Republican mud fight

I happened to be surfing the AM radio dial recently when purely by chance I encountered the voice of an older woman engaged in heated conversation with a certain Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh seemed to be having some trouble maintaining control of the direction of the discussion, since this wasn’t some “commie socialist liberal” he could degrade for a few moments before hitting the delete button without ever troubling himself or his listeners by addressing the caller’s point. No, this was a caller who was incensed that Limbaugh was supporting Newt Gingrich as the Republican nominee for president in 2012. Gingrich was unfit to be the Republican nominee because of his moral lapses, particularly in regard to his attitude about the sanctity of marriage vows. His first marriage appears (one suspects) to have been the product of an “inappropriate” affair between a teenage student (Gingrich) and his high school geometry teacher. Gingrich then divorced his first wife (seven years his senior) and married his younger mistress, who he subsequently cheated on as well, hoping that she would understand his concept of “open” marriage. Engaging in carnal knowledge with a staffer 23 years his junior was merely one of the “perks” of being Speaker of the House; she would also become his third wife.

It was outrageous that Limbaugh could support such a morally corrupt man, when there was an alternative with pure conservative values untainted by the sin of foul lust. Who could this be? Certainly not Mitt Romney, who Limbaugh accused of not having the “personality”—meaning that he didn’t have the gonads to defend himself against, say, the vicious attacks of Gingrich. Would he wilt before the withering assault of truth that the “radical” left has hiding in ambush? Not Ron Paul, because the Right doesn’t believe such nonsense as “freedom” being a “right” every citizen ought to expect; “freedom” to whatever one wishes is something the wealthy can get away with. It isn’t Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, either; both dropped out. No, this caller views Rick Santorum as the bearer of the true cross of Republican moral and spiritual idealism. And she isn’t alone. Limbaugh may be a fat blowhard, but he’s not a complete fool; he knows that Santorum has no chance once his relatively extreme views become common knowledge amongst the voting public. He is, however, was not up to the task of defending Gingrich against the questions of character; Limbaugh meekly pointed to other examples of “open” marriages in the White House, like that practiced by JFK and Bill Clinton. But the feisty caller was having none of that, and Limbaugh wasted away as quickly as a twig in a bonfire before the evidence of fraud. Limbaugh was exposed as a gasbag without principles, just sarcastic, self-congratulatory hot air.

The Republican primaries have been an embarrassment of mortification, proof that the party is devoid of the ideas, vision or principles needed to adapt to changing realities. They’d rather sing the same old tune of tax cuts and deregulation (which is the same as doing nothing), play the paranoia, fear, ignorance, intolerance and bigotry cards that work wonderfully well with paranoid, fearful, ignorant, intolerant and bigoted. Everything from domestic to foreign policy is run through the prism of “us” vs. “them.” The stench of unabashed mendacity lies everywhere. Republicans and their PAC henchpersons are known to concoct the vilest of misinformation in their attacks against their opponents, yet when a CNN moderator at a recent Republican debate had the audacity to question Gingrich about his ex-wife’s charge that he desired an “open” marriage in which he could commit serial adultery, he accused the moderator "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine" and this was evidence that the media was "destructive, vicious and negative." Of course, this could also describe the majority of Republican attack ads and Sean Hannity. There were other tidbits that the moderator didn’t mention, like the 84 counts of ethics violations against Gingrich while he was Speaker of the House, which I’m sure is an old story that he’s rather people forget. Or his own commentary might be sufficient to indict himself of said fault, such as the following: “What if Obama is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together his actions? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior,” not to mention hysterical hyperbole like "(Obama’s) secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.” But Gingrich need not fret needlessly; after all Fox News, which is little more than a propaganda organ for the Republican Party.

Propaganda and paranoia doesn’t always work; sometimes enough people say this is enough. Santorum was defeated for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2006 by the widest margin ever for an incumbent—59 to 41 percent—after a particularly vicious campaign in which Santorum worked overtime demonizing Latino immigrants. Santorum’s racism got the better of his tongue in a more recent episode, when he criticized suggestions to expand Medicare as a “plot” to make “black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families.” This illogical bit of twisted race paranoia goes hand-in-fist with another of Santorum’s dictums, that America was “great” before 1965—that is before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, which obliged white folks to at least pretend that “colored” folks had rights they were bound to respect; nor was his “mistaken” assertion that Latino voters are “illegal” a slip of the tongue. This is a man who yearns for a segregated past where he does not need concern himself about the well-being of all Americans, not just those of his own race.

There are other reasons why someone of Santorum’s “caliber” shouldn’t be allowed to set foot in the White House—such as his reputation as the most corrupt politician in Congress; until his re-election defeat in 2006, Santorum took so much lobbyist money that some people believed that he represented everyone but his own constituents. Like Gingrich and his fascination with his version of “civilization,” Santorum lives in a world that no longer exists, one where privileged, “entitled” races such as the one he fancies he belongs to believes that “civilization” can exist protective cocoon, oblivious to the suffering they themselves helped establish the parameters of.