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You know who I feel really sorry for this primary season? Extreme right-wingers, or as I like to call them, "wingnuts."
(Hey, after years of my political persuasion being called "libtards" and "Demonrats," I figured y'all need a snappy name of your own.)
It really can't be easy for you guys. After pretty much running the Republican party for so long, y'all just can't seem to catch a break.
First off, your early front-runner was Rudy Giuliani. "Mr. 9-11" had a solid record on some of the positions wingnuts have embraced in the Dubbya years. Things like torture and contempt for due process of law. But Giuliani's rather dodgy private life, as well as his pro-choice and pro-gay-rights stands, tarnished his supposed conservative credentials.
Plus, he was from New York, a city that conservatives loved for about a week and a half after 9/11, after which they went back to hating it with a passion.
Then it looked like the guy who was going all the way was Mitt Romney. But Romney's conservatism was always suspect, largely because he apparently embraced his current positions on abortion and gay marriage roughly the same day he started running for president.
Thompson looked like the Great Conservative Hope for one brief shining moment, but sputtered out. Huckabee looked to be staging a comeback, but still lags behind the wingnut boogeyman: Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Their hatred of McCain is summed up best by fundamentalist extremist Dr. James Dobson. McCain, Dobson wrote, "did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, voted for embryonic stem-cell research to kill nascent human beings, opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, has little regard for freedom of speech, organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters in judicial hearings, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.
"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has sounded at times more like a member of the other party. ... I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life."
Others despise McCain because of his stance on immigration. Glenn Beck of CNN even started calling McCain "Juan McCain" because of his so-called "pro-amnesty" positions on that issue. Still others hated him for his insistence that Americans should not engage in "cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment" of detainees.
See, there are two issues that are nearly a religion to the Far Right: immigration and torture. They hate the first, and they ADORE the second. McCain won't toe the line on either, and that totally enrages the wannabe tough guys that get all sweaty while they fantasize about Jack Bauer of "24" cutting the fingers off Scary Brown People.
But fear not, wingnuts. There is hope. There is a candidate still in the race who is more conservative than John McCain. That candidate is: Hillary Clinton.
No, really, I'm serious. I have it from no less an authority than Ann Coulter, the very poster girl of wingnuttery.
In a recent appearance with Sean Hannity, Coulter said, with a straight face: "If McCain's our candidate, then Hillary's gonna be our girl. Sean, because she's more conservative than he is, I think she'll be stronger in the war on terrorism. I will campaign for her if it's McCain."
McCain, she says, "led the fight against well, you say interrogations, I say torture, at Guantanamo. She hasn't done that, she hasn't taken a position in front."
But wait, Hannity said, McCain supported the war in Iraq.
"So did Hillary," Coulter shot back. And, she added, when Dubbya said in his State of the Union address that the Iraq "surge" was working, "Hillary leapt up, she applauded the surge and she applauded that the surge was working."
And, much as it may shock people to see me agree with Ann Coulter, she's absolutely right. This is the sort of thing I've been saying about Clinton for some time now.
So there you have it, folks. The real "conservative" in the race is the woman the Far Right loves to hate. If there was any doubt in anyone's mind that the word "conservatism" no longer has any meaning, that should put it to rest.
Of course, if you could watch seven years of George W. Bush exponentially increasing the power of government and spending money like a sailor in port and still say with a straight face that he's a "conservative" president -- you may be a wingnut.
8 comments:
Ann Coulter is just perpetuating the Lies Of The Liberal Media (TM).
How many fiscal conservatives and libertarians are on the edge of their seats, giddy with the thought that they might actually get their party back?
I'd tell you, but I don't have all day to count them.
For the first time in my life, I am actually SMILING whenever I think of the election.
What happens if Hillary gets all the Superdelegates to fall in line and the delegates from Florida and Michigan, but acutally is behind in the numbers minus these. Then the will of the people is being subverted by a vague and untested remedy to elections of the seventies. I am very worried about this. It's not that I demand Obama but if he's the real winner and these other methods are used to unseat him, I will be upset.
I find this hard right consternation and sputtering and frothing at the mouth infinitely entertaining. The more they flail their arms about in McCain-generated angst, the more damage they do to themselves. It's just great.
Patty: that would be the surest way I could think of to tear the party apart and guarantee four more years of Republican misfeasance. We'll see what the Clintons care more about.
Hey thanks for the linkage!
Hope you had a nice weekend.
Yours Truly,
The Wingnut :)
I find it fascinating that the picture heading the article is a SELF-LOCKING wingnut.
Delicious irony?
Didn't know such a hardware item existed, but it's really appropriate in this context.
I love this because it's such a great example of slant:
"Did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage" = Wasn't aware the constitution needed to be modified, especially when marriage is licensed by the states.
"Voted for embryonic stem-cell research to kill nascent human beings" = We're against abortion; we prefer to starve the poor bastards after they're born, but aside from that--this is such a narrow definition of embryonic stem-cell research... God causes the death of more unborn children through miscarriages than any stem-cell researcher on the planet.
"Proposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty" = I thought we might try to actually bring in more money than we spend; aside from that, Excuse me, you call yourself a Republication? You're against a tax cut?
"Has little regard for freedom of speech, organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters in judicial hearings" = You can do better than that, buddy; that's a Constitutional right. Besides, a filibuster doesn't get used that often because Senators and Congressfolk need their sleep. It's more a method of protest than any actual legislative technique. Besides, isn't your desire to stop people from talking a disregard for freedom of speech? Oh, it's only YOUR speech that has freedom.
"And has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language." = Go fuck yourself, asshole.
I believe the preferred perjorative for liberals, i.e. the proper equivalent of "wingnut", is actually "moonbat".
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