Wow, those crazy Republicans, eh? And those crazy Democrats! As a nation, we’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown!
Yes, there’s yet another outbreak of even-handedness fever, this time at The Week, where repentant theo-con Damon Linker casts a cold eye on the doings and sayings of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates:
“GOP presidential candidates and House members have been playing the demagogue game for years, and it’s reached an apotheosis of sorts with this year’s race. Nearly all of the candidates do it on foreign policy and ObamaCare, Ted Cruz does it on everything, and Donald Trump does it on everything far better than anyone else. Witness his breathtaking fascist call on Monday for a “complete shutdown” of all Muslims entering the United States.”
As Linker rightly says, “The Trump campaign is the culmination of three decades of Republicans bad-mouthing Washington,” but then realizes that, well, he’s been criticizing Republicans exclusively. That can’t be right! To “balance” matters, he quickly finds some left-wing pundits who would like to repeal the Second Amendment (good luck with that!) and Senate Democrat Chris Murphy (Conn) who complained, rather ridiculously, in my opinion, about the right-wing habit of praying for the victims of mass shootings but not supporting gun control afterwards.
Well, I happen to think that “gun control” as a solution to mass shootings and other aspects of gun violence is utterly pointless and unworkable, but proposing legislation that will never pass is, to my mind, not quite the same thing as wanting to bar all adherents of a particular religion from entering the U.S. (Trump) or making promises (jocular, I’m sure) to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East (Cruz), or viciously attacking President Obama as a pathetic weakling while advocating policies identical to his (all the other candidates). But I guess I’m not as nervous as Damon.
Afterwords
Naturally, Damon bitterly castigates President Obama for not waxing hysterical over the San Bernardino murders. But when conservatives, after the murder of 25 school children, tell us that it’s very sad but nothing can be done, why, after a pair of self-taught Islamic fanatics murder 14 people, is it the president’s job to promise that he’s going to totally, utterly kick ass (entirely unspecified yet surely multitudinous) in some orgy of righteous revenge? Oh, and, by the way, Damon, are you still a Christian? You don’t entirely sound like one.
