It appears that Colin Powell has committed the unpardonable sin in the Republican Party, he dared to speak critically of Rush the Great. Thirty-five years of military service, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of State—nah, no room for that guy under the ever-shrinking tent.
No less an authority than Dick Cheney said so:
So all you former Republicans who voted for President Obama take notice, you have shown where your “loyalty” lies, and you are no longer welcome in the Party of Limbaugh and Cheney.
Here’s a number for the Republican Party to remember for future reference, 21. Twenty-one, that’s the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans according to the latest Washington Post poll, the lowest that figure has been in 26 years.
Remember that number at the next meeting of the RNC, when you propose another stupid resolution like the one to brand the opposition as Socialists instead of Democrats.
Remember that number before you send Newt Gingrich out to say that President Obama is bowing to pressure from the “anti-American left” in considering allowing prosecution of former Bush administration officials.
Remember that when Sen. Judd Gregg says this regarding the use of the budget reconciliation process :
“I can understand shaking Hugo Chavez’s hand, but I can’t understand embracing his politics.”
Remember that number when former Senator and present radio blowhard Fred Thompson says something like this:
“And then after promising that there would be no prosecutions, [Obama] acquiesced and now opened the door for that. So I think it’s a case of naivete, ineptitude and unbelievable arrogance and lack of experience.”
Remember that number when Sen. McCain and Sen. Bond say that President Obama is turning the United States into a “banana republic.”
Remember that number the next time Congressman Eric Cantor confronts President Obama about spending cuts, then when asked by the president for a list of areas where Cantor himself would cut, responds:
Somebody in the Republican Party please put an end to this insanity before it’s too late. Let’s look at what has happened since January 20th:
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota has said she wants the people of her state to be “armed and dangerous.”
Former Senator Rick Santorum wrote in an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Enquirer that President Obama “has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions.”
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said President Obama is waging a “war against churches” and that “there’s a clear desire to replace the church with a bureaucracy, and to replace people’s right to worship together with a government-dominated system.”
Congressman Spencer Bachus from Alabama said that 17 members of the House of Representatives are “socialists.”
Rick Perry, the governor of the second largest state in the nation, is talking about the possibility of secession.
The Georgia Senate passed a resolution calling for the nullification of the Constitution and disbanding of the United States.
Congressman Mark Kirk from Illinois has suggested that the people of that state “shoot anyone” who proposes to raise their taxes.
Congressman Michael McCaul from Texas is making speeches about tyranny and oppression, citing Thomas Jefferson’s quote that “the tree of liberty will be fed with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
Add to these the constant drumbeat from talk radio hosts about re-education camps, fascism, totalitarianism, and this administration taking away Constitutional rights.
Granted, probably 99.9% of the people who hear or read these things know it is just blowhard politicians trying to gain votes by appealing to their Republican base.
But what about the other 0.1%? What do they do? Do they get an assault rifle and kill police officers because they think their rights are being taken away? Do they fill a truck with explosives and park it in front of a federal building?
Keep this t-shirt in mind Republicans, before you quote Jefferson:
Anybody know what this is? It’s the shirt that Timothy McVeigh was wearing when he was arrested.
There was much written and said during the recent presidential campaign about the supposed “mystery” surrounding now President-elect Barack Obama. Senator McCain and Governor Palin, along with the Republican Party spokespersons and their allies on talk-radio, often raised the question, “Who is the real Barack Obama?”
Their contention was that his thin record as a United States Senator gave us no clue as to what kind of president he might be or how he might govern if elected. The right threw around buzz words like “the most liberal member of the Senate” and pointed to Obama’s “radical associations” in an attempt to portray him as a far-left ideologue who would carry that ideology into the Oval Office.
As is brought out in a post on today’s Moderate Voice, there is a much better guidepost to how President-elect Obama will govern than his time in the Senate, and that is his tenure as president/editor of the Harvard Law Review.
According to the post:
“The environment at Harvard during Obama’s matriculation was rife of protests and peaceful sit-ins of the Dean’s Office and other faculty. Divergent activist groups of blacks, Hispanics and others demanded more diversity among the composition of law professors.
In this divisive setting, Obama was selected to join The Harvard Review, the most prestigious publication of any law school in America. His peers elected him president/editor of the group his third and final year at Harvard.
Juan Zuniga (a law student one year behind Obama) said Obama’s emergence in the selection process was “a neutral, middle-ground, non-threatening, non-ideological candidate.”
His (Zuniga’s) impressions of Obama from friends on the Harvard Law Review and faculty were “that he was not perceived as an ideologue by those who knew him. Rather, he has an incredible facility to listen to other people, consider their positions, respect their positions when making a decision and then use his own intellect to reach his own conclusion. He draws talented and respectful people to himself. He makes responsible decisions based on merit and not ideological principles. It is very much worth noting that in many ways he keeps himself above the fray.
“While a bunch of us were out there trying to take over the Dean’s office, Barack was never a meaningful presence at any rallies. I have no doubt he believed we needed a more diverse faculty, but he also knew that the role he had as Editor in Chief of the Law Review meant he could accomplish so much by approaching his task with professionalism without raising an ideological torch and being a rabble rouser.”
I had my own skepticism about then Senator Obama at first. That was due mostly to listening to the characterizations of him in some of the media. But as I listened to him, I didn’t hear a strident, far-left ideologue, I saw what his fellow students at Harvard saw, a pragmatist, with reasonable solutions to the problems facing our country. And that is how I expect President Obama to govern beginning on January 20, 2009.
I am so angry this morning I can barely steady my finger long enough to write this post. The blatant racism that has been unleashed by the Republican Party in the closing weeks of this presidential campaign, and particularly since Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday on Meet The Press, makes me sick to my stomach.
First of all, it is as if the usual Republican suspects–Buchanan, Will, Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al, had their statements ready before Powell made his announcement. Powell endorsed Obama simply because he is black, they all spewed. Obviously these GOP mouthpieces didn’t listen to a word Gen. Powell had to say.
He gave a well-reasoned, well-thought out, detailed argument for his decision. Powell did much more than endorse Obama for president, he issued a scathing indictment of the Republican Party as a whole. See for yourself:
Then the tirades from the Republican Bigotry Brigade began.
Pat Buchanan: “Alright, we gotta ask a question, look would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal democrat.”
George Will attributes support for Obama to white guilt: “Barack Obama gets two votes because he’s black for every one he loses because he’s black because so much of this country is so eager, a, to feel good about itself by doing this, but more than that to put paid to the whole Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson game of political rhetoric.”
What Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have to do with anything is anybody’s guess. Oh I forgot, they’re both scary black men, just like Obama. What’s the matter George, you couldn’t work Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X in there somewhere?
Rush Limbaugh went even further: “Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race, OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
Not to be left out of the ‘scare white Americans with references to angry black men’ chorus, Newt Gingrich said on This Week that Obama would govern the country “like Reverend Wright.”
Now keep in mind these are some of the same neo-con chicken hawks who were singing the praises of Gen. Powell when he was useful to them in helping make the case for George Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
But now that he dares to stray off the Republican plantation and speak his mind rather than blindly support the Party nominee, he is branded as having based his decision solely on Obama’s skin color. I guess in the eyes of the GOP bigots Powell is not ‘one of the good ones’ anymore.
Well so much for the charade that the McCain campaign was going to stop the constant personal attacks on Barack Obama and focus on the economy. Quite the contrary, the McCain people and the Republican Party are taking the guilt by association smear to the next level–equating Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden.
The chairman of the Virginia Republican Party is instructing volunteers going door-to-door to tell people that Obama and Osama bin Laden “both have friends that bombed the Pentagon.”
With so much at stake, and time running short, [Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff] Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he said. “That is scary.” It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. “And he won’t salute the flag,” one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, “We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born.” Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.
Senator McCain’s response when questioned about this? You have to see it to believe it.
“I’d have to look at the context of the remarks?” Really? Tell me Senator, in what context would it be appropriate for a member of your campaign to say that there are similarities between a candidate for president of the United States and a terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of people?
Let me answer that question. That would be in the context of a desperate man who sees him life-long ambition to be president going down in flames, and will not hesitate to sink to any level to try and achieve that goal, even if it means watching any shred of decency and integrity he may have once had go down with it.
Desperado's Outpost 