September 29th, 2008
Every so-called leader of the Republican Party – Bush, Cheney, McCain, McConnell, Boehner — is for the Wall Street bailout, but the measure got only 65 GOP votes in the House on Monday and went down to defeat.
So, who’s really running the GOP these days?
There was a time when the titled leaders of political parties held sufficient sway with the rank-and-file to get a job done in a time of crisis, even if the objective was only to put up a brave front in a lost cause and show solidarity with the officers of the ship.
That didn’t happen in this case. Instead, it was a mutiny.
So, who’s in charge of the Grand Old Party right now?
Do I hear any nominations?
August 21st, 2008
It says HERE that John McCain has bowed to the Religious Right and given up on his effort to change the Republican platform with respect to its call for a ban on all abortions.
McCain previously had wanted to allow for exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
In light of this development, I’m repeating here a commentary I posted about three and a half months ago:
John McCain is one of the millions of Americans who are generally opposed to abortion but want its legality maintained in cases of rape or incest.
Accordingly, McCain has advocated on several occasions that the Republican Party platform be changed from its current opposition to all abortions to a position allowing for certain exceptions.
But now that he’s the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Straight Talk is under BIG PRESSURE from the party’s hard-core anti-abortion wing to drop his plan to change the platform.
The squeeze in which McCain finds himself involves a few angles that might not occur to the casual observer. As I’ve said before in this forum and others, the stricter position against abortion is more logically consistent than the one that allows for exceptions. (My own pro-choice view involves numerous other factors and is not at issue here.)
The only good reason for a person to oppose abortion in general requires one to believe that it’s the taking of an innocent life. If it’s not the taking of an innocent life, it’s no different in an ethical sense than having your appendix removed.
(Granted, the decision on whether to bring a fetus to full term can involve complex emotions and considerations, but absent the homicide question, the ethics are not very problematical, and the government has no legitimate interest in the matter.)
So, the basic premise advanced by the so-called pro-life movement is that abortion is wrong because it’s tantamount to murder. If you don’t buy that argument, you have no valid reason to want abortion outlawed.
That makes it hypocritical to say you’re against abortion except in cases of rape or incest or the life of the mother.
How can a fetus in a case of rape or incest be less innocent than one produced in more acceptable circumstances? How can John McCain and those who agree with him deny that they’re logically and morally inconsistent on this score?
Indeed, one has to wonder if McCain has actually thought this matter through, or whether his opposition to abortion is an insincere political convenience for purposes of advancement in the Republican Party.
But their are lots of other hypocrites on this issue. Most pro-lifers shudder at the thought of a woman having to bring a fetus to full term in a case of rape or incest. And most politicians are loathe to buck majority sentiment in that regard. So much for the sincerity of their pro-life positions.
There’s another political question that arises here: If a fetus is a person, and abortion is the unwarranted killing of that innocent person, why don’t any of the pro-life politicians favor a law under which the woman who gets an abortion would be charged with murder?
The answer, of course, is that taking such a position likely would be political suicide. Most Americans don’t want women who get abortions to be prosecuted as murderers.
Nor is there any consistency of logic in making an exception for an abortion to save the life of the mother. In his book “Papal Sin,” author Garry Wills argues: “If the fetus and the mother have equal status as persons, the natural and not the inflicted death should be preferred,” if you’re going to be morally and logically consistent about it.
Then, too, politicians should be required to square their anti-abortion positions with the belief among some folks — orthodox Catholics, for example — that the morning-after pill is an abortifacient. Are any of these pols willing to call for a ban on morning-after pills? Are they willing to call for murder charges against women who take such pills? If not, why not?
The politicians should be required to explain in detail their opinions on just when life starts and when, if ever, it’s permissible to end such life and what penalties should be imposed for violations of any limits that are enacted into law.
Questions like that would prompt the Republican pols, I’m sure, to squirm and dance and tie themselves into ideological knots.
August 7th, 2008
Yeah, the Republicans are blowing the whistle on this ridiculous giveaway scheme, which supposedly is aimed at reducing so-called global poverty.
It’s an outrage! Eight hundred and forty-five billion dollars! That’s more than $2,500 for each American taxpayer!
Oh, one other thing about this: It’s not true. In reality, the plan will cost each man, woman and child in America about one-third of one penny per year.
Read all about it HERE.
POSTSCRIPT: Incidentally, this scheme is so controversial that it passed the House on a simple voice vote and is co-sponsored in the Senate by such wild-eyed Marxists as Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel.
But the Republican National Committee thinks it’s cause for alarm and accordingly warns against electing its principal sponsor our next president.
July 18th, 2008
Illinois State Sen. Kirk Dillard (left) served in the state legislature with Barack Obama and has said some nice things about the Democratic presidential nominee.
Consequently, Dillard, who’s also a John McCain delegate to the Republican National Convention, is getting some BLOWBACK from his fellow GOPers.
July 15th, 2008
Republican Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana is widely respected for his grasp of nuclear-proliferation issues and stuff like that, but it turns out that he’s also a political apostate.
Truly loyal Republicans don’t run around saying nice things about Barack Obama and vouching for the veracity of the Democratic nominee’s campaign commercials. It just isn’t done. It’s political treason. It’s tantamount to trampling on the flag and dissing our troops.
Consequently, the GOP has little choice but to drum Lugar out of the party for THIS unspeakable act.
Has the man no shame?
June 24th, 2008
Over the past 56 years, the respective fortunes of the Democratic and Republican parties have tended to follow cycles lasting 12 to 15 years.
According to THIS PIECE, the Democrats would seem to be in ascendance this year — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Barack Obama will win the presidency.
May 30th, 2008
A Democratic pollster and a Republican pollster recently combined forces to conduct a fascinating study of what voters think of the two parties’ respective messages when the party labels aren’t attached to them.
Republican pollster Glen Borger wrote this about the study results:
“The news in the survey is NOT the terrible political environment – you already are aware of that, and if you are not, please retire. The news is NOT that John McCain has a slight deficit when matched against Barack Obama, despite stronger support for McCain from Republicans than Obama gets from Democrats (see my April memo for why that is a challenge for ALL Republican campaigns). NOR is the news that voters are angry about gas prices and think the Democrats are better able to handle the economy.
“Instead, the news is the four match-ups between the Republican message and the Democrats’ message on the key issues of the economy, Iraq, trade, and taxes. The Democratic message consistently won out over the GOP message by eleven to 25 points.”
There’s more on this matter at THIS REPUBLICAN WEB SITE.
