The Republican Youtube Charade

The Republicans ACTUALLY HELD A YOUTUBE DEBATE! And my dead great great grandmother JUST WON THE BOSTON MARATHON!

The Democrats had the real Youtube Debate. Real people who expressed themselves as individuals, not as robots like the obviously predominantly Republican crowd did. And the converted choir of an audience got the expected pre-programmed answers, except when the candidates tried to out Right Wing each other, or they had to bring someone back into the fold. Only then did sparks fly when the stray touched nerve offered each stalwart the opportunity to burnish his medals with the other guy's forehead.

As to the crowd: With that bunch, well, it's ironic for most Republicans to cry fowl because of a few questions such as General Kerr's or the toy lady's went off script. Most of the questions were asked by Republican faithful and were non-confrontational. Indeed, one ought to suspect that by some secret agreement with Youtube and the GOP, CNN may have screened out most Democrat's questions in favor of those of Republicans. There was the gung-ho gun enthusiast. There were questions about raising taxes and how to control spending, and of course, abortion. Very few questions were on Iraq.

By the way, l think that Grover Norquist whose "Americans For Tax Reform banner was CLEARLY SPELLED OUT on his Youtube post, should be extended the same courteousies by the Democrats as were given to General Kerr. I'm pointing this out, because I DON'T think CNN was trying to ambush the Republicans.

Then our heroes tried to get into their kabuki dance, but not before an opportunity for Giuliani and Romney to beat each other over the head came up.

The question was on illegal aliens and whose "sanctuary" was the most supersanctuariest, Giuliani's NYC or Romney's Massachusetts. Then the dogfight began! First Romney accused Rudy of making New York City a "sanctuary" for illegal aliens. Giuliani responded by parsing the term "sanctuary." Then Rudy accused Mitt of not only running a "sanctuary state," but of keeping a "sanctuary Mansion" as well, on the basis that the landscaping firm Romney hired to work there had a few illegals on the payroll.

On gun control, except for a rather admirably human moment of showing real concern by Duncan Hunter, who winced when the questioner was thrown a rifle, Hollywood-style, most everyone toed the gun lobby line, even Ron Paul. Moreover, when Rudy showed some real cred as a mayor as he stuck up for reasonable psych exams as part of background checks, the crowd booed him! Hunter even had the nerve to throw in Iraq as part of the rationale for gun owner's rights. Is someone bringing their fowling piece to a firefight in Ramadi?

And then there is Grover:

Here was the counterweight to General Kerr that allowed the scared little candidates to scurry into their warm little anti-tax comfort zone.

Most of candidates bragged about how they were the most partisan at least about not raising taxes. Tancredo kissed up to Norquist and even showed us the pat old Grover gave on his back. Huckabee, Romney, and Giuliani signed Norquist’s pledge, but surprise, surprise, Thompson and McCain showed that you didn't have to sign any pledge to stay loyal to voodoo economics.

However, the National GOP Loyalty Rally didn't stop there no sir!

Government spending was the next target. The GOP showed its truly dull sheen of bankruptcy when the supposed maverick, John McCain, shocked the populace when he accused S-CHIP, a program meant to help many struggling families educate their children, as contributing to smoking! Factcheck anyone?

Not to be out scrooged this Christmas season, Giuliani was in favor of cutting costs by cutting labor in favor of mechanization.

And while I admire his stand on the war, I most sincerely do not like this slavish devotion to state's rights as exhibited by Ron Paul when said he would cut the Department of Education.

But when Paul deviated from the group by reminding us that we could cut costs by overhauling our failed foreign policy and bringing our troops home from an unnecessary war, McCain, himself a veteran of Vietnam, and therefore a witness to an unnecessary war, replied to this by calling it isolationism.

And the icing on the cake came when Rudy replied to a question on how he would repair the U.S.'s world image, said he would keep on fighting the War on Terrorism, but he would make the distinction between normal Muslims and radicals. As if a stray bullet, killing a toddler could tell the difference. Maybe someone should have voiced this sentiment at Haditha!

Moreover, while McCain deserves credit for criticizing the failed strategy that led us to this fiasco, he fell in line by criticizing a deadline for troop withdrawal.

And so it goes. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The Democrats had the real people's debate. The Republicans were all hat and no cattle.

Republicans on Government Programs



Grover Norquist asks a Question



Republicans on repairing the U.S. image Abroad.



Giuliani vs. Romney on Illegal Aliens

Why I Won't Weep Over Jerry Falwell

So now, the old Snail has gotten to write again.

It has been a few weeks but I did not have the opportunity to do some proper research on anything for a while. I’ve been dealing with a few personal matters, and with me personal matters get very sticky.

Thank heavens Jerry Falwell reminded me of where my true focus should be!

Falwell was an interesting man who was a paradox in some ways yet in most he was very predictable. Pardon me, but I’ll stick to what made him predictable.

I always found his demeanor to be smug and condescending. It was as if he felt that he knew the secrets of the universe, and we were all merely his acolytes.

He did some good things. In 1967, Falwell created the Lynchburg Christian Academy, a fully accredited K-12 day school. He created and built up the Thomas Road Baptist congregation from a handful to a mega church. His founding of Liberty University and even the Moral Majority were all par for the course. If you believe in something create the mechanisms to attain your goal.

However, what I remember is that smug, blustering boob that pontificated to all, and condemned the innocent and undeserving to damnation, all according to his own special criteria.

His tunnel vision was strikingly obvious when he actually had the temerity to blame 9/11 on the courts, gays, lesbians, feminists, abortion, the A.C.L.U. and civil libertarians!

According to the Washington Post,"On September 14, 2001, on Pat Robertson’s show he said:

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'

How’s that? The A.C.L.U. and P.F.AW. left us open to terrorism? Hardly! The inattention of the Bush gang to the red flags like a PDB of possible terrorism as well as our basically one-sided policy in the Middle East might actually have had something to do with 9/11. If anything, the intolerance manifested in Falwell’s statement is closer to that of bin Laden’s than anything the A.C.L.U. or the P.F.A.W. believes in.

All his life he had a tunnel vision that allowed him to make such divisive statements. In the Sixties, Falwell was pro segregation, and called the Civil Rights movement the “Civil Wrongs” movement. In the Eighties he, a man of God, defended the use of nuclear weapons.

Of course, after every gaffe Jerry would get religion and apologize after the nation showed appropriate indignation, outrage, or ridicule.

Which reminds me of Falwell the buffoon.

Poor, sweat Tinky Winky! How could he have known that carrying a purple purse constitutes portraying a gay character? Poor clumsy Falwell! Shouldn’t he have double checked his editor’s article on Tinky Winky in his National Liberty Journal? I don’t sem to recall him trying to distance himself from that article.

Falwell always made mountains out of molehills, whether it was prayer in schools, or same sex marriage. And of course, Falwell always made himself out to be more important than he was.

“Some people,” as Hannity would say, even postulated that Falwell’s importance to American politics was a little inflated.

Jonathan Alter was not as impressed with Falwell as most people were:

According to lore (and much of the coverage of his death), November, 1980 found Falwell at the peak of his powers. That was the month Ronald Reagan was elected president, after having met with Falwell and other members of his brilliantly-named organization, "The Moral Majority." While Falwell might have contributed slightly to Reagan's margin of victory, he was not even close to being instrumental in his election. With incumbent Jimmy Carter bogged down with the Iranian hostage crisis and double-digit inflation and interest rates, Reagan won with 57 percent of the vote -- a huge landslide. At best, the Moral Majority added a point or two to Reagan's totals. More likely, it contributed nothing. Exit polls showed that Carter bested Reagan among Southern Baptists, 50-46 percent. And abortion ranked well behind foreign policy and economics among issues that mattered most to voters that year.

Look, someone will undoubtedly feel the loss for Falwell's passing. It just won't be me. Too much water has passed under the bridge for too many people.

Wikipedia - Jerry Falwell

The National Liberty Journal

Positive Atheism's Big Scary List of
Jerry Falwell
Quotations

Fallwell's Liberty University Bio