Insane Remarks by Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh

Kathleen Parker is more what I recall Republicans being like years ago than what has become the main base of the GOP membership. One did not automatically have to be a hateful bigot in order to belong to the Party. Sadly, the old version of the GOP died when the party was hijacked by Christianist extremists who are unable to grasp the concept of freedom of religion for all or the concept of freedom of religion. In the Washington Post, Parker trashes the recent insane remarks of Virginia Beach's resident lunatic, Pat Robertson, and Rush Limbaugh who increasingly seems to have fried his brain with Oxycontin. Parker has the guts to do what too few in today's GOP have the backbone to do: call lunacy for what it is. Of course, most of the moderates I knew in the GOP now view themselves as independents for lack of a desire to be confused with the nastiness of the GOP today. Needless to say, the teabagger crowd will be calling for Parker's head on a pike. Here are some highlights from Parker's column in the Washington Post:

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Tragedy often brings out the best in some people. And sometimes, it brings out the worst. Please direct your attention to Exhibits A and B, Pat Robertson and Rush
Limbaugh.
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No one should be surprised that Robertson invokes God's wrath or Satan's trade-offs when horror hits. Whether it's a hurricane, a terrorist attack or an earthquake, one can be fairly certain that Robertson's Ouija board will point to a supernatural explanation. Invariably, he blames the victims. . .
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In Robertson's literal world of superstition and fear, a fault's rupture may signify a belch of the beast, but in the real world of science and knowledge, it is a natural, if disruptive, occurrence that bears no malice toward any particular man, woman or child. That we are having this conversation is ridiculous -- obviously, one would hope. That some percentage of the 1 million daily viewers of "The 700 Club" might pray and tithe to the speaker of such bile is far scarier than any voodoo curse.
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Equally ill-timed and foolish, if not nearly as insane, were Limbaugh's remarks upon news of the earthquake:
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"This will play right into [President] Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."
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Is it possible that Limbaugh doesn't know Haiti's history also includes the post-slavery oppression of dark-skinned descendants of slaves by the lighter-skinned descendants of colonialists who bred with the enslaved?
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Surely, there should be the occasional time and place when circumstances transcend the usual and free us from the race-baiting and ignorance-pandering panhandling that characterizes so much of American politics: When God and Satan are given a holiday from the news cycle. When a president can be granted the pure motives of a good nation. When science isn't an insult to the divine and no demon earns credit for human misery. Haiti is one of those places. Now should be one of those times.
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I applaud Parker's candor. Sadly, for people like Robertson and Limbaugh they attribute their own hate based motives to everyone else and likely would not recognize a saint - or Christ for that matter - if they stood directly before them. Conservatism has become a truly ugly phenomenon under the likes of Robertson and Limbaugh. Indeed, it's the work of the Devil if anything is.