With Grover Norquist? You Have Bumped Your Fucking Head

Jane Hamsher has decided that she is so pissed off about health care reform that she is willing to not only go on FoxNews but to also team up with that right wing asshole cretin who doesn't give a shit about the poor or needy in this country, Grover Norquist, in order to go after her white whale, Rahm Emmanual.

Seriously.

Well my little shitty blog doesn't have a big readership or anything but I will tell you this, FireDogLake is now off my blog roll, I will never EVER link to any of Jane Hamsher's bullshit or anything else there aside from Spencer Ackerman again, and I personally hope every single person aligned with her abandons her ass over this bullshit. She has now allowed her anger to turn her into a bitter person with the same lack of morals that she used to decry in right wingers. I don't have any use for that kind of person on my side of the fence. I hope she enjoys her time in the land of irrelevancy as she has definitely earned it now. And what I really hope is true liberals and progressives extract themselves from her kind of poisonous bullshit before they get sucked in much further. There ain't a got damn thing on earth that would get me to join forces with someone like Grover Norquist and for that matter anybody who would see in him an ally on any issue.

This shit has gone way too far now and at some point, somebody close to Jane Hamsher who actually gives a shit about her needs to give her stage an intervention. And I am dead serious about that.

Losing The Benefit Of A Doubt

The more "mainstream" Republicans push fringe theories the more the credibility of the GOP is being torn to shreds. Now it was one thing when just average people started to notice how the Republican Party was becoming more and more radicalized everyday and losing moderates and thus any moderation. But now we are seeing that many journalists and by proxy their news organizatios are finally starting to take notice too. And when I say take notice I am not talking about just op-ed writers who almost always take the liberal or Democratic position on any issue. I am talking about the editorial boards of several major regional newspapers finally calling out the GOP for their over the top lies and rhetoric.

This newest ridiculous tempest in a teapot over President Obama speaking to school kids may very well be the straw that broke the camel's back.

There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."

This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.

That man is Jim Greer — the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination."

One Seminole County mother, Barbara Wells, remembers the day Greer spoke to her son's sixth-grade class. "My son said he made some sort of Hillary Clinton joke," she recalled.

But you know what? Wells didn't pitch a fit.

She didn't call up the local TV station to scream about Republican indoctrination.

Instead, she advised her son: "Whatever you are told in life, remember there are two sides to every story."

In fact, Wells didn't even think much about Greer's foray into her son's classroom until she saw him on TV complaining about Obama.

There's no longer any question: Greer is a hypocrite.

snip

Late Friday, I caught up with Greer, who said he has no regrets about accusing the president of spreading "liberal lies" before Greer even knew what Obama was going to say.

In fact, Greer actually believes that, had he not called Obama out, the indoctrination would have taken place.

And he didn't see any fair comparison between his own school visits and the president's. The main difference, Greer said, is that he didn't have the Department of Education organizing lesson plans meant to idolize him the way he's convinced they would have for Obama, had Greer not stopped him.

But Jim, Thursday night on Hardball you said: "Before anybody talks to my children from a political perspective, I want to know what they have to say." And yet you didn't run your opinions by any of the parents before you started molding young minds, did you?

"That was different," he said. "I wasn't using lesson plans."

I'm honestly not sure whether Greer really believes what he's shoveling. But I know I'm not alone in thinking his divisive rhetoric is beyond the pale. Conservative talk-show host Joe Scarborough labeled Greer's comments "insane talk."

But Scarborough didn't stop there. He wondered why Florida's leading Republicans weren't taking on Greer, "standing up and saying: 'Guys, calm down. This is no way to conduct a debate.'"

It's a good question.

So I ran Greer's extremist statement by four high-profile Republicans: Gov. Charlie Crist, U.S. Rep. John Mica, State House Speaker-designate Dean Cannon and Orange County GOP leader Lew Oliver.

I chose conservative leaders whose positions I respect. And Crist, too.

I just wanted to see whether a single one had the guts to call Greer out and take a stand for mainstream values and rational debate.

Not a one of them did.

And that is even scarier.

The more reputable news organizations which have no reputation for being liberal or conservative continue to report stories like this, the more the GOP as a whole will be tarred with a crazy by association type label. See it not just that Jim Greer is running around like a chicken with his head cut off right now, its that none of the other Republican "leaders" in Florida are willing to stand up and call him out. There used to be a time when Republicans could get away with that because news was so concentrated. But now, with the advent of the internet, any and everybody in the nation can know about this crazy guy in Florida complaining hypocritically about indoctrination. As long as it continues the majority of Americans are going to keep moving away from the Republican party. Its one thing to associate with a party that has bad policies, its another thing altogether to support a party that has driven itself off a cliff. If they don't get their arms around that fact, there will never be the resurgence that many conservative leaders keep insisting is just around the corner.

Not that I would shed a tear over that.