You Can't Negotiate With People Who Accuse You Of Genocide

Sarah Palin was the GOP's Vice Presidential candidate and is one of the most prominent figures in the Republican party. On Facebook, she has accused President Obama of wanting to create a government “death panel” that would refuse to provide health care to “the sick, the elderly, and the disabled.” She is leveling the unbelievable accusation that Obama wants to commit genocide on a massive scale. Her claim is that Obama is an equal to such evil historic monsters as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

Her talk of a “death panel” is not just a purely false distortion of a serious debate. It creates an incredibly dangerous environment that could encourage individuals to take up violence to stop the impending “downright evil” plan.

I understand that Obama wants health care reform to be bipartisan, but there is simply no negotiating with people who publicly accuse you of planning genocide. As long as such insidious lies are being promoted by the leaders of the Republican Party, a real policy debate will be impossible.

Several important Republicans (Snowe, Collins, Grassley, Enzi, Graham, etc..) claim to want to achieve a bipartisan consensus on health care reform. If they truly want to see health care reform they must denounce these horrible lies and demand that Sarah Palin apologizes. Honest negotiations are impossible as long as they provide implicit consent for those trying to poison the debate with wild accusations. If Republican senators like Grassley, Enzi, and Snowe do not denounce these destructive lies and the liars telling them, it is proof they are not interested in compromise.

They need to stand up in defense of reform or step away from the negotiating table. If they do not try to tone down the insane rhetoric it is a clear indication they are only interested in causing the Democrats a political defeat and not fixing our broken system.

And Another One Bites The Dust, GOP 2012

In less than a month, three possible 2012 Republican Presidential candidates have disqualified themselves. With the strange and ill timed resignation from Sarah Palin, she has all but eliminated any hope of winning in 2012. Rising GOP Stars Senator John Ensign, Governor Mark Sanford, and Governor Palin have all quickly fallen from grace.

This chain of events defies explanation. I can only guess that someone (Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Tim Pawlenty, David Axelrod, etc) has mastered the control of powerful black magic.

Happy July 4th

40 Years in the Wilderness?

The Republican party until recently has been a three-piece coalition. The first piece is the cultural conservatives-- primarily evangelicals who support "family values." They are the pro-life, pro-heterosexual marriage, anti-gay marriage voters. This is the Sarah Palin branch of the party and still the most loyal.

The second piece of the coalition is the muscular neo-conservative wing. They are pro-military voters. Since 9/11, they have been willing to create massive increases in government power to combat terrorism. They not only believe that America should use force to promote democracy around the world but that we have a moral imperative to. The Iraq war has completely discredited the neo-conservatives. The fast, cheap war of liberation we were promised never materialized. Instead we got a long, bloody, and expensive occupation. After 5 years and nearly a trillion dollars, we may be able to leave Iraq as a highly divided semi-stable country.

Finally, there are the small-government fiscal conservatives. Over the past eight years the Bush administration has managed to turn a budget surplus into a huge deficit. Two expensive foreign wars have drained our treasury. While these moves have bothered the fiscal conservatives, they could be explained as necessary consequences of 9/11. But in the past few days the Bush administration has destroyed the Republican moral authority to small government and sound fiscal policy. The federal reserve just spent $250 billion to nationalize our banking industry, along with another $500 million to be spent buying up bad loans from large financial institutions. A president which only a year ago claimed we couldn't afford to (or just shouldn't) spend $35 billion to provide health care for kid is willing to spend a trillion dollars bailing out AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and the financial sector.

The Republican party has not just failed independent and moderate voters but its own party faithful as well. Many planks of its platform have been discredited or abandoned. While evangelical voters remain loyal, they are neither numerous enough nor geographically diverse enough to support a national party on their own. It is known that the Republican party is headed for its second straight election of huge losses. What is not known is how long the Republicans will be lost wandering in the minority party wilderness. The Republican party needs a Moses to create a new coalition to lead them into the promised land. Who their Moses will be and what commandments he will bring will be the political question of the early 21st century.

John McCain Knows Sexual Insensitivity

The John McCain campaign is accusing Barack Obama of sexual insensitivity for using the common political phrase “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.” Even though the phrase has been used by almost every politician in America, the John McCain campaign claims this time it was making reference to Governor Sarah Palin. The reason: Sarah Palin has publicly stated that she in fact wears lipstick.

Personally, I did not see anything wrong with what Barack Obama said, but clearly I don't understand sexual sensitivity as deeply as John McCain. After all, this is the man who joked, “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly-- because her father is Janet Reno?”

Now that is how you do sexual insensitivity. It is a simple joke but with many layers of sexism and crudeness. It is an onion of insensitivity. He starts by making fun of the appearance of a teenage girl. He then calls one of the most powerful women in America ugly, while implying that she is in reality a transvestite. Finally, he is claiming that Hillary Clinton was not only unfaithful to her husband, but is also a lesbian (or at least enjoys extramarital sex with a transvestite). Clearly, John McCain understands sexism on a very meaningful level.