a union that endorsed John Kerry.
Then there's the 59 striped-pants colossi of the Nixon-Ford-Reagan State Department who've sent a letter to the Senate calling on them to reject John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador. According to the Associated Press report, the signatories include:
"Princeton Lyman, ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; Monteagle Stearns, ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations; and Spurgeon Keeny Jr., deputy director of the Arms Control Agency in the Carter administration."
Princeton Lyman? Monteagle Stearns? Spurgeon Keeny Jr.? If Norman Lear's shows had wacky characters like that, they'd still be in syndication. It's a good rule of thumb that anything 59 economists, bureaucrats or diplomats are prepared to sign an open letter objecting to is by definition a good thing. But that goes double when the 59 panjandrums lined up against you are Princeton Monteagle Jr., President Nixon's ambassador to the Spurgeon Islands; Spurgeon Monkfish III, President Ford's ambassador to the Lyman Islands; Dartmouth Monticello IV, President Johnson's personal emissary to His Serene Highness the Monteagle of Keeny; Columbia Long-Playing-Album, the first diplomat to be named by President Carter to the State Department's Name Control Agency; and Vasser Peachy-Keeny, the first woman to be named Vasser Peachy-Keeny. One sees their point, of course: Let a fellow called "John" Bolton become ambassador and next thing you know Earl and Bud will want the gig.
Even Sen. John Danforth, who should know better, got in on the act, taking half a page in the New York Times to give the Full Monteagle to the "religious right." Blog maestro Andrew Sullivan decided that America was witnessing a "conservative crack-up" over Terri Schiavo and the embrace of her cause by extreme right wing fundamentalist theocrat zealots like, er, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader. Sullivan was last predicting a "conservative crack-up" during the impeachment era, on the grounds (if I recall correctly) that Republican moralizing would dramatically cut into Strom Thurmond's share of the gay vote. In the '90s, the Weekly Standard ran innumerable special editions devoted to the subject: Conservative Crack-Up; Conservative Crack-Up 2; Conservative Crack-Up -- The Musical; Abbott And Costello Meet The Conservative Crack-Up; Conservative Crack-Up On Elm Street; Four Weddings And A Conservative Crack-Up; Rod Stewart Sings Timeless Favorites From The Great Conservative Crack-Up, etc.
The point to bear in mind when Hollywood producers, State Department diplomats, respected senators, gay mavericks, the New York Times and the rest of the media offer conservatives advice is a simple one: As that great self-esteem volume has it, He's Really Not That Into You. The preferred media Republican is an amiable loser: the ne plus ultra of GOP candidates was the late Fred Tuttle, the lame, wizened idiot dairy farmer put up for a joke against Sen. Patrick Leahy in Vermont. But, if they can't get that lucky, the media will gladly take a Bob Dole type, a decent old no-hoper who goes down to predictable defeat and gets rave reviews for being such a good loser. Republicans could well run into trouble in 2006 and 2008, but for being insufficiently conservative on things like immigration rather than for anything the media claim they're cracking up over.
The notion, for example, that poor Terri Schiavo will cost Republicans votes in a year and a half's time is ludicrous. The best distillation of the pro-Schiavo case was made by James Lileks, the bard of Minnesota, responding to the provocateur Christopher Hitchens' dismissal of her as a "non-human entity." "It is not wise," wrote Lileks, "to call people dead before they are actually, well, dead. You can be 'as good as dead' or 'brain dead' or 'close to death,' but if the heart beats and the chest rises, I think we should balk at saying this constitutes dead, period."
Just so. Once you get used to designating living, breathing bodies as "non-human entities," it's easy to bandy them ever more carelessly -- as they do in the eminently progressive Netherlands, where their relaxed attitude to pot and prostitution led to a relaxed attitude to euthanasia which looks like relaxing the Dutch people right out of business. It's all done quietly over there -- no fuss, no publicity; you go in to hospital with a heavy cold and you're carried out by the handles. (By "handles," I mean a coffin, not a ceremonial phalanx of Monteagles and Princetons.) But that's not the American way. This is a legalistic society, where grade schools can't have kids knocking a ball around without getting a gazillion dollars worth of liability insurance. I was in Price Chopper the other day and they had a little basket of Easter samples on display accompanied by a page of full print outlining the various sub-clauses of the company's "tasting policy." That's America. In Holland, you can taste a cookie without signing a legal waiver, and, if you get food poisoning from it, the doctor will discreetly euthanize you to avoid putting your family through the trauma of waiting six hours for the stomach pump to become available. That's not how the American cookie crumbles. Euthanasia here will be a 10-year court culminating in slow-motion public execution played out on the 24-hour cable channels.
The Republicans did the right thing here, and they won't be punished for it by the electors. As with abortion, this will be an issue where the public moves slowly but steadily toward the conservative position: Terri Schiavo's court-ordered death will not be without meaning. As to "crack-ups," that's only a neurotic way of saying that these days most of the intellectual debate is within the right. If, like the Democrats, all you've got are lockstep litmus tests on race and abortion and all the rest, what's to crack up over? You just lose elections every two years, but carry on insisting, as Ted Kennedy does, that you're still the majority party. Ted's quite a large majority just by himself these days, but it's still not enough.
When you have to resort to putting words in other people's mouths while arguing, you have no argument.
As detestable as I find the outcome of recent events, especially the way the Florida GOP handled it, I'm going to wait and watch for the next year to see if the party takes any promising stands for once. Mind you, I'm not really all that hopeful.
Just a wild guess, but I think they'll be better off without you.
I'm not sure exactly what you are saying, but I believe you ....... I guess.
I'm trying to say, some people employ euphemisms rather than state in a straight manner what they really believe.
For example, they may say, "People should be allowed to die with dignity," rather than, "I support Dr. Kevorkian."
I don’t know about common sense but he seems to have little political sense, killing Terri Schiavo meant alienating Christian voters within the Republican Party and like you they will probably take similar actions. Not saving Terri Schiavo would not have provoked the same reaction from the “common sense Republicans” who advocated everyone stay within the framework of the law (I wonder if they will feel the same way about the law if the world court brings George W Bush to trail for his “illegal war against the Iraqi people”, but I digress..).
The arguments that you will hear will be that you are handing a victory to the other side, Clinton will get the White House and so on. Scare tactics. And as I'm writing this they have probably already been posted.
What the writer fails to recognize is that the slim majority is kept there by people who hold Gods law first and America’s second and their beliefs mean they will not, and cannot compromise, even if it means letting a Democrat take the White House again. But then again perhaps another bout of Democrat in the White House may bring the CSR’s (‘Common Sense Republicans’) to their senses. What the writer is missing is letting Terri die was not a very cleaver thing to do from a political point of view and asking Christian Republicans to put it behind them and move on.org is even more foolish. Expecting Democrats who are fed up with the DNC at the moment to fill the gap is a bit of a long shot.
A week in politics is a long time so things may change but stating quite categorically that Terri Schiavo’s death will not have a negative effect on the polls does show a lack of understanding and a total disregard for those who were behind the Republican revolution until late last week.
Aha. I understand now. Thanks. ;-)
:-)
I asked a question. If you prefer not to answer, why don't you say you prefer not to answer. See, I see Terri's case as respecting life. I'm not sure how you see it.
At this point the only thing that will get many of us back is real hard action. A judge sitting in prison for 6 months for Contempt of Congress might be a good start. A 50% reduction in staffing and budgeting at all Federal Court Districts would be another. Passing another Law that will be ignored will convince only the foolish. It is way past the hearings stage. That will be just more smoke and mirrors.
Think it'll happen?
Most of the GOP right now seems to be congealing back into a "let's get on with what's important now" mode.
Re: "Just a wild guess, but I think they'll be better off without you."
Yeah you are right.........
Perhaps they might be better off without me as well.
Yeah that is a good idea, the more I think of it. They don't need me, they don't want me.
Gee thanks, that is big load off my mind, Thanks I owe you one.
You are right, they never finished the baseball stuff. I mean it is time to get back to the really important stuff.
;-)
Re: "Lucifer's Left"
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!
Now...... for the booger jokes!
;-)
They claim that some of those hiding Freepers are anti-pulling the feeding tube, but I haven't seen them. I checked out their thread, and it was a bunch of people talking about "religious nutjobs."
I'm not comfortable with either those who smirk about the end of Jeb's political career for doing "nothing" to help Terri, nor those who feel it was "time to let her go" or "none of anyone else's business."
BTW, I'm PRO-LIFE and I'm NOT a Christian.
My tagline says how I feel.
Absolutely. Zogby's poll is an indication that when given factual questions as in his poll: "If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," “79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.”
In other words, the Republicans did the right thing, and as more people find out the facts in this case without the death-cultists and media manipulation, the GOP will be riding high.
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