Wow! You’ve really topped yourself, Rush! I thought you were pushing it when you claimed Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated purely because he is black. But accusing Michael J. Fox of faking his Parkinson’s symptoms to sway voters? Perhaps you’d like to take a shot at Muhammad Ali? Too bad Christopher Reeve is dead or you might enjoy pushing his wheelchair off a cliff.

Way to exemplify the compassionate conservative.

Evidently, celebrities are not supposed to have a political opinion. (See The Dixie Chicks, George Clooney and Johnny Depp.) You get famous, you lose your right to free speech, especially if you’re a liberal.

By the way, this line of thought is also being extended to teachers: if you have any kind of audience, you should not talk about politics. You may have noticed a quiet but pervasive conservative movement in schools to silence any instructor voicing anything close to a liberal viewpoint. Granted, in public schools where children have little choice but to be in the classroom and they do not have the maturity to consider for themselves, politics ought to be a no-no. Of course, no one seemed to mind much when my 8th-grade science teacher distributed anti-abortion literature, complete with pictures of aborted fetuses.

But I digress. Perhaps it is not Fox’s celebrity and loving audience that upset Limbaugh. Perhaps it’s the fact that he is so ill. That is, after all, what infuriates your friend Ann Coulter about him. You and she seem to be equally frustrated by the fact that you cannot attack sick people “because that would be questioning the authenticity of their suffering” (Coulter, Godless). Oh wait! You did attack him! And you did question the authenticity of his suffering. So it’s not his illness?

Maybe you’re just upset because Michael J. Fox is a nice man. And you’re not. Hmm…nope. That’s never bothered you before.

Well, then, it must be his politics. That’s the real problem, right? Wrong.

The real problem is that you, and so many other “compassionate conservatives,” have let your party run away with you. You no longer have the capacity to question conservative politics, even when it is completely at odds with humanity and kindness and everything that is good about mankind, like our ability to empathize with people who are gravely ill and desperate for relief. You take the hard line, even when it is completely inappropriate. Annihilate free speech and condemn the sick - for the good of the Republican Party!

I considered writing this yesterday, but I was too angry. Like a good little writer, I decided to wait a day and cool off. I didn’t want to write in anger and say something un-Christian like, “I can’t wait until that fat bastard goes to hell.” I’m glad I waited. Those 24 hours gave me perspective.

My conservative friends have been sending me a humorous e-mail detailing the “2008 Democratic Convention agenda.” So I found a similar one on the web from 2004 on progressiveviewpoints.com, updated it for recent events and sent it back to them. Thought I’d share.

2008 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AGENDA
6:00 PM Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell
6:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance to George W. Bush
6:35 PM Ceremonial Burning of Bill of Rights
6:45 PM Salute to the Project for the New American Century
6:46 PM Seminar #1: Katherine Harris on “Are Elections Really Necessary?”
7:30 PM Announcement: Mark Foley Was a Closet Democrat
7:35 PM Trent Lott - “Re-Segregation in the 21st Century”
7:40 PM EPA Address #1: Mercury: It’s What’s for Dinner
8:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next
8:10 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh
8:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos Are After Your Children
8:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (men only)
8:50 PM Seminar #2: Corporations: The Government of the Future
9:00 PM Dennis Hastert leads discussion: How to Shirk Responsibility and Get Away with It
9:05 PM Phyllis Schlafly speaks on “Why Women Shouldn’t Be Leaders”
9:10 PM EPA Address #2: Trees: The Real Cause of Forest Fires
9:30 PM Break for secret meetings
10:00 PM Second Prayer led by Pat Robertson
10:15 PM Karl Rove Lecture: How to Commit Perjury and Obstruction of Justice and Get Away with It
10:35 PM George W. Bush demonstration of trademark “deer in headlights” stare
10:40 PM John Ashcroft: New Mandatory Kevlar Chastity Belt
10:45 PM GOP’s Tribute to Tokenism, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales
10:46 PM Ann Coulter’s Tribute “Joe McCarthy, Great American Patriot”
10:50 PM Seminar #3: Education: A Drain on Our Nation’s Economy
11:10 PM Dick Cheney leads discussion: How to Shoot People, Cover It Up, and Get Away with It
11:20 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: Evolutionists: A Dangerous New Cult
11:30 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh again
11:35 PM Blame Bill Clinton
11:40 PM Twice-Divorced Newt Gingrich speaks on “The Sanctity of Marriage”
11:41 PM Announcement: Ronald Reagan to be added to Mt. Rushmore
11:50 PM Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself
12:00 PM Nomination of GW Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary Overlord

200

George W. Bush is the 43rd president of the United States. Since 1789, 43 men have been elected by the American people and have sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” (Presidential Oath of Office, Constitution, Art. II Sec. 1, Clause .

No other president has done more to break that oath than George W. Bush.

He led the U.S. into a war with Iraq by convincing Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he would use to against us. He then used that war and the war on terror to justify the suspension of our “unalienable Rights” (Declaration of Independence), including our right to free speech, our right to freedom from “unreasonable searches and seizures” and “cruel and unusual punishment” (Constitution, Bill of Rights).

Now he has forced through the Military Commissions Act. This 38-page piece of legislation details a new code of military commissions, and it looks dull and innocuous enough. On page 37, however, is a paragraph that has made many people around the world sit up and take notice. It says: “No court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination” (Military Commissions Act, http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/109/s/s3930.pdf, 10/10/06).

Suspension of habeas corpus essentially reduces the Bill of Rights to a list of nice, but impractical ideals we abandon when things get too tough.

Of the 43 presidents who have served this nation, at least 14 have served during wartime. (Depending on your definition of “wartime,” it could be as many as 22.) None of them needed to disregard the Constitution with the recklessness President Bush has exhibited. They were able to do the job of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution, amazingly without suspending habeas corpus most of the time. The one notable exception was the great Abraham Lincoln, who temporarily suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. His decision generated a tremendous debate that continues today. Was his action unconstitutional? Most experts agree that it was. In his defense, however, we should remember that Lincoln was facing a war like no other president has had to deal with: both sides were American.

Bush has no such extraordinary circumstance to justify his decision. The war is not between Americans; the war is not on American soil. In fact, the distant nature of the war has been a rallying cry for hawks: fighting the terrorists “over there” keeps them away from us, after all. And we have little indication that this suspension of a fundamental right provided by our founding fathers will be temporary. In fact, President Bush assured the Iraqi prime minister today that we have no timeline on getting out of Iraq; we’ll be there indefinitely (Bush pledges to keep US troops in Iraq, AP, 10/16/06).
Obviously, habeas corpus is simply an obstacle to the way Bush wants to run this country and his war. It is a complication and an inconvenience. So he got rid of it. What frightens me is that there is no outcry as there was when Lincoln did it, and Lincoln was far more justified. Are Americans becoming complacent? Or do most people just not understand what is happening to our rights? Either way, I am reminded of the words of Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing (Columbia World of Quotations, 1996).

Watching the Republicans spin the Foley affair is making me dizzy! It’s a truly fascinating exercise in desperation, though, that you really cannot take your eyes off for a moment.

The most hysterical tactic taken by many conservatives is to turn Mark Foley into a Democrat. Representative Peter King (R-NY) was on Fox News last Tuesday accusing Foley of hanging with a “Hollywood” crowd and being “out there,” obviously trying to make him sound like a liberal in Republican clothing (Fox News, 10/3/06). My favorite female pundit, Ann Coulter, wrote in her blog last week that Foley’s “drinking problem has a certain Democratic ring to it” (anncoulter.com, 10/4/06). But I think my favorite moment was when Fox News actually ran a banner on the bottom of their screen pronouncing: Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL). When all else fails, I guess you just re-assign the guy to the other party. (God bless Jon Stewart’s Daily Show for bringing this one to my attention after a long day – it was the first time I’d laughed out loud in ages!)

Okay, so most folks aren’t buying the Foley-as-Democrat strategy, and the Republicans know it. So do they step up like responsible adults and say, “Our bad. Sorry. We screwed up.” Of course not! They point to the media and at their political opponents and scream, “They should’ve told us!” Which is just what Katherine Harris did in an interview with a local news channel in Orlando, Florida. Harris said, “…the Republicans didn’t know about these issues and we’re going to be very anxious to find out who in the media and on the other side of the aisle (Democrats) knew about it and kept this from the public interest, because our children were at stake” (democraticunderground.com, 10/4/06). Evidently, the Republicans are so busy running the U.S. into debt and alienating every other nation on the planet, they cannot possibly be expected to keep tabs on their own party members.

Then there’s the old standby tactic: remind the public how horrible the Democrats are by dredging up as much old dirt as possible. That was Ann Coulter’s approach last week; she brought up the Gerry Studds scandal from 23 years ago. She was especially appalled by Studds’ refusal to step down when his behavior was discovered, and she was quite proud of Foley’s decision to run and hide in rehab and let his party scramble to deal with the mess. The final outrage for Ms. Coulter? Gerry Studds’ constituents actually re-elected him! Guess she forgot about Don Sherwood, the Pennsylvania Republican who was re-elected after he was caught cheating on his wife with a woman who accused him of trying to strangle her.

Finally, the conservatives are trying to play the gay card. (Hey, wait a minute! That’s our card!) Here’s the problem, though: they don’t believe in it, so it’s coming out all wrong. It’s like a KKK Grand Dragon walking up to Jesse Jackson and saying, “Hey, n*&%%@r, how’s it hangin’?” He could pretend that he was just using the n-word in the way a fellow black man would, but we all know that the feeling behind the word is NOT the same. So here we have Newt Gingrich on Fox News claiming that the conservatives could not remove Foley from his posts for fear of being accused of gay-bashing. Funny, that didn’t seem to bother the party when it was legislating against gay marriage. Newt, pedophilia, no matter what your sexual preference, is wrong; it takes a true homophobe to equate being gay with being a pedophile.

Ann Coulter’s confused about the gay angle too. She tried to reduce it to a bulleted list, but she couldn’t really make heads or tails out of it. I’ll be happy to do it for you, Ms. Coulter, and I’ll even do it in bullets if it will make it easier for you to understand.

• If you are a homosexual member of the Boy Scouts, Democratic party, U.S. military or any other strong, positive organization, good for you.
• If you are a homosexual in an organization that spouts hatred and homophobia (i.e., Catholic Church, Republican Party), I urge you to examine your self-esteem issues. It might also behoove you to remove yourself from that organization before they do it for you.
• If you’re dating Liza Minnelli, you have bigger problems to deal with than your sexuality. (By the way, Ms. Coulter, if you’re going to insult people, you could at least spell their names correctly.)

The bottom line? The Foley scandal’s not going to change the votes of die-hard Republicans. They’ll be happy to buy into all the excuses the conservatives are putting out there. Folks in the middle, though, who are tired of this government’s refusal to take responsibility for any of its many mistakes, are going to make a change. Foley is a hypocrite; he preyed on underage boys while leading a crusade against sexual predators. The Republican leaders are hypocrites; they turned a blind eye to Foley’s escapades while they held up the banner of family values. And now they refuse to own up to any of it, choosing instead to blame anyone else they can think of and deserting their own man in his hour of need. Truly, they are all pillars of moral virtue.

It wasn’t my fault; it was his fault.

Well, I knew about it, but it wasn’t my place to do anything about it.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t our problem at all. It must’ve been the Democrats’ fault.

Okay, so it’s not the Democrats’ fault – it’s the media’s fault for blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

And it doesn’t matter anyway. Voters don’t care. We can do whatever we need to do to stay in power, and they’ll keep us in office.

So goes Republican logic in the continuing Mark Foley saga. As usual, nobody will take responsibility for doing anything wrong. They’ll point fingers at everyone else, and when they can’t get anyone to buy their story, they’ll just change the facts or insist that it’s no big deal.

Now conservatives are insisting yet again, that Republicans must “stay the course.” Naturally, all good Republicans will vote Republican in November, even if their party has completely dropped the ball on one of their own key issues. This notion illustrates perfectly why George Washington warned us of the dangers of political parties in his farewell address. The good of the nation should never be superseded by the good of the party. In Washington’s words: “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government” (Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796, www.yale.edu).

Thus far in our history, the American people have not been so stupid as to let that happen. If one of the parties lets us down, we vote them out. Obviously, Republicans are counting on voters to have short memories, weak morals, and meager intellects. Like good trained rats, they’ll go push the same buttons in the voting booth that they’ve always pushed. Is it just me or do the Republicans have a really low opinion of U.S. citizens?

One of the many conservative editors of my local newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, wrote today that Republican voters will not be affected by the Mark Foley scandal (Varvel, Foley-ated, 10/8/06). He proceeded to compare the Republican Party to the New York Yankees, and Republican voters to Yankee fans. His assertion? Just because one player does something stupid doesn’t mean all the team’s fans stop loving the team. This metaphor reveals the same naive dismissiveness betrayed in President Bush’s Iraq-as-a-comma-in-history comment. Sports teams provide entertainment; they do not decide the direction of a nation. When professional athletes make mistakes, their fans are affected indirectly and temporarily; when our politicians make mistakes, the entire country is affected for years or even centuries. Moreover, sports teams do suffer the consequences of their players’ bad behavior. Just ask the Indiana Pacers about their attendance in recent years. Did fans stop loving the Pacers after the Artest-Detroit debacle? You bet they did, at least long enough to send the team a message: Live up to our expectations or you lose our support.

In November, voters will send the same message to the Republican Party, home team or not. Americans must not simply vote for the same people they always have out of blind loyalty to a party. Our democracy was built on the belief that its citizens will select leaders based on their integrity and values. If voters believe in family values, they should be outraged not only by Foley’s behavior but by the inaction of the Republican leadership which did nothing to protect Foley’s underage targets. Dennis Hastert, John Shimkus and company acted out of loyalty to their party, choosing to protect their power instead of American citizens. If voters do the same thing and pick party over the good of the nation, Americans will soon be doing exactly what New York Yankee fans are doing today - wondering what happened to our beautiful season.