John Cole, a GOP activist and former member of the Editorial Board at redstate.com, proves he's something I thought was extinct-- an actual ethical Republican --with this cri de coeur at his excellent blog Balloon Juice.
Some highlights:
In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias.
And it makes me mad. I still think of myself as a Republican- but I think the whole party has been hijacked by frauds and religionists and crooks and liars and corporate shills, and it frustrates me to no end to see my former friends enabling them, and I wonder ‘Why can’t they see what I see?”
***
I don’t know why my friends on the right still keep fighting for these guys to stay in power. Why do they keep attacking decent people like Jim Webb- to keep this corrupt lot of fools in office? Why can’t they just admit they were sold a bill of goods and start over? Why do they want to remain in power, but without any principles? Are tax cuts that important? What is gained by keeping troops in harms way with no clear plan for victory? With no desire to change course? With our guys dying every day in what looks to be for no real good reason? Why?
Read the whole thing. It's worth the click through.
2 comments:
It merely shows that he has finally grown up.
Okay, I'm outing myself as a registered Republican -- who feels exactly the same way as the guy who feels hijacked. The party in power is not the party I joined all those years ago. And I haven't switched my party affiliation for one reason: primaries. In a red state, we have to choose between two republicans and if I switched, I wouldn't get a say in which Republican represents me - on the local level, state level and national level. But I am embarrassed to admit my party affiliation. But the only place it really matters is when I close the curtain to that voting booth and *I* choose.
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