The GOP, racism and the “Birther” movement: circling the bowl?
There was a lot going on in the world of US politics that I could comment on; the health care debate, the ongoing Dick Cheney-CIA-torture saga, Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, etc. However, two specific topics have seriously captured my attention in the last few weeks and have compelled me to comment on them; the so-called “birther” movement, and the notion that Barack Obama is a racist, two theories that are dominating the right-wing media machine and Republican politics, both started by the radical fringe of the Conservative movement. Has the GOP been taken over by the lunatics, and will this takeover kill this once great political institution? According to a recent poll, only 42% of Republicans believe that President Obama was born in the US,...
The American Conservative: I Like My Chicken Fried
As the battle for America’s political soul rages on, I’ve noticed one thing about the conservative movement (at least among those conservatives in the media) that really didn’t hit me until recently, with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. From Rush Limbaugh’s declaration that he wants the President to fail, because of his fear of what Obama’s policies will do to the country; to their opposition of gay marriage, out of fear for the “sanctity of marriage”; to their fierce opposition to the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, out of fear that terror suspects will be released into the general population; to their fear of calling waterboarding what it is (torture), to their opposition to an assault weapons ban,...
