We Are the Change

Hypocrites

Why are so many hypocrites attracted to the Republican Party? Yes, there are plenty of hypocrites in the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party is just brimming over with people preaching against their very own lifestyle.
Here is my theory: People wrestling with what they see as personal defects are attracted to groups that they think may help them deal or in some cases hide from their problems.
That may be why we see so many pedophiles and closeted gays in the clergy and the Republican Party. The hypocrites may be attracted to the Republican Party because of it's moralizing on so many issues. Of course there are closeted gays in the Democratic Party but you are less likely to find them hiding there since Democrats are not fixated on an anti-gay agenda. If you are gay and trying to hide it, what better place is there to hide than in the Republican Party with their anti-gay agenda? If you are a pedophile and trying to hide it, what better place is there to hide than in the clergy? These people are living a lie and that is the very definition of hypocrisy. Of course this does not apply to all Republicans but most Republicans seem to be blind to the wolves among them.
Take for example, Ann Coulter, a 40 something that has never been married nor had children and travels with an entourage of leather clad men. She/he/it is a principal Republican spokesperson for family values, weird. She/he/it is held up on conservative talk shows as the embodiment of Christian family values yet her obvious hate speech and contrary lifestyle doesn’t raise a question with these people. Why?

What If

What if Bush had governed after September 11 as he campaigned in 2000, as a "uniter, not a divider”. What if Bush had forged a centre-right consensus that included moderate Democrats. What if Bush had listened to the voices of skeptical realism on invading Iraq? What if Bush had made appointments to Federal agencies based on competence instead of ideological loyalty?
Remember how 9/11 brought us all together. Many Democrats had doubts about the legitimacy of Bush’s appointment as President, but we put that aside. Remember the headlines after 9/11 in the Paris newspaper that said, “We Are All Americans”. The world was united behind us including moderate Muslims – all they were looking for was a reasoned and balanced leadership. We were all willing to put aside our differences to unite our country against a common enemy. What did President Bush do with this unprecedented unity? He could have used this “once in a lifetime opportunity” to bring our country and the world together, to make real progress on many seemingly intractable problems. Instead he cynically exploited 9/11 to divide our country by moving to the extreme right and then declaring that if we don’t support his extreme policies that we are un-American. He has told us dozens of times that if we don’t support him we are supporting the terrorists. How insulting, how partisan, how divisive! He used these divisions to energize his base and increase his political power and in doing so he damaged our country far more than any terrorist could.
What did this partisan exploitation of 9/11 get the GOP? They had complete control of the government for a few years – did they accomplish anything? Can the Republicans out there point with pride to anything they accomplished? Unprecedented deficits, largest expansion of the government in history, damaging our Constitution, weakening the Bill of Rights, losing the moral high ground in the world, adopting torture, increasing terrorist recruitment, letting North Korea have nukes, strengthening Iran’s hand, turning Iraq into an unstable breeding ground for terrorists and bleeding away young American lives and our treasury in the process. Please, if you are a Republican, tell me which of these accomplishments you are most proud of.
One thing is for sure, George Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever. What if?