Every time the Republican Party gets into trouble, they seem to devolve into a mob from the French Terror, dragging a guillotine through the streets looking for ideologically impure Republicans. This shouldn't really surprise anyone; these are people wo are quick to war and see anything short of recklessness as a sign of weakness. If you aren't ready to fight at the drop of a hat -- regardless of how pointless and self-destructive that fight may be -- is a coward who hates America. So off they go, dragging their giant onion slicer behind them, looking for RINOs to punish for their aristocratic RINOness.We see this in a New York congressional election. The Republican party likes Dede Scozzafava, a pro-choice moderate, for NY-23. The RINO hunters see Scozzafava as ideologically impure, so they're backing teabagger Doug Hoffman, who's sufficiently insane. As a result, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Mr. Hoffman has siphoned so much support from Ms. Scozzafava that their Democratic rival has vaulted into the lead..."
It's the electoral version of "better dead than red"; better to lose an election than to vote in an impure Republican. Better dead than RINO. I've been critical of this thinking and, while I haven't held off from being too critical of moderate and conservative Democrats, I haven't started dragging my own guillotine around. One of the many drawbacks to a two-party system is that there is no middle. When Democrats are up in numbers, as they are now, those moderates wind up in the Democratic Party. When the GOP is up, it's the other way around. American political parties are coalition parties by necessity and, when you've got a lot of members, it means your coalition is more diverse; i.e., you're going to wind up with a lot of members who can be accused of not being "real Democrats" or "real Republicans." Thinking you can do something about this (short of reforming elections to make third parties more feasible) is like complaining about winter -- it feels good, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
I bring all this up to put all my cards on the table. Where I go from here is practically inviting charges of hypocrisy -- Joe Lieberman has got to go... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
