The GOP Circular Firing Squad is continuing in full operation. First of all, as diaried elsewhere, Jim DeMint is blaming John McCain for the loss of the election. But also, the Republicans are turning on their own columnists and deciding who are the concern trolls and who are the True Believers. And Kathleen Parker, whose columns involved a litany of secondguessing of John McCain, has received a ton of hateful e-mails from Republicans and then proceeds to make a martyr out of herself.
Here are some of the hateful e-mails that she has gotten:
"It's time you made it official and jump on the liberal bandwagon for good," writes Tammy. "Bow down to your 'messiah,' who you helped to crown. And prepare for the 'left-wing change' you have brought upon us. I join 57 million loyal American patriots in asking you to please announce your departure from conservatism and Republican Party."
Talk about crackpot conspiracy theorists -- this is all nothing but a big conspiracy theory, and Parker was part of the conspiracy.
Then comes this from Bill: "I would like to ask you politely to go away from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Conservative Republicans in Tarrant Co. will no longer read your column. You would save us the expense and headache of a boycott against your column if you would simply keep your column in The Washington Post where it obviously will pass for a conservative opinion piece."
Finally, and representative of more than a handful, come these pearls from Stephen, a beacon of Socratic equilibrium: "I weep to see a------s like you telling us how grateful we should be to see this piece of s--- rule our great country. Go to h---you dumb piece of s---." Point taken, Steph, though a tad redundant.
But the fact of the matter is that it is exactly this sort of with us or against us mentality on the part of the Republican Party that cost them the election. The Republican Purity Police demanded, along with their lord and master George Bush, that we were either with them or against them. But let's look at the numbers for a second -- John McCain got five million votes less than George Bush did in 2004. That means that the Republican Purity Police drove out five million voters who changed their votes from Bush in 2004 to Obama in 2008. It all started with the radical plan to privatize Social Security and to take away the right of Americans to make life and death medical decisions regarding their loved ones in conjunction with their doctors. A significant minority of Republicans rebelled against this, switching their party ID from GOP to either Independent or Democratic. Guess who these two issues affect the most? And guess which age group is still the most likely to vote?
The fact that people like Jim Leach endorsed Obama and Chuck Hagel refused to endorse John McCain and the fact that Colin Powell endorsed Obama means that there is less and less of a place in the Republican Party for moderates. The GOP is becoming more and more associated with lunatics and fringe candidates who would call for the assassination of Obama at Palin's rallies, or who would call for the arrest, trial, and execution of people who were of the other party. The Republican Party is becoming associated with easy answers such as "drill baby drill" when drilling is not going to provide a long-term solution to our problems even if you ignore the potential for massive environmental damage.
And as we can see for ourselves, people like Gordon Smith are like wolves in sheep's clothing who were pretty good at playing the moderate, but who in reality were raving wingnuts who would say anything to get elected. Dino Rossi in Washington was the same way -- a raving wingnut disguised as a moderate who lost by six points this time around. The point is that people are starting to see through the wolf in sheep's clothing act championed by people like John McCain, the man who would have gotten us into war with Iran and who would have taken away the minimum wage, reinstated the draft, and made forced pregnancy the law of the land.