June 26, 2005 Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican By James Chaney As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican. I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal. I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican. My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years. My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things. Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again. My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance. We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so." Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth. Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate. I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough. We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance. We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency. We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation. And we're lying about it. While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical mar1juana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns. Enough is enough. I quit. James Chaney is a Eugene attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980. http://www.registerguard.com/cgi-bin/printStory.py
Yes I'm here and I have to admit that I agree with a lot of the writer's points. I thought the WMDs were supposed to be a foregone conclusion ( a "slam dunk"). He forgot to mention flag-burning. Maybe the Democrats' bid to "reach-out" to the Southern bible-wing (core? of the GOP) will be a good thing. With a bible-belt that is more evenly split across the 2 parties - they will not have enough clout dominate either parties' policies. I doubt this will happen though. Probably the opposite, as the both parties now realize the importance of this voting group and start catering even moreso to win votes.
Ha ha, sounds about right coming from a OREGON republican (sic). The democrats have been attacking pretty pitifully for a while now.
I came to this conclusion way back during Clinton's 1st term as President. Up until then I had always voted Republican. I began at that point to vote more independently and now lean much more heavily towards the Democrats. For me it is a sad state of affairs for politics today, a lesser of two evil scenarios.
You are eluding the question "are you still a Republican?" ... OK I didn't explicitly ask. Giddy said in another thread the term Bible Belt is offensive, why do you hate christians?
i voted for Clinton the 1st time. haven't voted for a Dem for president ever since, because he disappointed me. the ideas he ran on were never even presented..particularly the middle class tax cut. instead, taxes went up for virtually everyone. he disappointed me in other ways as well. i was 18 when i voted for Clinton, and very idealistic. became jaded by politics in general then. became more dogmatically conservative as almost a knee-jerk....but as i grow older i become more and more moderate.
Interesting that the writer would use a "party" analogy to describe his dissatisfaction. Not the first time today I've read that... I think that many in the majority party are finding themselves in the same psychic shape as alcoholics a few months before they finally seek sobriety, except for George Bush, who apparently does not have a clue. With alcoholism, other people can see that the alkie is, to quote one of my friends, in a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization; but it takes what it takes for the alcoholic to realize that. This is why we have Karl Rove saying that when liberals saw the savagery of 9-11, we wanted to give the terrorists aid, comfort, and aromatherapy. So if the disease model of addiction holds true for this administration, there is something SO stinky and bad that has not quite yet had the light shined on it, that is the rock bottom truth of their madness, and that, tragically, even worse stuff than we already know will be revealed. Rove's behavior this week reminds me of three things, besides my own sorry alcoholic collapse: one is what my very wise friend Gil says-and Gil has been sober since before God-that there are three stages in the disease: fun, fun and trouble, and trouble. Fun, for the White House, was the fall of Baghdad and Mission Accomplished. Fun and Trouble held, up until a month or so ago: you had huge body counts, grave global dismay, etc, but you also had the elections here and in Iraq, with all that courage and the purple fingertips. Now? Well, I don't see where the fun is anymore: I think we are now leaving the fun and trouble stage. Annie Lamott http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/6/25/9204/21166
No, I said it was not offensive to me. It was a response to the notion that using the term Islamofascist would be offensive while I said that Christofascist, Bible Belt, Bible-thumper were not offensive to me. I did suggest that they might be offensive to some people...
Oh i don't hate Christians at all. I just side moreso with the liberals on gay-marriage, Schiavo, mar1juana, etc. Next time, I register as an independent. Until then (2006?), I'm still a Republican. If they find a HUGE cache of WMD's ( ), I'll stay. What is the point of registering under a particular party? Other than the fact thay they probably won't be able to solicit $$ from you?
If another Teddy Roosevelt were elected, I'd be a Republican for life. I'd vote for Teddy over his nephew Franklin, after some modest struggle.
I hate partisan politics. Both parties don't care about the good of the country; they care about the party first and foremost. Whenever a Republican comes up with an idea the Democrats always attack with without regard to it's merits. The same is true from the Republicans. Having said that, I'm not very happy with how the Republican party is leaning very hard towards the religious right. But I also really hate the tactics the Deomcrats use to attack Republicans. I really hate all this public questioning of the war. I'm all for attacking the President about the war behind closed doors but doing it in public, IMO, enocourages the insugents. (BTW, I heard on NPR this morning that the main goal of suicide attacks was to cause democratic governments like the U.S. to lose their will to fight - we seem to be playing into their hands). I also hate how the Democrats attack Republicans on other issues (your gandparents will have to eat dogfood, etc...). I know I'm biased so I'm sure Democrats hate the way Rupublicans attack them and I'm sure their complaints are legitimate. So, I'm not happy with the Republicans but, at the same time, I'm not happy with the Democrats. What to do? Did I mention I hate partisan politics? From both parties?
i think you and annie need to sprinkle a little reality into your morning cocktail. While I don't necessarily support Rove's comments, he does have a point. Let's take a look at some liberal comments post-9/11. -- US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA): "He's [Osama bin Ladin] been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that," Murray said. "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?" (GP Ed. Note: Yes, let's help the terrorists build Islamists schools, Senator Murray....) Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), 10/1/01, Roll Call: "I truly believe if we had a Department of Peace, we could have seen [9/11] coming." Al Sharpton, 12/1/02, New York Times, on the 9/11 attacks: "America is beginning to reap what it has sown." Rep. Marcy Kaptur, 3/1/2003, Toledo Blade: "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped cast off the British crown." Senator Joe Biden, 10/22/01 (on AFGHANISTAN campaign): ‘How much longer does the bombing campaign continue?’ Biden asked during an Oct. 22 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. ‘We’re going to pay every single hour, every single day it continues.’ (Miles A. Pomper, "Building Anti-Terrorism Coalition Vaults Ahead Of Other Priorities," Congressional Quarterly Weekly, 10/26/01, no link) Senator Joe Biden, 10/22/01: “The Bombing Campaign, [Biden] Said, Reinforced Existing Stereotypes Of The United States As A ‘High-Tech Bully …’” (Ibid.) Representative Dennis Kucinich, 9/30/01: Sitting In His Capitol Hill Office Last Week, Near A Window Where He Could See The Smoke Rising From The Pentagon On Sept. 11, Kucinich Insisted He Is More Optimistic Than Ever That People Worldwide Are Ready To Embrace The Cause Of Nonviolence.” ... “Afghanistan May Be An Incubator Of Terrorism But It Doesn’t Follow That We Bomb Afghanistan …” (Elizabeth Auster, “Offer The Hand Of Peace,” [Cleveland, OH] Plain Dealer, 9/30/01) Liberal Third Party Groups Urged Restraint, Blamed America: Immediately After 9/11, MoveOn.Org Petition Urged “Moderation And Restraint” And Use Of “International Judicial Institutions.” • “We, The Undersigned, Citizens And Residents Of The United States Of America … Appeal To The President Of The United States, George W. Bush … And To All Leaders Internationally To Use Moderation And Restraint In Responding To The Recent Terrorist Attacks Against The United States.” (MoveOn.Org Website) Just After 9/11, Liberal Filmmaker Michael Moore Derided “Terror And Bloodshed” Committed By Americans. (David Brooks, Op-Ed, “All Hail Moore,” The New York Times, 6/26/04) Michael Moore Said U.S. Should Not Have Removed Taliban After 9/11. Moore: “Likewise, to bomb Afghanistan – I mean, I’ve never understood this, Tim.” (CNBC’s “Tim Russert,” 10/19/02) John Kerry: "That is precisely what this administration has ignored. They looked to force before exhausting diplomacy. They bullied when they should have persuaded. They've gone it alone when they should have assembled a whole team. They have hoped for the best when they should have prepared for the worst. They've made America less safe than it should be in a dangerous world." (Hat tip: AnkleBitingPundits) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA): “I Am Convinced That Military Action Will Not Prevent Further Acts Of International Terrorism Against The United States.” (Eddy Ramirez, “Calif. Congresswoman Alone In Vote Against War Powers Resolution,” [University Of California-Berkeley] Daily Californian, 9/17/01) (GP Editor's Note: There hasn't been an attack on America since 9/11.)
