BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from the Feeherytheory.com
Here is an article I wrote in May of 2009 that I thought you would all find of interest:
(CNN) – “It is important for us to have a strong Republican Party,” Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tauntingly told a press conference on April 23. “And I hope that the next generation will take back the Republican Party for the Grand Old Party that it used to be.”
BY RICH GALEN
What follows will be considered nothing less than heresy by other children of the ’60s (who are now IN our 60s), but the irony is too perfect to ignore.
BY MICKEY EDWARDS
Reprinted from Atlantic.com
The purification process — hard-core and uncompromising partisans driving heretics from their ranks — has been going on for a long time.
The recent Republican convention in Utah, the one in which conservative Senator Robert Bennett was defeated for being not conservative enough (despite an 84 percent approval rating from the American Conservative Union), is just one more step in a decades-long effort to drive independent thought from the political decision making process.
This year, of course, attention has been focused primarily on Marco Rubio’s success in driving Florida Governor Charlie Crist out of the Republican Party (he’s now running for the Senate as an Independent) and former Congressman Pat Toomey’s success in converting Republican Senator Arlen Specter into a Democrat. But in both of those cases one can argue that the targeted incumbent was simply too far out of step with his own party.
The same ACU ratings index on which Bennett scored an 84 gave Specter a 40. The ratings only measure members of Congress but Crist had more than once angered party members with his support of initiatives that were fiercely opposed by most Republicans. But given Bennett’s long embrace of conservative positions, with relatively few departures from the party-line script over a period of nearly two decades, what happened in Utah was something of a very different and disturbing nature. It was checklist politics, a demand for suspension of judgment and lockstep adherence to an ideological instruction manual that would brook no deviation.
Continue reading
BY RON BONJEAN
Just like the BP camera has allowed us to watch millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico after the collapse of the “Deep Horizon” oil rig, President Obama should install an Oval Office camera or “Oval Cam” in the White House after the botched handling of Rep. Joe Sestak’s job offer. [See who contributes to Sestak.]
The American people are starving for transparency. Time and again, they have been lied to or misled by government and private institutions. Politicians who offer it willingly are praised while those that reject it or begrudgingly accept it are scorned. Transparency demonstrates that leaders and companies are on the level. It means as President Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” BP quickly learned that once the camera broadcast the oil leak to millions of people in real time, the company can’t turn it off without sparking conspiratorial outrage.