The World According to Me

I was checking out Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend.  Among his guests were former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former House Rep. Heather Wilson, both Republicans.  Bill had asked about the rift within the Republican party between moderates such as Colin Powell and the hard-core right led by Rush Limbaugh.  Their response was typical Republican denial.  To wit, there is no rift and the public should stop focusing on personalities and identities and focus on issues.  A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree, and my proposal to the Republican party is simply this…you first.

Face it.  Your side started this game of personality/identity politics when you decided to prop up Joe the Plumber as representative of blue collar working class
America (a ploy which backfired on you miserably).  You use President Obama’s nebulous association with William Ayers to paint him as a terrorist.  You use his membership in Rev. Jerimiah Wright’s church to paint him as racist.  You still claim he’s a Muslim, not born in this country, a socialist, a communist, a fascist, a Marxist, and a Black separatist.  All code for, “Hey y’all, HE’S BLACK!”  You claim his pick of Sonia Sotomayor for SCOTUS was an “Affirmative Action” pick, even though the only two reasons that your side picked Sarah Palin as your VP candidate were the ones sitting on her chest.  You take a couple of statements she (Sotomayor) made in a speech she gave 8 years ago out of context to paint her as a racist, even though judge Samuel Alito made similar statements during his confirmation.  You compare the organization she once belonged to, La Raza, to the KKK, which is like comparing the NAACP to the Aryan Nation.  The buffoon you have running the RNC (talk about an Affirmative Action pick) wants to retool your party’s message to “urban-suburban hip-hop”, and says you can oppose same-sex marriage on economic grounds, even though same-sex marriage has the potential of bringing in 16.8 billion dollars to the economy.  Your party tries to re-brand the Democratic party as “The Democrat-Socialists Party,” and the Republican governor of Texas, and several other Republicans, are now using the word “secession” as your paty’s rallying cry.

And now that this game of personality-identity politics has come back to bite you in the ass in the form of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, etc., you suddenly want to have a “civil” discussion on the issues.  I’m all for it.  You want to talk about politics instead of personalities?  Take the personalities out of the politics.  You want to talk issues without the innuendo?  Stop introducing innuendo into every issue.  You want us on the left to stop characterizing Rush, Newt, and Dick as the de-facto leaders of your party?  We’ll be happy to do so, once the REAL leaders of your party tell these clowns to STFU.  If you want to have an adult conversation about policy, then GROW UP and start acting like adults instead of a bunch of spoiled brats holding their breath until they get their way (i.e. waiting for Obama to fail).  Nothing would please me more that to have a civil discourse and real discussion on the issues pro and con, as I believe that both sides have much to offer.  I’m ready when you are.