Sunday, February 21, 2010

And I see your true colors

No one can call Glenn Greenwald a pollyanna, at least, not usually. But this time, I think he's being too hopey-changey:
There's a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once again donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the "tea party" movement. The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be -- recall that the most celebrated right-wing moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was when Rudy Giuliani all but accused Paul of being an America-hating Terrorist-lover for daring to suggest that America's conduct might contribute to Islamic radicalism -- yet the Republicans, aided by the media, are pretending that this is one unified, harmonious, "small government" political movement.

Indeed. Please read the rest of the article. As usual, Glennzilla nails it, and nails the hypocrites in the Conservative & Tea Party movements to the wall.

But at the end, Glenn drops the ball a little:
There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party's claim to believe in restrained government power. For that reason, it's only a matter of time before the fundamental incompatibility of the "tea party movement" and the political party cynically exploiting it is exposed.

Yes, it's only a matter of time before we have a functioning press & media, and opposition politicians with the cojones to make these points loudly and often.

And curiously, during the Bush43 regime, the only supporters of Ron Paul were Ron Paul and a small band of Libertarians. Now we have 1000's of Paulites, all united by what? Dislike of mainstream conservatives?

Maybe. But what else changed Jan. 20, 2009? Could it be the color of the President's skin?