Beating back the stupid

I've occasionally highlighted the oozing carbuncles on the ass of democracy by quoting a few of the many loud, proud ignoramuses who spend their days flinging their spittle flecks onto newspaper web sites. These crazy wingnuts fill the world with bile so fast that it often makes me wonder how democracy has done as well as it has.

Today, in the interest of a little self-help Fairness Doctrine, I have a couple of intelligent commenters to offer. BrooklineTom weighs in (February 14, 8:56 AM) with:

Mr. Gregg's motivations don't matter. The result is that he betrayed his constituents, he betrayed the President, and he betrayed the American people.

Mr. Gregg's betrayal epitomizes the self-serving, head-in-the-sand denial that so characterizes the GOP. Led by the comedian Rush Limbaugh, they are retreating pell-mell into the extremist right-wing nooks and crannies that have always sheltered their largest donors.

The controversy over the 2010 census is just such a rathole. The right wing would have us continue a laborious, expensive, and grossly inaccurate hand-count. Why? Because it conveniently under-represents a large number of residents that the GOP would prefer to continue to ignore.

The statistics that they challenge are as rock-solid and undeniable as the science that the same people challenge in denying the role of atmospheric CO2 in global warming. They are as solid as the science that a great many of these same people deny in claiming that the earth is 6,000 years old.

This is political faction that equates "scientific" with "liberal".

All this coming from a crowd that fell over themselves to enthusiastically support an administration that launched a "crusade" based on imaginary weapons, imaginary connections to a terrorist attack -- and VERY REAL payola transferred directly to the industry to which the puppetmaster and puppet (Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush) owe their lifestyle, friends, and family.

The GOP was graciously invited to participate in solving the ENORMOUS problems left to us by the previous administration. They have chosen instead to spit in the face of their hosts.

I suggest, and fervently hope, that from now on President Obama and the Democrats treat them with the ridicule and contempt that their boorish behavior merits.

ibsteve2u follows with a great rant (February 14, 11:53 AM):

You know how they say actions speak louder than words?

There is a surplus of evidence as to what the Republicans do when they have power. I cannot and would not try to dispute the reality that has been slammed down upon America's dinner tables in place of dessert - and often, in place of the entree.

I look at REALITY - at what the Republicans DID - and I am forced to conclude that people who still support the Republicans desire:

1) Perpetual war - even if you have to lie to attain that state.

2) A dishonest government, characterized by people who "do not recall".

3) The creation of a two-class America - the "haves" and "have-nots" - and the destruction of the middle class and thus the American Dream. (What else can be the motive behind the twin lies of "trickle-down" economics and "free trade", or the exportation of America's jobs as the latter should more appropriately be called?)

4) A doubling of America's national debt every four to eight years.

THAT is what the Republicans DID. THAT is what the Republicans stand for. THAT is what the Republicans ARE.

After all, we can all use a little hope. There are some smart people out there.

Even though ibsteve2u responds more to the conversation than to the story about Judd Gregg's flight from the Cabinet, both are spot on rants that would make the wingnuts think if only they were capable of it.

Instead, even the Globe's sources from the thinking-challenged wingnut community make much less sense:

"My opinion is the president's staff had decided that Judd Gregg was going to be nothing more than the token Republican in the Cabinet," said Bob Clegg, former state senator. "That's not Judd Gregg."

Clegg has decided that the word opinion means "bullshit he makes up from no evidence whatsoever." Bobby-boy, there are already two other Republicans in the Cabinet.

Yeah, bullshit from no evidence about sums up the Republican Party.