The best laugh of the day – of the year, maybe – comes courtesy of Michael Funke, who found some unbelievable rhetoric on the Deschutes County Republican Party website.
First under the heading “This is getting weird!!” we have this tirade against Barack Obama:
“Obama’s not acceptable. He’s a socialist at best, and Lord knows what else. He’s dangerous and a demagogue. He’s following in the footsteps of Huey Long and Adolph Hitler and Fidel Castro and all the other silver-tongued, smooth talkers who sucker folks in with the promise of ‘change,’ and then turn our to be bad news.”
Barack Obama = Hitler = Castro = Huey Long. Okay, we get it.
Then comes some advice for parents and grandparents on how to snap the young ‘uns out of their Obama-induced trance and make them See the (Republican) Light.
“How to Get the Kids Back to Earth!”
“Have you got a kid or grandkid who is ga-ga over Obama? If so, you’re not alone! We’ve been grappling with this problem, too. How do you straighten their thinking out? How do you pull them out of never-never land and get them to vote for John McCain?
“It doesn’t do any good to imply that Obama comes from a long line of shady characters, that he is nothing but a Chicago pol with a smooth line of gab, or that he used to go to the wrong church, or that he isn’t patriotic enough, or that his wife is a piece of work, at best. …
“Our august group came up with the following questions to ask these wayward heirs of ours:
-What are Mr. Obama’s qualifications to be President?
-With the probability of a Democratic controlled Congress, do you want a hard-left politician in the presidency? What about our system of checks and balances?
-Mr. Obama is promising ‘change,’ but ‘change’ to what? Do you think that electing an inexperienced liberal lawyer to the top job is going to change Congress’s charge towards socialism? Not if his utterances from the primaries are to be believed!
-How about realizing that this vote isn’t about who’s the winner on ‘Dancing with the Stars’? This is a moment for careful, rational analysis. It’s a time to vote for the man we believe would show the leadership needed when it’s time to step up and protect us.
“So, yeah, we can understand our kids/grandkids desires to ‘clean up the mess in Washington’ and to get someone elected who isn’t so ancient, but Obama ain’t the answer! He ain’t cool, he ain’t a hottie, he ain’t awesome. He’s just a ward politician from Chicago trying to talk his way into a job way too big for him (or you or me, for that matter!)”
Absolutely. But we have no doubt at all that Sarah Palin can handle it.
Finally comes this tidbit, written by Gary Hubbell, who’s described as a columnist for the Aspen Times Weekly:
“There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.
“His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone – just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.
“The victimhood syndrome buzzwords – ‘disenfranchised,’ ‘marginalized’ and ‘voiceless’ – don’t resonate with him. ‘Press “one” for English’ is a curse-word to him. …
“The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.
“The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina – he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.
“His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.
“He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. …
“Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. … He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.
“He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.”
That screed reminded us of New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s description of today’s Republican Party: “Grumpy old white guys watching Bill O’Reilly in a bunker.”
Let’s see, was any minority group left unoffended? Hispanics, check. Women, check. Homosexuals, check. African-Americans, check. At least there was no anti-Semitism … as far as we could tell.
It’s interesting, and scary, to see what Republicans say when they’re talking to each other, as opposed to what they put out for general consumption. Laughable, yes. But not so funny when you realize that the people who spew such toxic waste have a chance of electing the next president of the United States.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2008.
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You have got to be kidding…Have you seen democrat blogs and what “moveon.com” has to say? Republicans are in no way as mean and ugly. For a youngster you sure don’t check out the internet very often H.Bruce.
“Itâ ™s interesting, and scary, to see what Republicans say when theyâ ™re talking to each other, as opposed to what they put out for general consumption. Laughable, yes. But not so funny when you realize that the people who spew such toxic waste have a chance of electing the next president of the United States.”
Trust me, the feeling is mutual with regards to the pre-packaged rhetorical garbage the left presents as policy
“For a youngster you sure don’t check out the internet very often H.Bruce.”
Youngster? LOL! I’m 62 years old! But thanks for the flattery.
As for comparisons, I don’t think comparing the Deschutes Republican Party website — which presumably represents mainstream party thinking — with MoveOn or some of the other more extreme Democratic sites is valid. Here’s a link for the Deschutes Democrats site: http://www.deschutesdemocrats.org. If you can find ANYTHING there that’s as vicious and vitriolic as some of the stuff on the Deschutes Republican site, I’ll pay you $100.
Okay, HB, I agree there is nothing comparable on the Deschutes Dems’ site. In fact, there is almost nothing at all on the site!! I had never visited the site before–but because of all the Dem hype concerning the O-miester and the internet, I imagined it was going to be informative beyond imagination. I was unprepared for the total dearth of policy and position information. I guess the best way of being unoffensive is to be uninformative.
And I was hoping to get that $100!!
“â Heâ ™s a manâ ™s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. â ¦”
I like to watch football but I don’t play poker, I don’t golf, I don’t hunt deer (don’t have any philosophical objections to it; it’s just not something I do), I don’t call turkeys, I don’t go to strip clubs (well, hardly ever), I know how to change my oil but I don’t like to do it, and I can’t build anything more complicated than a bird house. So I guess I’m not a “man’s man.”
But I know better than to tell my wife she’s “more emotional than rational.”
Speaking of Sarah Palin, the NY Times reported today that “two weeks after the Republican convention, with public sentiment starting to settle into place, there are indications that Ms. Palin might not be accomplishing what Mr. McCain had hoped in choosing her.
“A New York Times/CBS News poll this week found that Ms. Palin had accomplished one crucial goal for Mr. McCain: She helped raise the enthusiasm level markedly among Republicans …
“But so far, the poll suggests, the boost has not gone far beyond that. The poll found that even now, voters are much more likely to identify Mr. Obama â ” and not Mr. McCain â ” as someone who would bring change to Washington. He is widely viewed as someone who would continue or expand President Bushâ ™s policies in office.
“And the New York Times/CBS News poll found no evidence, at least to date, that Ms. Palin has allowed Mr. McCain to expand his appeal to women voters or independent voters. Polls taken immediately after the convention had found evidence of a sharp increase in support for Mr. McCain among white women, but this poll suggests that that effect was, so far at least, limited. White women were evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama; before the conventions, Mr. McCain led Mr. Obama among white women, 44 percent to 37 percent.”
Palin is not ready for prime time. She was not very impressive the other day even in front of a hand-picked audience at a “town hall” meeting. When one woman asked for her response to charges that she isn’t able to handle foreign policy issues, Palin’s basic response was that she feels confident she can do it — not citing any experience or knowledge she had to make her feel confident, just saying that she’s confident. Confidence is good if it’s based on something, but false confidence is a formula for disaster.
The Palin Bounce is over, and in the following weeks as people get to know her better I believe she will turn into a serious liability for the ticket. She excites the hard-right, fundamentalist Republican base but she turns off everyone else.
Palin’s circular response to the question you mentioned was truly impressive in its demonstration of her ability to give a non-answer: She is ready because of her readiness and that demonstrates how ready she is. Palin has also backpedaled from her claim that Alaska provides 20% of the US energy supply. She is no longer willing to cooperate with the bipartisan state investigation because it is political. The revelations and message ‘tweaking’ are daily now. She was chose to appease the hard-right, anti-abortion, Conservative Christian, Drill Baby Drill base–and that will ultimately be her only appeal. It cost McCain the ‘experience’ argument. It prevented him from shoring up his economic credentials by choosing someone who could help him in what is now the premier issue of the election. It questioned his judgement: how much vetting was really done in her hurried selection? And it brought into question his claim that he is a true maverick: He caved in to the party’s power brokers and went with a choice the could live with–not one he truly wanted.
There is a serious schizophrenia in this years Republican campaign: they are running away from the Republican label (nowhere at their convention was the word Republican visible in the hall); For the first time the sitting president did not make an appearance at his party’s convention (the collective sigh that the hurricane rolled in that weekend was actually audible); McCain daily pretends that the last 25 years of his record doesn’t count–ignore his anti-regulatory stance–he has always been an anti-Republican populist!
My wife is a relatively ‘new’ citizen–okay, this is her third presidential election–and she has been surprised at how ‘third world’ this cycle has been. The truth is inconvenient–Lie, Baby, Lie! This Orwellian tactic is common in countries that have elections where the media is state run and the public largely uneducated. Her conclusion–rightly or wrongly–is that the media in the US is entertainment, therefore controversy driven and that the population has been dumbed down to where the average person will believe anything they want to, regardless of what their lying eyes and ears tell them.
We need more electrolytes!