As often happens, some of my random thoughts have had some points of contact with similar thoughts from other bloggers, in this case Publius of the (excellent) "Legal Fiction" blog. Publius was arguing that the real villains of the present civic catastrophe have been those such as David Broder and Tim Russert, who - presumably in order to preserve their "objective" credentials - continue to insist that our current atmosphere of extreme partisanship is equally the fault of both parties, when virtually every piece of actual evidence makes it plain that only one party (the GOP) bears by far the greater share of the blame.
I wasn't thinking of these pundits in my own search for villains, but while we're about the task of identifying those who have contributed to the disaster without themselves being among the core participants (e.g. Tom DeLay), we should pay some attention to the so-called "moderate" Republicans, such as Rep. Chris Shays and Sen. Lincoln Chafee. These people have watched their party, the Republican party, turn from a party of comprehensible conservatives into a mob of screaming fanatics. The party of Bob Michel (former House minority leader) is quite plainly not the party of Tom DeLay. One is tempted to invoke Ronald Reagan, who used to say that he didn't leave the Democratic party; the Democratic party left him.
Well, when are people like Chafee (and Snowe, etc.) going to stand up and say that the GOP has left them? When are these people going to withdraw and refuse to any longer be counted as part of the Republican majority? Senators like Chafee and Snowe agree with the likes of Bill Frist on practically nothing, yet they continue to allow themselves to be identified as Republicans, and thus passively contribute to travesties such as the recent gay-marriage and flag-burning debates, both of which were stage plays mounted by Frist solely in order to force Democratics to cast votes which can in future campaigns be portrayed as "un-American" or - God save us - "un-Christian".
When are the moderates going to finally say - "enough"? When will the rest of them follow the example of Jim Jeffords, who while not yet joining the Democratic party, was nevertheless able to get out of the GOP and refuse to lend his name and office to the ongoing right-wing circus?
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