Rosa Brooks: Paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts are taking over the Republican Party

Aside from the dwindling size of our 401(k)s, life is treating us well. True, we're heading into a major recession. But that's OK: That just presents us with new opportunities to Do Good. And while we wait for President Obama to bring us New Deal 2.0, we'll also get a few giggles out of watching the Bush administration preside over the nationalization of the nation's financial sector. (Tip: Practice saying "social democracy." Also, practice saying "Told ya so!" with compassion.)

Maybe most fun of all, we're getting to watch a steady procession of rats leaving the sinking GOP ship.

“I was being sarcastic. But given the current administration, calling us names is just par for the course.”

I thought so. All in fun ;^)
I don’t know if this is out bnecause it is not in her bio, but did you know she is Ehrenreich’s daughter” She’s a Red Diaper baby if ever there was one...just like you-know-who (hint: big ears, origin of birth unknown)

Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Alexander. Her father was a copper miner who went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University and who eventually became an executive at the Gillette Corporation. Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in Cell biology from Rockefeller University.

Citing her interest in social change,[1] she opted for political activism instead of pursuing a scientific career. She met her first husband, John Ehrenreich, during an anti-war activism campaign in New York City.

In 1970, her first child, Rosa (now Rosa Brooks), was born. Her second child, Benjamin, was born in 1972. Barbara and John divorced and in 1983 she married Gary Stevenson, a warehouse employee who later became a union organizer. She divorced Stevenson in the early 1990s.

From 1991 to 1997, Ehrenreich was a regular columnist for Time magazine. Currently, she contributes regularly to The Progressive. Ehrenreich has also written for the New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms, The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications.

But today, as the last few sober grown-ups leave the party, the visible face of the GOP increasingly looks like that of the people who shout "kill him!" when Obama's name comes up, who speak of black men they don't like as "uppity" or as "boys," who think you can't trust a Muslim or an Arab, who think talking about "Barack Hussein Osama" is witty and (I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin and John McCain) who claim Obama "pals around with terrorists."

That "Kill him!" story turned out to be a lie. Nobody else in the crowd heard the words the reporter invented.

To say that Obama "pals around with terrorists" wouldn't be wrong either, if you look at his relationship with the Ayerses.

Rosa's syntax is a little fuzzy there as well. At first it looked to me like she was saying that Palin and McCain called their opponent "Barack Hussein Osama," which they didn't.

For every person who did there were a hundred who called Obama "Barack Hussein Obama." I don't know if that was funny or significant, but it was his name.

The "uppity" and "boy" comments by Congressmen were regrettable and something we've got to avoid. Things aren't good for the GOP or whatever's left of the conservative movement right now.

But Rosa does exaggerate: Krauthammer was critical of the Palin appointment, but I doubt he ever came close to backing Obama.

Christopher Hitchens was never a conservative. He supported Bush for a time, but he never had any liking for conservative policies apart from the war (if that was conservative).

And calling David Frum a "thinking conservative" also looks off the mark -- though it's not clear which of the two words is less appropriate.

But things have been like this before. I dug this up from a Jonah Goldberg post:

[T]he "Obamacon" phenomena isn't hardly as profound or significant as Bruce suggests. Every election year you see some of this sort of thing. In 1992, my old boss Ben Wattenberg along with a slew of other self-described neocons endorsed Clinton. So did William Safire. George Will encouraged conservatives to write in Jack Kemp (I seem to recall). Peter Viereck (a very Jeff Hartian fellow) supported Adlai Stevenson over Eisenhower.

That last one was in the 1950s. But there were a lot of deserters and defectors in 1992, and the Republicans bounced back in a major way two years later.

Obama got elected because they majority of Americans have their heads up their asses.They believe in anything they are told on TV, global warming , the government is here to help you , whatever.A growing number of Americans also think the government OWES them something and Obama promised FREE SH*T for everyone.The presidential race was nothing more than an American Idol episode where the slick black dude kick ass on some old guy.A moron could have predicted the outcome of that race . You now have a massively uneducated population who can barely tell you ANYTHING about American History.
Both parties are run by self serving , self centered b*stards who would sell this country down the river for a nickle .I think that’s it in a nutshell.

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