Friday, November 09, 2012

Rampant "Romnesia" Infects the GOP

In the wake of Tuesday's election results it is amazing hearing various conservatives who seem to be suffering extreme cases of "Romnesia" when it comes to their sudden memory loss as to things they previously said or stood by silently on as the GOP clown car and the pitchfork carrying Christofascists drove the GOP and Mitt Romney to defeat.  Andrew Sullivan has a roster of some of the more preposterous claims to conservative pundits that looks at some of the most insane of the electoral results predictions that can be found here.   In her defense, Kathleen Parker did write some point on columns reactions to GOP insanity and an almost intentional effort to alienate all by lily white far right voters.  One Example can be found here.  But then, she soon lurched back into GOP fantasy land as evidenced by this column.  Now, she has swung back in the direction of rationality conveniently forgetting her past columns and seeking to put the blame for the GOP crash on election day to the Republican Party - .i.e., the party base - rather that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and their failed ideas.  What she says - at least for the moment - is in fact correct.  One can only ask why she failed to continue to say it when it really counted.  Here are highlights from her column in the Washington Post:



The headline was inevitable: “What went wrong?”  Seriously?

The bubble in which most politicians and their staffs live is not just a metaphor, apparently. The answer has been so obvious for so long and in so many ways, one has to wonder what these people read in their spare time. Old issues of Boys’ Life?

If nothing else, one had to look only at the two political conventions. One was colorful, vibrant, excited and happy. The other was pale, moribund, staid and restrained. If the latter sounds like something in the final stages of life, you’re not far off.


Truth is often painful, and the days since President Obama’s reelection have been a salted slugfest. Amid the writhing, I rest my case.  Some Republicans stubbornly insist, of course, that the problem was that Romney wasn’t conservative enough. Really? In his heart, this may be true.   But the real problem is the Republican Party, which would not be recognizable to its patron saint, Ronald Reagan. The party doesn’t need a poll or a focus group. It needs a mirror. 

The truth is, Romney was better than the GOP deserved. Party nitwits undermined him, and the self-righteous tried to bring him down. The nitwits are well-enough known at this point — those farthest-right social conservatives who couldn’t find it in their hearts to keep their traps shut. No abortion for rape or incest? Sit down. Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street.

Equally damaging were the primary leeches who embarrassed the party and wouldn’t leave the stage. Nine-nine-nine, we’re talking about you, Herman Cain. And Gov. Oops? You, too. And then there were Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann  .  .  .  .  Did they have a right to persist in their own fantasies? Sure. But not if they were serious about getting a Republican in the White House.

More to the point, the GOP seems willfully clueless. There’s a reason there are so few minorities in the party. There’s a reason women scrambled to the other side. There’s a reason Hispanics, including even Cuban Americans this time, went for Obama. 

The way forward is about love, not war, baby. Women’s reproductive rights need to come off the table. As Haley Barbour suggested long ago, agree to disagree. Compassionate immigration reform, including a path to citizenship, should be the centerpiece of a conservative party’s agenda.

Marginalize or banish those who in any way make African Americans, gays, single women or any other human being feel unwelcome in a party that cherishes the values of limited government, low taxes and freedom. A large swath of conservative-minded Americans are Democrats and independents by default.

Mitt Romney would have been a fine president and might have won the day but for the party he had to please.

I disagree with Parker on Romney.  As I have made clear in numerous post the guy was a flawed candidate at best.  However, she is point on in terms of the sickness that plagues toe GOP.  It is too bad that she did not remain consistent in her criticisms -  especially early on in the campaign.  Or better yet, during the GOP primaries.  One thing is clear:  until rational conservatives get over their "romnesia" about their own behavior/statements, the GOP most certainly will not begin to reform itself.

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