Turns out that high school is an excellent place to learn about how the world works. For example, most of us learned that the school bully is really just a big coward by the time we got to our senior year. Either that, or we learned it in a John Hughes film but regardless, we learned it.
Why am I thinking about bullies? Because of Ken Mehlman, of course. How did you not make that connection?
In case you hadn’t heard, Ken Mehlman (W’s campaign manager in 2004 and head of the RNC from 2005 – 2007) came out of the closet this week. Yup, much to no one’s surprise, Ken is gay. He’s 43 years old, and finally out of the closet. Why now? Because he’s not working as a republican operative anymore, stupid! He doesn’t have to fall in line anymore, so he gets to spend that last half (or third) of his life keeping it real.
What a fucking coward, seriously. Now, I can understand the appeal of conservative rhetoric (you know, the horseshit about small government and fiscal conservatism) 25 years ago when Ken was deciding on which political ideology suited him better. But by the mid 90s, the Pandora’s box that Reagan opened up in trying to appeal to evangelicals and religious zealots had started to move the party in a very ugly direction. The right wing rhetoric during the making of don’t-ask-don’t-tell was appalling. Why didn’t all of the gay republicans stand up then? Why did they choose fear and shame over courage?
I’m not suggesting that they should have abandoned their party. I understand that liberalism isn’t for everyone. Although it should be said that the last liberal president we had was Jimmy Carter. The last two have been decidedly right of center but okay, no one knew it was going to turn out that way and the next Jimmy Carter could have been lurking in the democratic party. What I’m suggesting is that they should have stood up, come out, and changed the course that the republican party was taking. But no, they instead chose to shut the fuck up and tow the party line. Worse than that, they helped in the suppression of their own civil rights. Fucking cowards.
Gay republicans aren’t the only cowards. Sane republicans are cowardly in their own right (how’d that double entendre work out for you?). Yes, I said sane republicans. There are some. You just don’t know about them because they’re in the sane closet. Lindsey Graham (I have no idea why Ken Mehlman makes me think of Lindsey Graham!) is not a whack-a-doodle. John McCain isn’t a whack-a-doodle. Dick Luger and Orin Hatch aren’t whack-a-doodles. Scott Brown is a dim bulb, but he’s not a whack-a-doodle.
Why aren’t they standing up for sanity? Why aren’t they appropriating funds for the jobs bill, stimulus, and the extension of unemployment benefits when they know that these bills are helping their states? Make no mistake, they do know. CBO (the congressional budget office) just came out with a report that says that the stimulus has helped to create between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs. That 3.3 million figure means that the number of jobs created solely because of the stimulus package have surpassed the number of jobs created during the whole, miserable George W Bush nightmare. Sane republican senators know this. I don’t have some magical mechanism that gives me access to information that they don’t have. And yet, they’re shutting down efforts to help their constituents at every turn in order to tow the party line.
Where the fuck were the sane ones to reign in Bush when he was spending us into oblivion? Not one of them stood up and suggested that it might be a good idea to budget for the war and the occupation. Not one. None of them stood up and said that the Bush tax cuts were a bad idea. They knew what the impact of those tax cuts were going to be. They had to pass those tax cuts through reconciliation. According to the rules of reconciliation, congress can’t pass anything that way if it will have a negative effect on the deficit for over ten years. So they passed it through reconciliation with a nine year and three hundred and sixty-four day sunset. They knew they were burying our economy. They fucking knew it and said nothing. God damned cowards.
They are aiding and abetting the nuttyfication of the republican party because they’re fucking cowards.
How different would the republican party be today if their members weren’t cowards? They might actually practice some fiscal conservatism. They might have some diversity of thought. Democrats have anti-choice members serving in congress and in the senate. It’s inconceivable to me that 100% of republicans are anti-choice. It’s inconceivable to me that 100% of republicans are so rabidly pro-gun, that they don’t think that banning people on the terrorist watch list from buying a gun is a good idea.
It’s inconceivable to me that republicans aren’t a bunch of cowards. They band together to bully the pussies in the democratic party because they’re fundamentally a bunch of scared little girls. And I don’t understand what they’re so afraid of. Are they worried that if John Boehner pays them a visit to give them a good talking to for not towing the party line, that his skin condition will be contagious?
I honestly don’t understand this level of cowardliness. I’m used to spineless democrats, but at least they’re not actively participating in the ruination of their constituents, or the suppression of their own civil rights.
