10 Years After: 2008 -- Watching The Defectives

The 10th blogiversary fundraiser continues with the Hope and Change year of 2008.

By October, 2008, as John McCain's doom closed in all around him and the coolant level of the GOP Pretty Hate Machine evaporated to the point where even non-Dirty Hippies could clearly see the madness, paranoia and racism that had always been at the heart of modern Republican Party the "respectable" members of the Conservative brains caste began to freak out.

David Brooks was shocked! shocked! to find that his Republican Party was full of...Republicans!

Kathleen Parker was horrified to learn that her Republican Party was full of...Republicans.

The year began on the Left with a brutal, necessary 15-round fight for the Democratic nomination.

On the Right, as the election neared and John McCain's doom became obvious, the world began to fill up with smell of hastily-burned "Bush/Cheney '04" lawn signs and newly minted "independents", the outlines of a new, Conservative "Let's All Pretend We Never Heard Of George Bush" strategy began to take shape, Both Siderism metastasized, and the fight over who gets to be a  "Real Conservative" began.

Watching the Defectives


(Sorry, Elvis; had to do it.)

As we pick our way through the landscape of rubble, failure and debt that 30 years of Conservatism has left in it wake -- pushing our brooms and shaking our heads -- it is important to keep our sense of humor. And I gotta tell you, other than, say, Bill Kristol cranked to the gills on X trying desperately to lick peanut butter off of Bill O’Reilly’s bald spot, there is nothing funnier than watching a recently apostatized Conservative “independent” who Suddenly!Discovers! his Party is being run by degenerate lunatics going completely “Mercy land-sakes alive, where did alla these bah-barians evah come from!” apostal ™ .

One such Conservative “independent” is Larry Gellman, who was brought to my attention by his fellow-traveling Apostlican ™, Andrew Sullivan.

Oh my, but theirs is quite the six-hanky tale of woe my friends.

Larry is all a-weep and bewildered, having discovered that his beautiful, sunlit Conservative “independent” Eloi Randite split-level, Rancho del Utopia was sitting atop terrible machineries operated by , bitey, Conservative Morlock freaks

who view him less as a brother in arms and more as a yummy-yummy

pig in a blanket.

Jiminy-jillikers, Radioactive Man, if only someone hadda told Larry sooner!

Larry picks up his own, private trail of tears here…

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Will the Republican Party Survive--And Does Anybody Care Anymore?

…

After hearing Powell, I immediately switched over to Fox News in time to get their reaction which was entirely critical and dismissive of Powell. One "analyst" speculated this was Powell's way of getting even with McCain for not selecting Powell to be his running mate. Another focused on how unfair it is for anyone to criticize McCain or his campaign since McCain is honest and righteous and Obama is so much worse. No one mentioned the merit or accuracy of Powell's statements. Later on MSNBC, Republican Pat Buchanan speculated that Powell picked Obama because he was just anxious to endorse a fellow Black guy.

Meanwhile, the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager radio crowd has gone non-stop venal and ballistic over the airwaves this month. Their entire programs are filled with lies, distortions, and partial truths about Obama and his positions. He is freely and constantly called anti-American, a traitor, a socialist, a terrorist, a friend of terrorists, a liar, a thief, a criminal, and a "bloodsucker" who wants to take every hard-working citizen's money--all of it--and distribute it to his liberal, radical, good-for-nothing friends.

This is not just about politics or an election. This has become a Holy War with these guys. My longtime friend Dennis Prager told me last year that unless I had learned to loathe the Left, then I had learned nothing from him in the 20 years I have regarded him as a teacher. He recently wrote a column on townhall.com in which he explains the difference between people on the Left and people on the Right. Apparently being a pluralist or an independent--trying to learn from all people--is no longer an option.

This latest descent completes the utter destruction of the Republican party as a force for good in this country. Until eight years ago, Republicans had a deserved reputation for being more socially and fiscally conservative and responsible. When the party culture became infected with the Bush/Rove/Cheney virus, it began to morph into a divisive force that possessed none of those qualities.

…

“Until eight years ago…”?

Bwahahahahaha!

You know, “independent” probably used to mean something once upon a time, but for the last few decades, “independent” has been nothing more than a smelly little grotto carved out of thin air by Cokie Roberts, David Broder, Joe Klein and a hundred others for the comfort of smug, gutless, closet Conservatives who wanted to play “Maverick – The Home Game” in public and masturbate to Rush Limbaugh in private.

An intellectual sniper’s nest for the craven and the clueless knocked together with little pundit hammers, bangbangbanging away morning, noon and night that both sides are equally wrong about everything all the time.

Actually, in a strange way, I almost of sympathize with the “Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager radio crowd” contempt for people like Larry.

For 30 years the Party of God has been winning elections by pandering to the scum of America, and they have always been

Absolutely

Unambiguously

Crystal-Fucking-Clear

what their objectives were.

Some of them want Jesusland. Some want “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Some are sitting on an arsenal and a year's supply of pemmican, praying for a race-war.

Some want the Rapture.

And some just want a nice, tidy, White Christian feudal state.

And we crazy, Socialist, America-haters?

We want our country – our beautiful, tolerant, raucous, vigorous, flawed democracy – back.

That’s what the Culture Wars have been about, Larry, or weren’t you paying attention?

Of course, as long as the Pig People were helping Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich win, “independents” like Larry were perfectly content to warm their little hands on the bonfires onto which their culture and country were being tossed. But now that its all going to shit, and the “independents” want to get off the merry-go-round, the devil wants his due.

Of course, the Larrys of the world couldn’t be bothered to read the fine print on the infernal contract they were signing because…

First Atwater came for Reagan's "welfare queens"

- but I was not a welfare queen so I did not speak out.

Then Gingrich came for the Liberals and the Unions,

- but I was taught to call everyone who disagreed with me a traitor, so I did not speak out.

Then Falwell and Robertson came for the gays,

- but gays are icky, so I did not speak out.

Then Limbaugh came for the Feminazis

- but strong, smart women terrify me, so I did not speak out.

And when they came for me, I had the fucking nerve to pretend to be Shocked!Shocked! that my Party was being run by degenerate lunatics.

Sorry Larry, but the 40 million of us who have spent a considerable fraction of our lives trying to warn people like you this day would come will never be the slightest bit interested in your outrage or your regrets until you start beginning every sentence with "I am so fucking sorry that I had my head up my ass for the last 30 years."

Or, to quote Rick Blaine from “Casablanca:

“I don’t mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.”