National Party News

Any and all threats to lawmakers supporting the healthcare reform law are out of line, uncivil and unacceptable and the Republicans (and Democrats) who opposed the bill should continue, as long as it continues, to disavow all of it as firmly and clearly as they can. 
 
Let's be clear: The GOP doesn't own criticism of the reform law and cannot be blamed for every threat. There are many Democrats and independents who oppose the law. But as I said in my column today, the Republican Party can be hurt by the behavior of people who agree with them and their new "repeal" message will make things worse.

A new Harris poll tells it all. 

The misrepresentation of President Barack Obama is truly incredible. 

25 percent of Americans believe that he was not born in the U.S. and so is not eligible to be president. (45 percent of Republicans) 

23 percent believe he is a racist. (42 percent of Republicans) 

David Frum had it right — here is one conservative Republican who understands where this is all headed. His column on Sunday night hit his party hard and even held that its performance these last few months on healthcare would not lead to Obama’s Waterloo, but its own.

The Republican Party is rewarding the crazies — it is encouraging the crazies. What better way to whip up anger into a frenzy than to put forward the Michele Bachmanns of the world, the Limbaughs, the Becks, and follow that with the unbelievable performance by John Boehner on the House floor? With cries of “baby killer” toward Bart Stupak — outrageous. 

Today's unemployment numbers were nothing to write to mom about, but they will create fear in the hearts of Republicans who hope America fails because they desperately want President Obama to fail. The mediocre jobs numbers today suggest the probability of a strong jobs number next month, with winter ending, spring coming and the snowstorms over.

Republicans try to play the fear card, but the real fear is Republicans afraid that jobs come back after the latest Republican recession.

The issue is not merely the fundraising poster that was an open call to fear and hate using language and pictures that no major American political party has ever used. The issue is that the modern Republican Party does not have opponents, it has enemies. The modern Republican Party does not seek to win a debate, it seeks to destroy its opponents.

The liberal Democratic base that won in 2006 and 2008 is roused again. The Republican Party that is engulfed by extremism from the radical right will now be challenged from the heartland of America by the liberal base that is far more in touch with mainstream American values. Let Glenn Beck attack Theodore Roosevelt as a socialist while populist Democrats from the base fight for principles and policies that Americans want.

The New York Times’s venomous and possibly deranged Frank Rich, who associated Sarah Palin with terrorism in his Sunday column this week, borrows from his previous archrival George Will in the claim that the White She Devil is a critter from hell and anyway, she will never be elected.

While Letterman is suddenly hugging up to Mitt Romney as his alter ego in L.A., Jay Leno restarts again on a positive note with a visit by the White She Devil, the Wolf Girl Incarnate, the Slayer, the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. But what is most telling comes up in Texas in the middle, where the Romney team, including Cheney, H.R. Bush, Boy George’s proxy Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, has lined up to take out Perry in his primary race against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. White She Devil supports Perry.

Why is it that they are so easily scorned and so effectively intimidated? Why is it that the common-sense wishes of the vast majorities of Americans are always suppressed as they trudge the middle of the road, drowned out by the noisy bombs fired from the political fringes?

As the man in "The Graduate" said to Dustin Hoffman's character, "I've got one word for you." Except, unlike the movie, it's not "plastic," although that still would describe a lot of our leaders.

Ron Paul won the CPAC poll last week with an impressive 31 percent of the vote. Paul is a favorite of the young, and over half the attendees at CPAC were under 25. How does that 31 percent feel about Israel — because Paul has little regard for Israel? As Paul rises now to legitimacy, his opinions on Israelis, American Jews and others should be scrutinized.

“The fact that the hearts and souls of the conservative movement have a clearly expressed preference for Ron Paul as their 2012 candidate demonstrates yet again the vast and growing chasm between the American Jewish community and the Republican conservative movement,” said David A. Harris, president of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Watching Sean Hannity these days, one might think he has become a Rockefeller Republican. Hannity, who has called himself a conservative, not a Republican, is obviously worried that the very Tea Party activism he promoted may turn out to be the best thing to happen to Barack Obama since Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail for Hillary.