As many of you know, I am a partisan Democrat. I think the current Republican leadership is made up of radical freaks who perfectly live the doctoral thesis of Henry Kissinger: revolutionary powers. The filthy lying GOP wants to overthrow many sacred tenets of the Revolution and have this country become an oligarchic theocracy.
I loathe Republicans. I can't watch them on teevee (sitting through 90 minutes of Dick Cheney was a real low point of the year), I fantasize about putting one of my Another Dumbass for Bush (I have 'em in my briefcase--really) sticker on the Bush-stickered cars at work, and think Fox News watchers are pod people, programmed to push the country into fascism.
Kevin Drum does not think or see the country this way at all. He has many Republican friends (I got rid of mine long ago), actually takes them at their word, trusts the GOP to have what they think is the best interests of the country in their whackjob policies, and tries to constantly heal partisan rifts that bloom in his comments.
I think this attitude is dangerous and a form of denial. I put up with it reading Calpundit because Drum is just a few gene sets short of brilliant, is a much calmer, deliverate thinker than I, and the dude has massive amounts of time to read, think and write. It shows--he's a very, very good blogger. Bloggers will always have a very special place in my heart.
But three weeks ago Drum dumped on Robert Scheer for saying something I thought was perfectly accurate--as I remember it it was a barb against old Republicans voters siding with the new radical freaks in the GOP. Drum hates this sort of thing--he thinks politics should ultimately bring people together, or at least keep them from beating each other up.
It made me furious. I told the hoser I was never leaving a comment again--even then I knew I couldn't stop reading the blog. So I cruised over there this morning and found this:
"...In a craven attempt to win back the admiration of all those readers who were upset when I wrote about my distaste for Robert Scheer a few weeks ago..."
All right, Mr. Drum. You didn't have to be craven. I'll leave a comment again very soon. The man is just too damn good.
But the reason I'm writing this diary is not this smarmy little love story, but to highlight an issue I should be dealing with: how will I deal with Republicans in the future? Is this loathing and shunning really appropriate?
After all this incredible division in the country, how are we going to come together again as functioning, civil blocks of citizens?
It's one thing to say the Republicans are lying crooks and feel all superior. It's quite another to have a mental set that realistically has a chance of changing their behavior and heals the country somewhat. I don't want to hug the sonzabitches, I just want to respect them again.
I'm tired of sneering and loathing my fellow citizens. If anyone has any ideas about how I can move from this mental stance, please let me know. I and the country are going to have to deal with this sometime.
The best way to is throw the crooks out into prison and hope they learn. That's what I think. But I could be wrong.