Why Can't Republicans Feel Shame?

To all conservatives, Republicans and other defenders of the current administration:

I have a question and it’s a serious one. I honestly want to know how you can continue to defend the antics of the Republican Party.

I am not talking about your beliefs on abortion, Iraq, gun control, the death penalty or any other policy-specific beliefs. For the most part I think I understand your positions on these issues and, while I don’t necessarily agree with you on most of them, I get it. I am pro-choice but my father and stepmother are adamantly anti-abortion. I know I am not going to change their minds and while I suspect that they hope for me to have a change of mind, our disagreement doesn’t stop me from loving them and having a very good relationship. I like to think things could be similar with you and me. While I may disagree with your beliefs, that doesn’t mean I can’t be respectful of you.

But seriously, how the fuck can you continue to defend this administration and the actions of the party to which you belong? You spent eight years bitching and whining about how Bill Clinton was just so evil because he was a philanderer. You supported impeachment of the President because he lied about an affair and you cackled with delight when he had to defend himself against charges that had nothing to do with the prosecution of his duties. But now David Vitter comes out and sets himself up as a holier-than-thou, bible-thumping champion of old fashioned anti-gay family values and you people sit idly by as he outs himself as being involved with at least one, possibly more, prostitution ring. You don’t even demand an explanation and he is only too happy to not provide you one. You defend his conduct with the most hypocritical arguments. Now, I know that he isn’t a part of the administration, but his stance on “family values” is one you agree with and you don’t even bat an eyelash, let alone pick up a telephone to demand his resignation. “But Clinton committed a crime,” you say. “He was a perjurer.” True enough, but do you not think hat Vitter also committed a crime? Where is your moral superiority and outrage now?

You continue to beat the traditional marriage drum, all the while countenancing and supporting the candidacy of serial groom Rudy Giuliani. You bitch and moan about Clinton’s “sham” marriage but you are more than happy to accept a guy who has been through three marriages. And not just ANY guy either: A Roman Catholic. Why aren’t you people ashamed of your party and actually trying to do something to change it?

And your hypocrisy doesn’t stop with “family values.” You argue that our brave troops are fighting “for freedom” but you refused to support Clinton when he was trying to end genocides and oppressive warlord regimes in Africa. You bitch about The Dixie Chicks expressing their own negative opinions about George W. Bush but you are more than happy to have a member of the congressional Republican leadership call Bill Clinton a “scumbag” on the floor of the house.

You stand by while John Kerry’s service in Vietnam is slandered. You buy books from junk-toting stick figure Ann Coulter whom you laugh with when she insults the memory of the dead son of a Senator and you think it’s just the funniest goddamn thing in the world when she calls that same senator a faggot.

You support the impeachment of a President for lying about a consensual affair with another adult woman but you cannot bring yourself to condemn a president who makes assertions of executive privilege that are astonishingly broad, mind-numbingly vague and breathtakingly arrogant. That’s quite a hat trick.

You are adopting a short-sighted scorched Earth policy and you will no doubt do more bitching and complaining if a Democratic president ever dares to make a similar assertion.

You spend the first six years of the Bush presidency whining about how the Democratic Party is the party of obstruction and how their use of the filibuster is antithetical to democracy. You demand up-or-down votes on all the President’s judicial nominees blithely forgetting how many of Bill Clinton’s nominations you scuttled when Clinton was in the White House and you were in the majority. You feel no cognitive dissonance when your own Republicans, now in the minority, filibuster perhaps the most important issue of the last or next ten years.

To borrow a phrase from Jerry Falwell, You caused this to happen. You are to blame. Not for electing the man or the party to office; I will give you the benefit of the doubt in having pure intentions. But you are causing this to happen every day when you fail to engage your own party. You are each and all of you hypocrites. You have no principals and you are godless. You believe only what is convenient and you are not willing to make any sacrifices for the betterment of this country. You have placed your party on a pedestal higher than that of the country you purport to love but seek to destroy. You clearly are beyond shame and any recrimination is wasted on you.

Even though you will not see yourself in this rant, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Spike.