All Posts Tagged With: "partisanship"

Just like his fellow Republicans at FGO and the Oklahoma GOP, former Oklahoma congressman and failed Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Ernest Istook chose to besmirch the Spirit of Christmas with an unabashedly (and unashamedly) partisan Christmas message. I received the following email in my inbox yesterday morning — Christmas morning:

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Forward this to your friends who care.  Merry Christmas!
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Santa Evacuated from North Pole!

Read the details at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84508

Here are excerpts:

Evacuation operations continue at the North Pole, as Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, their reindeer and an estimated 5,000 elves are being relocated due to global warming to a secure but undisclosed location.

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“The only way to save future Christmases was to evacuate the toymakers and Mrs. Claus and to re-locate operations before the ice melts,” said Nobel Laureate Al Gore, who was on the scene with a camera crew for the occasion.  The footage will be included in Gore’s new documentary, “An Inconvenient But Jolly Old Elf”

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Observers confirmed that Santa was red with anger and threatened to retire.  Said one onlooker:

“His cheeks were like roses and his nose like a cherry.

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the heat of his anger was as white as the snow.”

It was unclear who would have the power to appoint a replacement, but several governors volunteered to accept responsibility for picking a successor to Santa.  Said one, “You don’t get many opportunities like this.  Appointing a Senator is worth a lot.  But choosing a new Santa Claus?  Priceless!”

There’s more.  Read it all in Ernest Istook’s column at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84508

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I’ll repeat what I said in my post last Saturday regarding co-opting the Christmas holiday for partisan pandering:

This partisanship by the party that so often likes to believe it’s more “Christian” than others certainly doesn’t reflect the spirit of this Christian holiday or the Christ whose birth is being celebrated.

Leave it to the Oklahoma GOP and people like Jim Martin to make the Christmas holiday — the holiday of “peace on earth and goodwill to all men” — a partisan event.

Wishing You A Merry Red OK Christmas! click on link for flash animation

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Un-be-liev-able.

This partisanship by the party that so often likes to believe it’s more “Christian” than others certainly doesn’t reflect the spirit of this Christian holiday or the Christ whose birth is being celebrated.

Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, wrote an article earlier this week about world government, which was picked up by the Drudge Report. He woke up the next morning to find more than 200 “vituperative” emails in his inbox by Drudge readers who unleashed on the apparently unsuspecting writer.

… the whole experience has given me an insight into the mindset of the gun-toting, bible-[thumping], nationalistic bit of the United States. Here are my conclusions.

1) There is an unbelievable amount of anger and hatred out there - directed at everything from the UN to big business to Barack Obama. These people can read, but they cannot think.

2) The “End of Days” crowd is very strong. I would say that about a third of the e-mails I got referred me to the Book of Revelations - in which, apparently, it is all foretold. In an idle moment, I e-mailed one of my correspondents back and said that I have never read Revelations, since I am an athiest. Big mistake.

3) There are a lot of people who believe not only that global warming is a hoax - but that it is actually a conspiracy. The fact that the most influential reports on climate change have been produced by an intergovernmental panel (IPCC) - sponsored by the UN - fuels this theory. The idea is that the UN is perpetuating a climate-change hoax, to provide an excuse to impose a world government on America. I’m all part of it apparently.

4) I can see what Obama means by referring to “bitter” people clinging to guns and religion. And clinging is the word. Several people informed me that I would only remove their guns “from my cold, dead hands.”

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And the comments on his blog post simply go to prove his point.

As much as it might be fun to have the exposure that Drudge brings, I’m actually glad I’ve never been “Drudged.” I’ve read the comment sections of some blog posts and articles that have been featured on the Drudge Report. It simply boggles the mind at the staggering animus and empty-headed, lowbrow invective displayed.

At least the “bitter” comments are more manageable here because I have a much smaller audience, which proportionally adds up to far fewer idiots to ignore.

It’s not the opposing viewpoint that is objectionable but the way in which it’s conveyed in such intensely vile, yet stunningly illiterate ways. It certainly was on full display for all to see during this most recent presidential campaign. “Bitter” has morphed into seething hatred that is insidious, poisonness and contagious. It’s a dangerous place for anyone to find themselves in the middle of — whether as the person infected or the person affected by this growing cancer.

United we stand, divided we fall. There is room for honest and even passionate disagreement and dissent in a healthy democracy. But bitter partisanship that prejudically despises and condemns ideological “enemies” — perceived or otherwise — creates an increasingly unbridgeable chasm that can destroy a society and a nation. Unless we learn to lay aside the prejudices and animosity toward our partisan foes, the enemy that will destroy our nation is not from outside, but within; we are our own worst enemy.

I sincerely hope that in this period of economic crisis and continuing political strife around the world that we as a nation can once again come together and work together to address and hopefully solve this nation’s challenges. United we stand, divided we fall.

Like the ideologues on the far right complaining about Obama’s choices for his new administration, there are ideologues on the far left who are equally displeased (but for opposite reasons, obviously). Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive is among the chorus of left-wingers mumbling and grumbling:

When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?

He won the crucial Iowa caucuses on the strength of his anti-Iraq War stance, and many progressive peace and justice activists worked hard for him against John McCain.

So why in the world is he choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State when she was one of the loudest hawks on Iraq and threatened to obliterate 75 million Iranians?

And it’s not just Hillary.

Obama’s OMB pick, Peter Orzag, is a Clintonite disciple of Robert Rubin.

Obama’s AG pick, Eric Holder, is a Clintonite who represented Chiquita Bananas.

So, who would Rothschild choose? Among the selections was one particularly jaw-dropping choice:

And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.

This is the perfect example why I don’t ally myself with many in the progressive/liberal/left-wing community. Not only do they fail to see the wisdom in building a “team of rivals” filled with highly qualified and highly effective people, they willfully ignore the wisdom of centrist, pragmatic governance. They would much rather choose style over substance. They prefer and insist upon blind adherence to ideological orthodoxy that leads to bitter partisanship and gridlock rather than a transformative, bipartisan, cooperative working relationship with all parties to try to move this nation beyond the paralysis of “us vs. them” toward real solutions and effective action.

Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State is beyond ridiculous. He’s barely taken seriously within his own caucus, let alone by the country as a whole or the world community with such serious matters. It’s not time to play ideological games. Obama was not only elected because of “progressives.” In fact, it was the centrists and the Independents who put him over the top. Who would the progressives have supported otherwise?

It’s time to put the country first, above partisan politics and ideological agendas. It’s time to bridge the divide. The future of our nation depends upon it.

President-elect Barack Obama met with Senator John McCain at his transition headquarters in Chicago today. They issued this joint statement afterward.

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”

Peter Wehner, a former deputy assistant to President Bush, wrote a critique on James Dobson’s critique of Barack Obama. It’s well worth the read. Here’s an excerpt:

The passage of the speech that prompted Dobson’s “fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution” and “lowest common denominator of morality” comments was this: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

Dobson paraphrased this as “unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe in.” But that’s not what Obama was saying at all. Rather, he was arguing that in a pluralistic nation like ours, politics depends on people of faith being able to persuade others based on common and accessible ground and appeals to reason — which sounds entirely reasonable. Christians who oppose abortion can make an effective case by talking about sonograms, fetal development and the moral imperative to protect the most vulnerable. That doesn’t mean one’s faith shouldn’t inform the question of abortion — or, for that matter, war, poverty and other issues. After all, President Lincoln’s argument against slavery was partly grounded in faith. But appeals to the Bible or church teaching aren’t sufficient in a pluralistic nation. That’s why Lincoln talked primarily about the Declaration of Independence.

… critics of Obama have an obligation to provide a fair and honest critique, and the attacks leveled by Dobson fall terribly short of that standard.

If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. In this instance, Dobson didn’t. He has set back his cause and made some of us who are evangelicals and conservatives wince.

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Dobson’s ‘fruitcake interpretation’ of Obama’s speech and philosophy compelled me to support the “James Dobson Doesn’t Speak For Me” website/cause/statement, developed by Kirbyjon Caldwell in response to Dobson’s attack. (Who is Kirbyjon Caldwell? He is the pastor of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church, a 14,000-member megachurch in Houston, Texas. He is one of President George W. Bush’s most influential spiritual advisors, who introduced him at the 2000 Republican National Convention, offered the official benediction at both of Bush’s inaugurations in 2001 and 2005, and officiated the wedding of Bush’s daughter Jenna.)

Last week, right after Dobson’s remarks, I added the graphic supporting the cause to the right sidebar of this blog as a personal outright rejection of Dobson’s blatant and corruptive blending and marriage of partisan politics with the Christian faith. He ignores or chooses to deny that God is neither a Republican or a Democrat.