More like this, please

With all the crazed rhetoric and selfishness and hate from the right-wing, especially here in America's Wang™ with the radical Christianists and warmongers and racists and just plain stupid people we must endure on a daily basis, it's easy to forget that there once was a group of people we might describe as sensible Republicans. Oh, they still exist -- I even know one or two of them myself, personally -- but they are pretty scarce, browbeaten into submission or silence by the whackjobs in charge of the GOP in this state and the country.

And sometimes, we have to go clear across the country to find them ... all the way to our old friend Huggy Bear's own back yard:

A hundred and sixty-seven Republicans in the U.S. House recently voted that they think it's fine that some Democrat do to the next Republican president what Joe Wilson just did to President Obama?

This is not "just politics."

It is becoming more and more difficult for reasonable Republicans to hold our heads high.

U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during the president's speech on health-care reform was an illustration of what is increasingly and correctly seen as the rabid reflex of the radical right.

It was "rabid" because most of us saw no reason, merely "fangs bared" visceral hatred in an unprovoked personal attack. It was reflex because it was preceded by no thought. It was radical because it was miles and miles outside decorum and responsible "discussion."

It was made worse by Wilson's effort to turn the episode into a fund-raising opportunity. It was made a total travesty by the Republicans who voted against a very modest "censure" resolution.

These egregious indignities come on top of the irresponsibility of shouting down anyone who might be offering a differing viewpoint during health-care town halls; the national Republican Party's suggestion that if health-care reform passes, Democrats might try to deprive Republicans of health care; and the astounding opposition to the president intending to tell children to stay in school and study hard.

It has become painfully clear why the Republican Party is not really a relevant force in terms of potential to capture a majority of public elections anytime soon. When your response is little more than rabid reflex, people simply conclude you aren't really interested in being taken seriously and they simply stop listening to you. That's what's happening to the Republicans now. Oh yes, the "base" is energized by this vitriol, but the important point is that the base continues to shrink. Real bright, guys.

It's about time that someone on the GOP side of the aisle said "Enough already!" This missive -- and there's more at the link -- was written by an attorney in Arizona and published in the Arizona Daily Star. More than likely, the author will be shouted down by precisely those whom he was trying to reach with his column. Indeed, it's already happened, dozens of times, in the column's online comments, which rely on the same falsehoods -- the president really did lie when Joe Wilson made his now infamous outburst ... ACORN is being allowed to control American government ... Obama is a socialist, a Marxist, a liberal -- that the column accurately challenges.

Oh, well. It was a nice try, anyway. Back to the pitchforks and torches for the wingnuts, I guess ...

(h/t to FOBO* -- and fellow Sinfonian -- scourtright)

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* Friend of Blast Off!