Exiting the Tent

Actually, I have no doubt that leaders of the party of wingnuts are sincere in saying they are sorry about the shooting of Dr. Tiller yesterday by a 'pro-life' activist. The rational and decent outliers in the party are rapidly finding out they're associated with raving maniacs, and leaving. There were enough people of goodwill to elect President Obama, and polls show that the majority deplore U.S. war on Iraq, torture, and fiscal irresponsibility and associate them with the maladministration just past. They.Did.It.

The dilemma of trying to keep the red meat base while working towards a majority of the U.S. is full of trauma, no doubt.

The time when the nice folks could poopoo the fanatics and feel comfortable inside the GOPerv tent are past now. When ex-Darth and Rush are the party's representatives, and its officials throw out the red meat that appeals to the base, it's not tea partying, but teabagging, territory.

The official representative of the right had to show his incendiary colors to keep his post, at the party's annual convention.

Steele delivered a speech full of red meat, serving up heaping portions of criticism to leading Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rep. Barney Frank and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The national committee chairman, though, saved his most scathing critique for Obama on issues ranging bailouts and banning guns to potentially taxing soft drinks.

"The last Democrat president declared that the era of big government was over," Steele said. "Can some[one] please send President Obama a copy of that memo? Because this new Democrat president has ushered in a new era of left-wing, old school, top-down, Industrial Age, bureaucratic big government the likes of which our country has never seen."(Emphasis added.)

Elections have results, indeed. To hold onto their increasingly indecorous base, leaders are pushing the bounds of polite discourse, calling the 'Democrat' party socialist, and blaming it for the very squandering of national treasure that ... it was doing for eight years of winger control.

At one time, there was a separate party for the recidivists, but now to give it electoral victories those two have merged. What is resulting, a community of extremists, forces at least superficially peaceful GOPervs to depart, or to admit to their crazy aunties and batty uncles in the shotgun concession line.

The proto-Nazis wearing swastikas no longer can be dismissed as Dixiecrats. They're official, mainline GOPervian, and they are extremists who are a danger to the country. The outrage GOPerv leaders expressed over reports by DHS that violence is predictable no longer rings even partially true.

One passage from the DHS report that provoked nonstop outrage said that right wing extremists “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Some on the right read this passage and decided it was a reference to them. Top conservative blogger Michelle Malkin warned that it meant you’re being targeted by Obama’s big brother government “if you are a member of an active conservative group that opposes abortion” or if you are active on other issues.

This wasn’t a fringe interpretation of the report, by the way. RNC chair Michael Steele for instance, blasted the report for labeling peaceful dissenters on issues “as terrorists.” Other Republican members of Congress sounded similar tones. (Emphasis added.)

I recall Sen. Barry Goldwater evoking revulsion when he declared that 'extremism' in the cause of virtue' was acceptable to party leaders. The 60's wingers were delighted, but the still rational party stalwarts were horrified. Remember Claiborne Pell, white-maned Sen. Everett Dirksen, Sen. Robert Taft? They're long gone, replaced by the likes of an ex-Darth promoting torture and Texas Gov. Perry promoting secession.

The barricades are down. Today, its the wingers that are carrying the day. The rabble-rousing came in from the sideshow (no aspersions intended, Avedon), and is inside the tent. Remaining people of good will are on the way to the exit. Those of good sense departed during the past election.