Republican Moderates: You'd Better Step In Before Your Fringe Groups Kill Your Party (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)

August 5, 2009

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, EINNEWS.COM

What's wrong with these people?

Are they afraid they will turn into pillars of salt if they speak out against the radical fringe that has taken over the Republican Party?

Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana has a decades-long reputation for being a political moderate. When he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he did it with a broad world view. His web site prominently displays the declining number of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons destroyed under the Nunn-Lugar Act. He's also a leader in trying to rein in U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and the global warming threat that accompanies carbon fuels.

Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine have reputations for being political moderates. Both have defied their party's leadership on big ticket issues such as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the 2009 stimulus bill and the right to choose an abortion.

Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio has a reputation for being a political moderate. He stood alone among his caucus members in opposing John Bolton's nomination as UN ambassador and defied the NRA in opposing the transport of concealed weapons over state lines.

Senator Lamar Alexander was considered a moderate when he served as governor of Tennessee. Then, he was known as the “education governor.” Senator Lisa Murkowski was considered so moderate as an Alaska state legislator that the right wing threw serious opposition against her in a Republican primary.

Senator John McCain has long been an outspoken maverick, and on the current political spectrum, a moderate one.

There's no shortage of Republicans in the U.S. Senate with “moderate” backgrounds and instincts. And many of them have not been shy about speaking their own minds and displaying independence from party orthodoxy. They also have this in common: none of them are in political trouble at home. They have safe seats. Voinovich is retiring with this term.

So why aren't these people and others like them in the U.S. Senate and House, in governor's offices and state legislatures, and in city halls throughout America denouncing the ugly movement that passes for the Republican Party these days?

How ugly? The other day Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett was shouted down as he tried to have a discussion about health care with constituents at an Austin supermarket. He finally had to give up, but the protestors kept following him and shouting at him as he headed for his car.

One of the organizers of the mass exercise in disruption later told the New York Times "It was like he was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It was a beautiful thing." See the video for yourself at Doggett mob.

On the same weekend as Doggett was heckled, Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius faced an unruly crowd in Philadelphia. This scene has been repeated in many states and districts over the past few weeks. Coincidence? Hardly.

Limbaugh, Hannity, Michael Savage, Fox News and countless “organizations” such as the made-for-TV “Conservatives for Patients' Rights” (run by a guy fined $1.7 billion by the federal government for fraud) are pouring as much kerosene on these flames as time, media exposure and money (much of it from undisclosed sources) will allow.

Michael Savage, you may remember, told his radio disciples in February, “We have a right to know if he's (Obama) a so-called friendly Muslim or one who aspires to more radical teachings.” Limbaugh, before last year's vote count was even completed, said of Obama, “I hope he fails.” Hannity is on a crusade to keep the ridiculous “birther” controversy alive.

What's a birther? Take a good look at them disrupting a meeting held by Congressman Mike Castle, a Republican. Castle mob.

Meeting disruption is a tactic out of the playbook of the communists, anarchists and other groups that won't or can't work within the political mainstream. It's what groups do when they don't have the votes, or the winning arguments, or even the decency to listen to a fair presentation of the issues. Apparently, that's where the health care debate is going during the August congressional recess.

The question is, will the Republican congressional leadership point to these manufactured angry mobs and use them to bolster the case against health care reform? Or will they condemn the mobsters and try to debate the many complex health care issues on the facts and merits?

So far, the “moderates” in the Republican leadership have been sickeningly quiet as the streets get more and more disruptive. There's not much space between what we see in the Doggett video and a turn toward violence.

That would be terrible for America. And deadly for the Republican party.

(Joe Rothstein can be contacted at joe@einnews.com)