In Which I (Briefly) Say Something Nice About Lindsey Graham

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Is Lindsey Graham one of that rare breed for which I hunt so diligently: the Sane Republican? If this was “Jeopardy,” the response would be, “What is, ‘Things You Never Thought You’d Hear Dusty Say,’ Alex.” Nevertheless, as we wait for the bachelor (not that there’s anything wrong with that) senator from South Carolina to make up his mind about whether he’s going to be the next one out of the Republican Clown Car, I find myself hearing some things from him that make me go, “Wait a minute, Lindsey Graham said THAT?”

For example, Graham apparently does not believe in your God-given right to use your firearm to revolt against the government. This sets him apart from, for example, Graham’s fellow senator, Ted Cruz.

In a fundraising email, Cruz asserts that “The Second Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.”

If you think about this for a second, this basically means the Second Amendment gives you the right not only to shoot robbers and rapists; it also justifies killing cops, soldiers and especially politicians who you feel are “threatening to your liberty.” Or, as prominent Republican fundraiser Ted Nugent put it: “Obama can suck on my machine gun.”

Asked about Cruz’s statement, an expression of what some law professors have dubbed the “insurrectionist” theory of the Second Amendment, Graham disagreed.

“Well, we tried that once in South Carolina. I wouldn’t go down that road again,” he said in an interview with Talking Points Memo. “I think an informed electorate is probably a better check than guns in the streets. I’m not looking for an insurrection.”

No “guns in the streets”? No “if ballots don’t work, bullets will”? What kind of mealy-mouthed, squishy Republicanism is this when threatening a second Civil War is off the table?

Then there are statements Graham made regarding immigration on a trip to New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago, as reported by Yahoo! News senior correspondent Jon Ward.

When engaging with a crowd at a Republican Committee meeting, Graham was confronted by a local politician who asserted that illegal aliens were receiving government benefits. This is an article of faith with the perpetually outraged, xenophobic Teahadist wing of the GOP, if you use the definition of “faith” that means “something someone has an unshakeable belief in despite the evidence.”

Sen. Graham immediately risked being burned at the stake for heresy: “You can say that, but you cannot get food stamps, you can’t get Medicare, you can’t get Social Security if you’re illegal.”

For over half an hour, according to the article, Graham tried to cajole and persuade his audience on immigration reform, asking questions like, “How many of you believe they should get paid over the table, not under the table? How many believe they should pay taxes?” He apparently forgot the basic principle that you can’t use reason to persuade people away from a position that reason never led them to in the first place. But even I have to give him credit for trying.

He’s also a believer in climate change, saying he’d like to “clean up the air and create a lower carbon economy over time.” He’s characterized that position as “commonsensical.” (See “using reason,” above.)

I’m not worried, though. I know that this tentative warmth I’m feeling toward Sen. Graham will only last until the next international crisis, when he goes on TV and starts foaming at the mouth and stomping his little feet about how we need to bomb, bomb, bomb and oh yes, “show leadership,” before whoever the boogeyman of the moment is “opens the gates of hell,” thus releasing a plague of locusts, demons and Sharia lawyers and leading to a thousand years of darkness and despair.

Oh, and Graham apparently still thinks we can intervene successfully in Syria by arming anti-Assad rebels, so long as we only arm the “right ones.” Because that’s worked so well in the past. And at some point, he’ll no doubt threaten to filibuster some unrelated nomination if he can’t open up yet another Benghazi witch hunt.

Lindsey Graham says, with rather odd precision, that he’s “91 percent sure” he’ll raise enough money to announce that he’s running in May. And I’m 100 percent sure that, if he does, he’ll tank after South Carolina, if he even makes it that far. He just doesn’t have the ideological purity primary voters demand.

Where Do The Haters Go Now?

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This past week, the big question in the great state of Arizona was “will she or won’t she?” — with “she” being the state’s governor, Jan Brewer, and the question being whether or not she’d veto an act passed by the state legislature making it legal for businesses to refuse service to gay or lesbian people on “religious grounds.”

The bill, which would allow businesses to do to gay and lesbian customers what they can’t do to black, Latino, Jewish, etc. ones, all in the name of religious freedom, passed the state House 33 to 27 and the Senate 17 to 13.

The hullaballoo was fierce and immediate, with gay and lesbian activists such as actor and politician George Takei urging a boycott of the state if the law takes effect, and business leaders calling for Brewer to veto the bill because it would kill jobs and commerce.

Companies like Apple (which is planning to build a plant in the state), American Airlines and Marriott also called for a veto.

Officials of the NFL, which is holding next year’s Super Bowl in Arizona, issued a statement saying, “Our policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness and prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or any other improper standard,” thus raising fears that they might actually move the Super Bowl, like they did in 1992 when Arizona refused to enact a Martin Luther King Day holiday.

Interestingly, among the people urging a veto of the bill were three of the senators who’d actually voted for it.

“While our sincere intent in voting for this bill was to create a shield for all citizens’ religious liberties,” wrote Sens. Bob Worsley, Steve Pierce and Adam Driggs (the majority whip), “the bill has instead been mischaracterized by its opponents as a sword for religious intolerance. These allegations are causing our state immeasurable harm.”

Turns out religious principle might end up costing money. Can’t have that, can we?

This whole argument that we should be allowed to discriminate against people if we can find some justification in the Bible raises the question: Where does it end? I frequently get emails from a virulent racist who peppers his angry and often incoherent screeds with supposed biblical support for the oppression of — well, I can’t use some of the words he uses.

And this fellow isn’t alone. Should people like that be allowed to refuse to serve African-Americans, Latinos, Jews or interracial couples on the ground that their interpretation of the Bible forbids mixing of the races, even at lunch counters? Are we going to return to the vileness of Jim Crow laws so long as we can drape that ugliness in religious robes?

Finally, Gov. Brewer saw sense and vetoed the bill. I’m sure a lot of people who would have loved to freely exercise their hatred in the name of the Baby Jesus were let down. But I want to help, because that’s the kind of guy I am.

If you really want to live in a country where they put the gays in their place, may I suggest Russia? They’re all about conservative Christian values these days. Of course, the weather is horrific, the food is worse, the plumbing doesn’t work, and packs of feral dogs roam the streets, but these should be small prices to pay to safeguard yourself from having to deal with gay people.

Or how about Uganda? Their president recently signed a bill that makes homosexual acts punishable by life in prison. The original version of the bill made those acts punishable by death, and hey, you can’t hardly get more biblical than that.

Just last week, a Ugandan newspaper helpfully published a list of what it called the country’s “200 top” gays, to make it easier for the authorities to enforce traditional family values at gunpoint. Now, the country is periodically racked by unrest followed by vicious government crackdowns and there’s terrible poverty and disease everywhere, but hey, there probably won’t be any gay people coming into your business if you set it up there.

At least as far as you’ll know. Because discriminating against gay and lesbian people doesn’t make fewer of them. It just makes for more misery in the world.

All in the name of God, of course.

Sane Republicans: Rare and Endangered, But They Do Exist

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As some of you may have noticed, one of my interests is in finding and cataloguing a rare breed known as the Sane Republican. Alas, not only is it a rare breed, it’s getting rarer.

They’re being hunted to near extinction by other species such as the Raging Right-Winged Moonbat and the Red-Faced Red-State Howler Monkey. Yet, this plucky species continues to live on, and can be sighted if you’re paying attention.

Let’s start by heading to upstate New York, where first-term Republican Congressman Richard Hanna told The Syracuse Post Standard that he was “frustrated” by how much “we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes at this point in history.”

As a specific example, Hanna mentioned the demand of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Insane Asylum) and other right-wingers that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, be investigated for Islamic extremist ties, not for any action of hers, but because some of her family members were “connected” (in ways not specified by Bachmann) to “Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”

Hanna responded to this bit of neo-McCarthyism by noting that “we render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides.”

Normally, such reasonable statements, especially as they relate to Congresswoman Crazy Eyes, would be the equivalent of painting a set of cross hairs on your forehead. But Hanna survived a challenge from a candidate favored by the tea party (remember them?) back in June. It remains to be seen what will happen when he faces Democrat Dan Lamb in November.

Next let’s head down to Utah, aka the Beehive State, the only state I know of that has its own official state firearm (the Browning M1911 automatic pistol). Utah’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, recently responded to an Obama administration proposal to relax some of the federal work requirements for welfare recipients for states who wished to try their own projects. The requirements for participation were that state plans (a) get more people working and (b) produce verifiable results.

Herbert did not, however, repeat the Romney administration’s repeatedly refuted falsehood that the proposal “gutted” work requirements, and would lead to people just “sitting around and getting a welfare check.”

You’d think giving states greater flexibility in implementing federal programs would be regarded as a good thing by Republicans. But the Romneyites weren’t going to miss a chance to throw a little race-baiting — OK, a lot of race-baiting — into the campaign by resurrecting the well-worn specter of the lazy “welfare queen” from the Reagan years, and never mind the fact that such an accusation was a blatant lie.

Herbert, on the other hand, is trying to get stuff done. He told The Huffington Post that “the idea of flexibility is something that all states want to have,” and that his own state had asked for one of the waivers.

He disagrees with the administration’s method of implementation, contending that it has to be done through Congress, but that’s actually a reasonable argument to have, in contrast with the hysterical ranting of a proven lie, which is what RomneyCorp has chosen.

Also in the Beehive State, we find Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. When President Obama announced, to howls of rage from the right, that he’d no longer be using federal resources to deport children of illegal immigrants if they met certain conditions, Shurtleff called it “clearly within the president’s power” and pronounced himself “pleased” with the decision.

“Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them,” Shurtleff said. “The administration is saying, ‘Here’s a group we could be spending our resources going after, but why? They’re Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.” Exactly.

There are others, of course. But sadly, the Republican herd often drives the moderates and even the mildly sane out of the fold, like former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who’ll be speaking at the Democratic Convention.

Because, you see, there’s a word for what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” The word is “Democrats.” A goodly number of current Democratic positions, including the Affordable Care Act, were ideas from the Republican Party, before it completely lost its mind.

If you’re a moderate Republican who doesn’t feel at home in the GOP anymore, you might consider jumping ship. And if that suggestion fills you with scorn or apoplectic rage, you’re not one of the people I was talking to.

Beware the Girl Scout Conspiracy!!

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Beware: When you bought those Girl Scout cookies last month, you may have been inadvertently helping to finance the liberal homosexual aborto-fascist agenda.

At least that's what Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris seems to be afraid of.

Morris recently refused to join in a resolution in the Indiana State House to honor 100 years of Girl Scouting. In a letter to his fellow Republicans, he explained why: "After talking to some well-informed constituents, I did a small amount of Web-based research, and what I found is disturbing."

(Note: When someone confidently cites "a small amount of Web-based research" as his basis for an opinion, get ready for big laughs ahead).

The Girl Scouts (and their British cousins the Girl Guides), Morris' "research" revealed, "have entered into a close strategic affiliation with Planned Parenthood," though "you will not find evidence of this on [their] website - in fact, the websites of these two organizations explicitly deny funding Planned Parenthood."

Well, of course. The fact that they deny an association is just more proof that there is one. Anybody who knows enough to make himself a tinfoil hat knows that.

Wait, it gets better.

"Abundant evidence," Morris reports, "proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood."

Wow. I didn't know that Planned Parenthood had a "tactical arm." The whole thing raises the specter of fresh-faced, heavily armed, pre-teen girls in sashes fast-roping down from black helicopters to round up our helpless womenfolk and force-feed them RU-486 abortion pills and lesbian porn.

"Tagalong Actual, this is Thin Mint 6. We have secured the perimeter. Operation Baby Bust is under way. Over!"

Morris cites the fact that the "radically pro-abortion" first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, serves as the honorary national president of the GSA. Of course, so has every first lady since 1917, so I guess they were all in on the conspiracy too. I'm so disappointed in Laura Bush, but you know, I always did think Bess Truman was up to something. Now I know she was probably pushing the radical pro-abortion agenda while Harry wasn't looking.

Within a few days after Morris' letter was printed in the The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, it was obvious that he was feeling a little heat, and by "heat," I mean widespread derision, even from his own party. House Speaker Brian Bosma, also a Republican, responded to Morris' lunacy by bringing Girl Scout cookies into the House floor and passing them out.

When finally cornered by reporters, Morris defiantly refused to back down. In fact, in classic wingnut fashion, he doubled down on the crazy. Asked why he thinks the Girl Scouts support abortion, Morris proved that he'd learned from his time on the Internet. He trotted out one of the classic dodges of the dishonest debater when asked for proof of a wild accusation: "Look it up yourself." Also known as, "I'm not your Google monkey."

People, said Morris, should "get on the Internet, do some research, contact the Girl Scouts of America on a national level and ask them that question." When someone pointed out that the stated position of the Girl Scouts is neither pro- nor anti-abortion and that such issues are "best left to the girls to talk with their families about," Morris uttered this jaw-dropper: "They're not against it. If you're not against it, you're for it."

Based on this logic, the U.S. Postal Service, the Army and NASCAR are all pro-abortion, because they haven't taken a clear position against it.

In the end, the resolution to honor the Girl Scouts passed, with only one vote against it, after which Speaker Bosma asked all of the female House members who had been Girl Scouts to stand and make the motion to adjourn. According to USA Today, "nearly every female member stood." Asked about the controversy later, Bosma described his attitude this way: "I've been to the carnival before, and you don't walk into every sideshow tent."

Good for you, Mr. Speaker. It's nice to find at least one corner of the Republican Party where they don't let the clowns run the circus. Someone ought to nominate him for national GOP chairman.

Jon Hunstman: Dead Man Walking

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"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." In a sane world, this sort of pronouncement wouldn't be necessary. In a sane political party, it wouldn't be an item of controversy.

But we don't live in a sane world, and Jon Huntsman, who expressed those sentiments a couple of weeks ago via Twitter, doesn't belong to a sane political party. He's running for the GOP presidential nomination, a race in which being a member of the reality-based community is an actual handicap.

You know, if he had a chance of getting the nomination, Barack Obama might have something to worry about in Jon Huntsman. He's smart, articulate and fiscally conservative, and he's got some serious credentials, as well as good hair. Not as good as Romney's, but still very presidential hair.

He's also worked in the Obama administration as ambassador to China, which would certainly cut the legs out from under any attempt by the president to attack Huntsman's judgment and/or character. ("Well, Mr. President, if he's that much of a boob, why'd you hire him?")

Fortunately for the president, however, Huntsman is far too rational for the Teahadist fanatics who can be counted upon to swarm the early primaries. They don't want to hear anything about no fancy science stuff or any of that "bipartisanship." They'd rather chow down on the sort of red meat served up all fresh and bloody by demagogues like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.

In an interview with ABC's Jake Tapper, Huntsman stated that he didn't think that calling Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke "traitorous" made Perry sound "serious" on the issues. In the same interview, Huntsman also criticized Bachmann and other wingnuts for their willingness to allow this country to default on its debts.

Huntsman was, on both counts, completely correct. He is, therefore, completely doomed.

I mean, really. Trust scientists? Why should we, as good Americans, give any credibility at all to people who actually make a career out of studying an issue, like the 98 percent of the scientists actually working in the field of climate science who believe in man-made climate change?

 Why believe in the clear empirical evidence, including striking photo after striking photo of glaciers and icecaps retreating?

In the words of the guy who got caught in bed with another woman by his wife: "Who you gonna believe, honey, me or your lyin' eyes?"

Trying to reverse or even slow down the clear damage being done to the environment would be hard. It might be expensive. It might even, horror of horrors, cut into the profits of the oil companies, reducing said profits from "totally inconceivable by the brain of man" to merely "mind-boggling."

Why go through all that when you can just wave a hand, say a few magic words ("Al Gore owns a big house!" or "It snowed last winter!"), and make all those uncomfortable facts disappear from the minds of your loyal followers so they'll pose no threat to your corporate donors?

Or, if you're a Texas-size con man like Rick Perry, you can just make stuff up, like his claim that a "substantial number of scientists" were found to have been "manipulating their data." The truth is, a half-dozen scientists were accused, based on eight emails hacked and stolen from their computers. There were five separate investigations. All found no evidence of wrongdoing or data manipulation.

You can look it up. But why would any Republican candidate bother to do that? The truth doesn't set you free in the GOP, unless what you want to be free from is any chance of surviving Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Mitt Romney certainly saw the writing on the wall. After saying back in June when he announced his candidacy that he favored reduction of "greenhouse gases that might be significant contributors" to climate change, Mitt saw Rick Perry take the lead and did one of those deft backflips for which he is so justly famed. He now says he's an agnostic on the matter:

"Do I think the world's getting hotter? Yeah, I don't know that, but I think that it is," he said. "I don't know if it's mostly caused by humans. What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to."

Jon Huntsman is a sane, reasonable moderate who believes in science. Which is why he's a dead man walking in the GOP. And that's why President Obama, for all his faults, is going to win a second term.

Sane Conservatives, Redux

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I've occasionally been accused of being too hard on conservatives in this column. Some have even asserted that I hate conservatives. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Some of my best friends are conservatives.

What I’m against, and what I mock on a regular basis, are people who use the mantle of “conservatism” as a cover for meanness, selfishness and bigotry, people for whom so-called “conservatism” isn’t about what you believe, it’s about whom you hate. I actually go out of my way to look for reasonable, rational, non-insane conservatives. I’m pleased to say, the hunting has been pretty good recently.
One thing conservatives profess to love is the Constitution. Remember the brouhaha when Supreme Court nominee (now Justice) Elena Kagan quoted her mentor, Thurgood Marshall, in saying that the Constitution,
as originally drafted, was “defective” because it recognized and legitimized slavery? You’d have thought she’d advocated setting fire to the original ­document and replacing it with Mao’s Little Red Book.
Yes, some conservatives sure do love that Constitution — until its protections start being applied to someone who looks, prays, loves or think differently from them. Freedom of religion? Right to private property? Not for Muslims in Manhattan, bucko! Right to counsel? Shut up, you Islamofascist sympathizers, and bring on the waterboard!
A recent example of conservative disdain for the Constitution arose over the 14th Amendment’s definition of a citizen as anyone “born ornaturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

That really grinds some ­conservatives’ gears when it’s applied to the children of ­people here illegally. They really hate the idea of those rotten little brown “anchor babies” being citizens, to the point where some Republican senators have called for at least partially repealing the 14th Amendment.
That got to be too much for former CNN newsman Lou Dobbs. It would be hard to find someone more hard-line on illegal immigration than Dobbs, who’s characterized it as “an invasion.”

But he recently went on Fox and said: “The idea that anchor babiessomehow require changing the 14th amendment, I part ways with thesenators on that because I believe the 14th Amendment, particularly inits due process and equal protection clauses, is so important. It laysthe foundation for the entire Bill of Rights being applied to the states.”
Another conservative who suddenly managed to turn up sane was Ted Olson, former solicitor general under George W. Bush and no one’s definition of a bleeding heart liberal.
After a federal judge struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the attorneyswho had argued the case for the plaintiffs was none other than Olson. He afterward went on “Fox News Sunday” and proceeded to calmly demolish Chris Wallace’s argument that the judge had created some kind of “new right” for gays and lesbians.

Olson pointed out that the right to marry a person of your choice has long been defined as a fundamental right, “part of liberty, privacy,association and spirituality guaranteed to each individual under the Constitution.” Pressed on the issue of so-called “judicial activism,” Olson responded that it’s a “judicial responsibility” to overturn laws that violate the Constitution, no matter how many people may have voted for them. “Would you want Fox News’ right to report be submitted to a vote?” he asked Wallace.

One conservative writer and blogger I read regularly is David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and the author of several books on conservatism, including “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again.” Frum recently responded to an editorial in The National Review condemning the falsely named “Ground Zero Mosque” by using the same sort of rigorous application of the Constitution that conservatives claim to be so fond of (but so rarely adhere to).

“I remain skeptical that the sponsors of this mosque are quite as benign as they have been represented,” he said,“... but the rights guaranteed by the Constitution do not belong only to nice people. And whatever we may wonder about the mosque promoters, we should also remember the mosque’s users: the thousands of Muslims who work in lower Manhattan, every single one of whom is as entitled to pray as any member of Marble Presbyterian or Temple Emanuel.”
Sane conservatives: They’re out there. They don’t get the same press coverage as the nutballs, birthers and death-panel fabulists do, and to tell you the truth, they’re not nearly as much fun to write about. But they’re willing to be fair, and so am I.
At least this week.

Every Now and Then, One of Them Comes Up Sane

Former G.W. Bush speechwriter David Frum and I would probably disagree on just about everything. But he's one of the few n the Right who's willing to be honest and push back against some of their more ridiculous nonsense.

In this great piece, he takes on the whole "Obama is a socialist" malarkey:

Why didn’t Obama—the alleged socialist—fight for the public option? Why didn’t Obama—the alleged socialist—follow the recommendation of many, including Paul Krugman and Rep. David Obey, that the stimulus be much larger than what he ultimately proposed? Why didn’t Obama—the alleged socialist—give the American people just a small taste of real socialism and, at least, temporarily nationalize the large banks? (After all, even George W. Bush’s administration nationalized AIG, the largest insurance company in the world. Is Bush a socialist? Is Ben Bernanke? Is Henry Paulson)? Why didn’t Obama support a financial regulation bill that would actually break up the big banks and link bankers’ compensation to institutional performance? Why didn’t Obama withdraw American forces from Afghanistan as soon as logistically possible—why did he increase American forces there? Wouldn’t the fiscal savings have helped with the “transition” to socialism? I know I know—according to Kurtz, this is all part of the plan. But if this is the plan, the plan doesn’t really make much sense, does it?

The whole thing is worth a read.

Wingnut No More

Charles Johnson at the conservative blog Little Green Footballs has finally had enough. In his essay "Why I Parted Ways With The Right," he sets out point by point why "The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff". In the process, he defines exactly what I mean when I use the term "wingnut," including but not limited to: "bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism"; "Support for anti-science bad craziness "; and "Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech". And he names names.

It's particularly significant because this used to be one of the blogs that was Wingnut Central. Mr. Johnson and I would probably disagree on just about everything political, but it's nice to see a conservative denouncing the crazies who have hijacked his movement.

It's definitely worth reading in full, but stay out of the comments section unless you have a strong stomach.

And before anyone starts shrieking about Michael Moore or Alec Baldwin or whoever the right wing bogeyman du jour is, let me make two points:

(1) None of these people has done or said anything that's nearly as insane as the stuff Michelle Bachmann or Rush Limbaugh spouts every freakin' day, and, most importantly,

(2) They're not leaders of the Democratic Party. No one, for example, backpedals to kiss Michael Moore's ass the day after even mildly criticizing him.

Welcome to the ranks of the sane, Charles. Only problem is, you keep this up, and other conservatives follow your lead, I won't have anyone left to make fun of.

This May Be a Sign of the Apocalypse

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My friends, today, I'm going to do something that will shock you. It will amaze you. It will plumb astound you.

I am going to say some nice things about some Republicans.

I know sometimes it seems as if I have it in for the GOP. But see, my schtick here at The Pilot is making fun of people who need making fun of. And you have to admit that the modern GOP offers a target-rich environment for that sort of thing, playing host as it does to a motley collection of birthers, teabaggers, secessionists, death-panel nuts, Sarah Palin cultists, and thugs like Hollerin' Joe Wilson.

The party that once hailed William F. Buckley and George Will as its leading intellectual lights and that now bestows that honor on the virulently anti-intellectual Joe the Plumber is just begging to be mocked. The party that hails a hate-filled drug addict like Rush Limbaugh as its de facto leader...

Oh. Right. Nice things about Republicans. Sorry, got a little carried away there.

It's come to my attention recently that there are actually some voices of reason and sanity crying out in the wilderness, asking for a reasoned debate as opposed to hysterical ranting about made-up bogeymen.
There are indeed some Republicans for whom espousing conservative principles doesn't involve shrieking "socialism," "Marxism" or "fascism" about everything of which one disapproves in such a way that it's crystal-clear that one hasn't the vaguest idea what any of those terms means.
Take, for example Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman from Florida and the host of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC.
Now, I'm not going to say I agree with Scarborough on everything. But he's been one of the few Republican pundits who seem willing to take on those who place themselves out on the lunatic fringe of Republican discourse. And by "lunatic fringe," of course, I mean Glenn Beck.
Speaking of Beck's claim that President Obama is a racist who hates white people, Scarborough said, "I'm talking to you, Mitt Romney, and I'm talking to anybody who wants to be president in 2012. ... When you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't call him out are responsible."
Scarborough said that he's starting a "conservative honor roll" to reward GOP politicians who denounce racism and craziness. Let's hope it's not a short list.
Then there's Charles Johnson, founder and Webmaster of the right-wing blog Little Green Footballs, or LGF for short.
LGF was the blog that first expressed skepticism about documents referenced in a "60 Minutes" report that raised questions about George Dubbya Bush's truncated service in the Texas Air National Guard. Revelations that the documents were insufficiently verified led to the resignation of veteran CBS anchor Dan Rather, a scalp that any conservative might envy collecting.
Johnson and commenters on the blog have frequently sneered at the "loony liberal left." But after the last election, even Johnson became alarmed at what he saw as the growing racism of the Right, especially the approval some right-wing bloggers were expressing towards European white supremacist organizations.
When Rush Limbaugh used an incident where a white student was beaten on a school bus by some black kids to claim that this was an example of "Obama's America" and to call for buses to be resegregated, Johnson called the segment a "vile rant" and wondered, "Where was Michael Steele? What the hell is wrong with the Right?"
Excellent question, Chuck.
All mockery aside, I would like to see a strong, sane, intellectually honest Republican Party. I think any party, including the Democrats, is made stronger by having principled opposition. And I know there are thoughtful conservatives out there. I know this because I know some of them.
Unfortunately, none of those people seem to be in charge of the party. I'd like to see that change. Oh, it would mean I'd have to find someone else to make fun of, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice for my country.