The Increasingly Vile GOP Messengers

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the growing problem for the GOP that those who most loudly shout its message are nutcases who increasingly cause moderates and the non-insane to run for the Democrat Party. Some years back the powers that be in the GOP decided to sell the party's soul to the Christianists in order to win elections. Now, the Christianists more or less control the party and rational thought and moderation are a thing of the past. Oh yes, candidates like Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell try to masquerade as moderates but they are anything but that. Listen to the fanatics in the party and there you will see the true agenda of its candidates. Unless and until the GOP totally disavows these nutcases and ejects them from places where they can influence party platforms, the GOP needs to rejected by voters. Here are highlights from Parker's column:

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Before recent events, I intended to write about the GOP's message problem with the headline: "Shoot the Messenger." Sunday's fatal shooting of abortion doctor George Tiller makes my title inappropriate, but the idea remains relevant. . . . By grotesque coincidence, Tiller's murderer furthers the point.

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It has long been a problem for the GOP that some of the party's cherished positions are embraced most enthusiastically by people whose grip on reality is sometimes . . . tenuous. This is especially true with regard to abortion.

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Rather than persuading people to think differently about abortion, the Terry-Keyes act makes one want to write checks to Planned Parenthood. And smart Catholics, who were perfectly capable of articulating their objections to the president's invitation to America's premier Catholic university, were suddenly stuck in the frame with rabble-rousers who demean the message. Such is the continuing dilemma of the GOP: How do you get out the message when the messengers keep getting in the way?

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[F]ire-breathers on the right don't help, whatever the cause. They may warm the base, but the Republican base is becoming a remote island in mainstream America. Everyone else is paddling away.

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Accurately or not, the right-wing wacko contingent increasingly dominates the public perception of the GOP. And, fairly or not, that perception makes it easier for characters such as Scott Roeder, the suspected shooter, to become associated with the party.

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Some Internet commentary even refers to Roeder as a "Christian terrorist." Let's see: Christian, pro-gun, anti-government, pro-life. Sounds like a Republican, right? Oh, and he's suspected of being an assassin. Connect them dots.

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One can convincingly argue that the media have a hand in perpetuating the conservative caricature, but the Republican Party has contributed to the distortion by pandering to its less rational elements. Still fresh in our minds is the last presidential election -- a strange season that might be attributed to GOP desperation if not for a prior history in times of political prosperity.

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Two words: Terri Schiavo. During that 2005 Operation Rescue debacle -- complete with death vigils and lamentations -- Bill Frist, then the Senate majority leader and a practicing physician, lent credibility to the circus performers by diagnosing Schiavo's condition via video and challenging other medical opinion that she was in a persistent vegetative state.

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[U]ntil the Republicans marginalize those who belong in the margins, they won't be attracting many new recruits. And the messengers will continue to obscure the message.