Two interesting GOP things today:
- Arlen Spector will run for reelection as a Democrat: The senior senator from Pennsylvania recognized he has drifted too far to the center to win a sixth term as a Republican. Once Al Franken is freed of Norm Coleman’s death rattles this will give the Dems a filibuster-proof majority.
- Cheney for President: A NYT OpEd column by Ross Douthat that jumps off from the idea that Dick Cheney ought, by his own lights, have been the Republican nominee against Obama. Not that Cheney ever said this nor is Douthat suggesting a different election outcome.
My opinion of the Republican party is no secret: I think they are, on the whole, sleazier and more hypocritical than Democratic politicians. To use less directly derogatory terms, GOP positions are based more on emotion than logic and are far less logically consistent; further they are far less open to true intellectual debate. How many officeholding Dems during the Bush years said, as Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently did, that his or her state should secede from the Union?
This latter incident is one example of how Republicans are showing their true colors. My way or the highway. Cheney has been giving interviews–after President Obama changed government policy on the use of torture and released the Bush DOJ memos giving legal cover for it–claiming that America is now less safe.
“I think that’s a great success story,” he said to Politico.com of using torture as an intelligence gathering tool. The problem is that any actual intelligence or results from them is classified and so impossible for Americans to judge. Given how badly Cheney and Bush lied about similar things, like Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction, I can’t just take his word for it.
As for Sen. Spector I’m happy to have his vote in the Democratic column as long as it doesn’t come at too high a price. Frankly I think he’s switched to save his political bacon since Pat Toomey seemed likely to whip him in the Republican primary.
Spector is already 79 years old with health problems; given a surging Democratic majority in the state, I’d rather see him switch now but retire when his term ends at the end of 2010 and put his weight behind a younger, real Dem candidate. Yes he’s long been a friend to Labor and voted for Obama’s stimulus package, which are causing him trouble with hardcore PA Republicans, but his foreign policy and finance positions are problematic.
Both these things, Cheney and Spector, illustrate the GOP move away from their so-called Big Tent policy and back towards the Goldwater/Nixon era Jesus and guns first, last and always litmus tests.
BillSaysThis 