Another moderate Republican off the bus.

[Old and In the Way]

John Cole over at Balloon Juice has stopped drinking the Kool Aid.....I've always thought he was more thoughtful than your average RW Blogger, I guess even he knows when to throw in the towel. Heavy on the comments, but surprisingly lacking of posters who want to accuse him of loving terrorists....



"I just thought I would go on record stating that the last few weeks and months have really sucked for me. I spent my whole life in the GOP- starting in 1984 with county meetings, going to Teenage Republican camp (my friends called it Hitler Youth Camp, proving that Nazi/Republican quips are no new development), and spending the better part the fall of 1984 going door to door for John Raese in his race against Rockefeller (Raese, as you know, lost). Now, 22 years later, I find myself not only refusing to support Raese against Robert Byrd (the man who for years has embarassed me with his pork), but I have come to the conclusion that the Republicans are so corrupt, so dishonest, so beholden to special interests and fanatical lobbying groups that Byrd not only looks to be the better option, but the entire Democratic party looks better.

I don’t know when things went south with this party (literally and figuratively- and I am sure commenters here will tell me the party has always been this bad- I disagree with that, and so do others), but for me, Terri Schiavo was the real eye-opener. Sure, the Prescription Drug Plan was hideous and still gets my blood pressure pumping, and the awful bankruptcy bill was equally bad, and there were other things that should have clued me in, but really, it was Schiavo that made me realize this party was not as advertized. And it is frustrating as hell.

What makes this even more frustrating is that not only do I feel like I have been duped, but I established a lot of friends in the right wing of the blogging community- and now I read their pages and I can’t believe what I am reading, even though I know that five years ago I probably would have been saying the same or similar things. I know many of them as people- and not just GOP parrots- having spent time working on collaborative projects with them, serving on the editorial board at Red State, appearing on radio shows with them- you name it. I have, at one point in time, defended many of them from what I perceived to be unfair attacks. So I know that by and large they are not bad people (Dan Riehl is an unmitigated asshole, however). Yet I read their pages now, and through my eyes, it looks like they are so divorced from reality it makes me question what, if anything, I ever believed in."
<snip>

more here: http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=7551

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. K & R. I welcome all rays of sanity breaking through

It isn't easy to write what John Cole wrote there, he has a lot of personal history and personal connections that bound him to Republicans. I hope his journey away from them goes smoothly. I don't know anything about him but I'll forgive him, this took guts.

[librechik]

2. thank god the disease isn't incurable

at least not always

[2008]

3. read the whole thing, it's totally worth it

k&r

[carolinayellowdog]

7. Not just the post, but the comments are worthwhile too

I read the first dozen or so and no one so far has disagreed with a word in the original post. Maybe you can't fool all of the people all of the time, even Republicans.

[kikiek]

4. A thoughful person. I give him credit also. Takes a lot of guts to admit that what

you believed in was wrong. I recently had to remind someone that politics isn't a football game where you root for your team to win no matter what. That attitude is destroying this country. That piece brings me hope that there are more like him.

[pacalo]

5. Good to hear that some of them actually think & analyze.

Schiavo & Katrina were huge eye-openers, but it's totally incomprehensible how 29% still believe in the Iraq situation as promoted by the foxaganda channel.

[calimary]

8. Yep. Huge eye-openers they were.

Kick.

[Tigress DEM]

6. Truth & Reality -- needed components for Liberty & Justice to flourish.

I hope that one day we will have 3 or more strong parties and that WE THE PEOPLE ****NEVER FORGET******* what we have learned about holding our leaders accountable for illegal behaviour.

In this time of unmitigated greed & deception on levels unimagined by the average citizen who just wants America to be the type of country we can be proud to call home, many will need to look to DEMs to take back Democracy as a way of life because as beleagured as they are, they are still the best change for immediate action leading to the changes that MUST be made through impeachment and investigation and all forms of restoration of our Constitutional government's rule of law.

Until the people who have abused their power are deposed the GOP is a party on a collision course with self destruction. Wise people don't remain on a ship whose rudder is locked and that cannot be detered from crashing and burning.

Maybe those that survive can take back their party and continue to quash greed and political deception whenever they rear their ugly heads again. Maybe the GOP will be tossed on the ash pile with the WHIG party.