This is who they are

[BobcatJH]

While yesterday I focused on the fact that the Republican Party is reeling, today - thanks to the latest outburst from Glenn Beck - I'd like to remind everyone of something equally important: This is who they are. The face of Beck, Ann Coulter, George Allen and so many other right-wing bigots, misogynists and low-down assholes is the face of the Republican Party. The face and, to be sure, the heart and soul. Take a good look, America, because the smiling faces you see on the right belie a cold, dark interior far more accurate than outward appearances. And remember what you see, because obscuring the truth about themselves is the only thing keeping the Republican Party from being marginalized to permanent minority status at the far fringes of society.

When Beck calls Hillary Clinton a "stereotypical bitch", he's speaking for the party. When Coulter calls John Edwards a "faggot", she's speaking for the party. When Allen calls a man of Indian descent "Macaca", he's speaking for the party. When Bill Donohue says things like "The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done," he's speaking for the party. When Bill O'Reilly calls the victims of Hurricane Katrina "drug-addicted" and "thugs", he's speaking for the party. When Bill Bennett says things like "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down," he's speaking for the party. When Pat Robertson calls for Hugo Chavez's assassination, he's speaking for the party. When Brit Hume's first thoughts after the London terror attacks was "Hmmm, time to buy," he's speaking for the party. And when John Gibson wishes those attacks on France, he's speaking for the party.

Get the picture?

Make no mistake, these are the comments of terrible, terrible people. But not just any people. Prominent conservatives. People held in high regard* and who have repeatedly been given a soapbox from which to spout their dangerous, hateful rhetoric. People given the tremendous opportunity to speak both to and for other people. You and I don't have the same opportunity, nor do we have the same platform. Our words don't appear on cable news, on nationally syndicated radio or in national newspapers. Theirs do. So the next time a mindless Republican asks a progressive to answer for the words of a seeming nobody, remember that the hate speech you're hearing from the right isn't coming from a corresponding seeming nobody. It's coming from people of prominence. Not people of character, mind you, but people of prominence. And people whose warped sentiments speak for millions of their fellow travelers.

The truly sad thing about the Becks, Coulters and Allens of the world is that there's a little bit of each of them in every Republican. Every self-styled conservative caught defending their statements or, at the very least, looking the other way while they spew their bile is forgiving them for poisoning the debate. For cheapening it. For lowering the bar. For appealing to the lowest-common denominator. For pandering to the Republican base's very worst tendencies and beliefs. This is who they are: Self-styled moral scolds with a bit of an asshole problem. It's not that they simply never practice what they preach. It's that their preaching is an overt effort to mask their inner depravity. For today's Republicans, the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover" couldn't be truer. Only now, with the cover rapidly deteriorating, the book itself is there for everyone to see.

* Not by me. I think they're all worthless assholes.

[NI4NI]

1. Well Done! K/R

[Kikosexy2]

2. Republicans...

the party of hate....Lincoln must be reeling in his grave...

[BobcatJH]

3. Agreed

Indeed, he likely is.

[MLFerrell]

4. "...there's a little bit of each of them in every Republican."

WRONG!

There's a whole hell of a LOT of them in every Republican.

[BobcatJH]

7. Good point

I guess I was feeling charitable for a moment ...

[RedEarth]

5. You certainly echo my thoughts .... two of the traits that seem to stand out

with Republics are greed and mean-spiritedness. The people you mentioned, along the person who brought hate-filled speech into the mainstream media, Rush Limbaugh, all seem to play to those traits.

[AX10]

6. I agree. Republican/Conservative/Right Wing are all the same.

[NanceGreggs]

8. EXCELLENT!!!

:applause:

[donkeyotay]

9. Thanks for setting me straight. I've been defending the repo base

saying how they are basically decent people. I thought they were just misinformed. I worked with rightwingers who seemed decent, but I've thrown in the towel on defending them. You're right. Under that veneer of decency they harbor the beliefs exploited by the rightwing propaganda machine. Under the guise of morality, they excuse a pantheon of bigotries. But greed is their most central tenet, and the one most incongruous with their supposedly superior morality.

They are still trying to whip up the right's anger and indignation, which seems so last century. We had the angry white man and the whole repo revolution. They've sown and we're reaping, and will be for some time to come.

And I feel your pain; Glenn Beck is the latest in a long line of propagandist in the war on us.

[Morgana LaFey]

10. Of COURSE. I guess I'm curious why you think it needs to be

spelled out?

Of course, it's a good thing to make it explicit now and then, but OF COURSE!

[tblue37]

11. You left out Beck's remark to a Black congressman that since he was a

Muslim, he had to prove he wasn't an enemy of the US.

[StatGirl]

12. Their leaders are sociopaths

And they keep electing them, watching them on TV, buying their books. There is a market for what these moral pygmies have to sell (no offense meant to pygmies!), and that market consists of the 30-percenters and the idiots who think that politics is a football game.

[hwmnbn]

13. I concur, these spokespersons......

are the heart and soul of the GOP.

If you strip away the veneer of business attire, at the core of every RW repug is the seed of a KKKlansman. These spokespersons just verbalize the hatred and vitriol contained inside their twisted minds.

[proud patriot]

14. Huzzah !

:applause:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Coulter and Beck and those other mouth breathers

represent the id of the Republican Party. They say what the Republican "man on the street" really thinks but doesn't dare say out loud. But even though that average Republican might go tsk, tsk a little, and make mild noises about those "inappropriate" comments, deep down in his black heart he is cheering.

[Labors of Hercules]

16. Oh my GAWD that was a rush!!

K & R!

[Bullet1987]

17. You guys should read a book called 'Conservatives Without Conscience."

While there's nothing as blunt in the book as what the OP wrote, it shows the authoritarian and degrading nature of many of America's leading conservatives.

[Labors of Hercules]

18. Thanks Bullet. I'll check it out tomorrow!

Does it also show how to expose them, ridicule them in public and slash their tires? :toast:

[solara]

19. Beautiful! Thank you

k&r

:kick:



INVESTIGATE IMPEACH INDICT INCARCERATE :patriot:

[MikeH]

20. I am reminded of my recently ending a long time friendship

For many years I had a very good friend who was a fundamentalist Christian (the churches he went to were fundamentalist), but who did not at all fit the worst stereotypes of people of that persuasion.

I first met him at the job where I was working in the mid 1970's, and he and I hit it off. At the time I was serious about Christianity and was trying it out (though I had some issues with it), and that became part of the basis for our friendship.

He was someone whom I could share some of my thoughts and feelings with, and even if we did not agree, he and I respected each other. He was never "in-your-face" with me about his religion, or about politics.

In the 1980's I had come to the realization that I was unhappy with Christianity, and had felt that it was not helping me. I was able to share this with my friend, and he had no problems with it.

In 2000, my friend indicated he was going to be voting for * (anybody but Gore). He was particularly against abortion. I was disappointed but tried to accept my friend's choice. I knew I didn't like *, but had no way of knowing how bad he was really going to be.

I did get together less frequently with my friend after *'s selection and installation than I had previously. I got together with him one last time in October 2004. I had hoped that he might at least have some serious second thoughts about voting for * a second time, and it was to my great disappointment and consternation that my friend had no hesitation, and apparently no second thoughts, about saying he was going to vote for * a second time.

It was also to my consternation that my friend thought that our actions in Iraq were the right thing for us to do, and especially that he felt that it was OK that we did not find the supposed weapons of mass destruction because intelligence is not an exact science. (That seemed to be an excuse for somebody who was "his type" of pResident.)

Much as I had liked and respected my friend, I had to reevaluate my friendship, and I sent him a couple of e-mails letting him know how I felt.

One of the things I said to him was that even though I had never thought of my friend as being bigoted, intolerant, or "in-your-face", I was very bothered and disturbed that he unhesitatingly supported the presidential candidate who was supported by the people in the religious right (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et. al.) who definitely are these things, and thus enabling their narrow and bigoted agenda.

My friend and I mutually agreed to end our friendship, and we did so on good terms. I feel that was the right and healthy thing for us to do.

[jelly]

24. What a gripping story.

You are very brave; I commend your decision and the way you went about implementing it. My style of ending friendships is gradually to stop writing/calling/hanging out with. What can I say, I hate confrontation. :-)

[MikeH]

29. Thanks for your nice reply

Actually, there have been a number of people that I have gradually lost touch with and have not gotten together with in years, including many good Christian friends from the time I was serious about Christianity in the 1970's and early 1980's.

This particular friend was a particularly good and close friend, and I thought enough of him that I felt that I needed to let him know how I felt.

It was somewhat of a struggle for me to on the one hand be fair to him and to respect our good friendship which we had had for 30 years, and on the other hand to let him know that I thought * and the religious right were really that bad, and that I was very bothered that my friend seemed to go along with them without any trouble.

I did let my friend know that I appreciated the many times he was "there" for me over the years.

I suggested that if we were to get together, that we talk about "safe" subjects (such as work, school, and people we both used to know), and avoid discussing either religion or politics. I particularly did not want to hear anything about his or his family's church or Christian activities, and I said that to my friend knowing that his wife has a singing ministry which is very important to her, and that his family is very active in their church. For me, I just cannot respect the Christian faith of anybody who supports * or goes along with the religious right agenda.

My friend, for his part, preferred to part company, amicably and without rancor; he did not want to maintain a friendship which was subject to reevaluation based on his religion or politics, or if we could only talk about "safe" topics. We can still have fond memories of our past friendship, and we both expressed best wishes for the other's future. I feel good that our parting company was on good terms.

It would be nice if we could renew our friendship some time in the future, however I don't see that as being likely as long as * is still in office. I have to wonder if my friend even now still feels * is OK, or if he might by now have had some second thoughts.

[justgamma]

21. Randi's favorite saying

"When they tell you who they are, believe them!"

[Raksha]

22. K & R - You are SO right!

Sometimes it's a good thing to state the obvious, and you did it very well.

[formercia]

23. The boys had been planning it for generations

and carefully recruiting and training this scum from the time they dropped from that eugenics infested uterus they came from.

[Timbuk3]

25. Wonderful

Seriously splendiferous, and something that should be driven home time after time from now on.

If I may add...

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson describing the attakcs of 911 as "what we (Americas) deserve", because "we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/87/story_8770_1.html

Followed shortly afterward by the Bush administration awarding them millions of our tax dollars via "faith based funding."

[vankuria]

27. Twisted logic

If 9/11 was a punishment for our sins inflicted by God according to the twisted disgusting logic of Falwell and Robinson, then that would make the 9/11 hijackers agents of God, right?

Are these 2 still revered and the toast of the repugnant party?

[Sparkly]

26. OH yeah!!

K&R :kick:

[kiteinthewind]

28. Perfect! nt

:thumbsup: