I Don't Get It

I'm all for seeing multiple sides of an issue. I would love to see two or more parties having a free and fair discussion in which competing relevant ideas are expressed and debated. I wish this was what the GOP was offering right now, because by doing so, they could seriously contribute to moving this country along... unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. I've been stunned this week by what seems to be a new nation-wide tactic. It may or may not more harmful than the simple nay-saying strategy they so cherish, but it is far more baffling. It seems to be... mean-spiritedness.

- The as-of-today no-longer-in-operation Rocky Mountain News reports here on a Republican State Senator's opposition to a bill requiring HIV testing for expectant mothers (which would give doctors the opportunity to treat the babies against the virus' transfer). Senator Dave Shultheis said he "can't go there" because the disease "stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part." The article goes on to describe more of his remarks which are too hateful and depressing for me to reproduce here, in which he outlines his justification for condemning the unborn to living with AIDS. (I personally didn't have the stomach or the patience to read the article in its entirety... it also quotes one of Shultheis' Republican colleagues in a separate debate, in which he compares homosexuality to murder by referencing them as sins that should not be condoned... he backs himself up with quotations from the Bible.)

- Meanwhile, CPAC is underway in Washington, D.C., and the racist "Obama Waffles" cereal is on display (and Joe the Plumber gave a talk). Two big laughs so far from the gathered crowds have been in response to 1) an implication that our President was not born in America and 2) a remark by John Bolton about the possibility of a devastating nuclear attack on the city of Chicago... wow... hilarious...

- Sean Hannity had a poll on his website earlier this week asking which of three possible forms of violent revolution his listeners favored.

Most of the above came to my attention by way of MSNBC, which, I realize, is a network with a clear political bias. But they did not make these stories up, they simply shared them. Any one of these instances, on their own, might be taken as the mouthing-off of the radical fringe or, if we wanted to be really, really generous, as badly-calculated political missteps. But these are not simply rogue agents. The people responsible include a Republican State Senator, an Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, and one of the country's leading right-wing pundits.

The comments, taken together, are stunning in their spite and devastating in their hatefulness. If this is the new Republican Party, then I'm becoming less and less worried about "bipartisanship." These people can dig themselves ever deeper into a hole of hate and when they get to the bottom, they will realize that such a hole is dark and cold, and that the rest of us have forgotten them as we continue to seek the light up above.

I don't get it.