Monday, June 11, 2007

A Magnificient Summation of Mark's View of the GOP

As provided by Jim in the combox:
Mark has a stunningly monolithic view of the Republican party -- as though the party Politburo vets and approves every statement any politician makes.

One might also note that Mark's continuing slander of the GOP is now spreading to encompass the Party rank-and-file as a whole.

What is an even further indication of how politically tone deaf (or maybe just deaf) he is that he can write this:
On the contrary: my view presumes diversity in the GOP. There are the exploit prolife rank and file, who range from really believing the party leaders care about them to people like me, who know they don't care, but are less likely to zealously do evil, to various pols who seem to be serious (Ron Paul comes to mind), to people who have a prolife voting record betokening serious opposition to abortion, to people with a prolife record betokening token opposition to abortion to people who feel awkward around all those prolife weirdos to people who long for the day when the party is no longer shackled to those backward rednecks who care about the fetus. As a general rule, this has played out so that the party talks a good game to the rank and file, but is not especially serious. Which is what I said.

At a time when the party leadership has just been dealt a monumental defeat on the issue of immigration due in no small part to anger from the base. This was an issue where there was a massive disconnect between the leaderships of both parties and the will of their constituents. If the GOP leadership were the monolith juggernaut that Mark envisions them to be, they would have simply shrugged off this opposition from redneck nativists and pressed onwards with comprehensive immigration reform. I'm sure they would have liked to do just that, but the population that they represented took exception to it and the party leaders were forced to back down. And let it be understood that it was far from just Ron Paul that brought about that particular rebellion.

Speaking of which, am I the only person who finds it odd that Mark now seems to regard Ron Paul as some kind of ideal standard-bearer for Catholic politicians given that the ideology he most closely identifies with (libertarianism) is one that Mark has been an extremely vehement critic of? You know, the selfish ideology for people without children.

One further point that Mark completely ignores is that the Harriet Miers issue was one of competence, not of her pro-life credentials. The Bush administration actually attempted to argue that of course she would be pro-life because she was an evangelical Christian. Moreover, the fact that once again the leadership listened to its constituents would seem to be yet more evidence that the GOP, multi-millionaire cabal and all, is quite far from being the massive monolith that he believes it to be.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One further point that Mark completely ignores is that the Harriet Miers issue was one of competence, not of her pro-life credentials.

Well, until the very end when those speeches came out that suggested she might be pro-Casey. But the fork was already deeply embedded by that point.