Bob Sanders: Democrats should target Rush
Columnist
Published: May 26, 2009
As a Depression baby, I am of course a full-blooded, registered, purebred, yeller dawg Democrat. To us, Franklin D. Roosevelt had always been president and would always be president. Grandpa Boman’s house was plain, but it did have one decoration: a big portrait of FDR right there on the wall.
There were a couple of Republican families in our town, and a couple down Yellow Creek Road. Nice folks, but considered a bit strange.
Having said all that, I have to confess that it worries me, well, a little bit, to see the Republican Party seemingly trying to destroy itself. There have been many Republicans I admired — Abraham Lincoln, the other Roosevelt. I even like what little I know about Silent Cal. And Hoover wasn’t as heartless as he has been portrayed. He just happened to be there at the wrong time.
William F. Buckley was a conservative/Republican who often made sense. I love reading James J. Kilpatrick, whether he’s writing about politics or grammar. You couldn’t help liking Sen. Everett Dirksen. Loved to hear him talk about anything. George Will is a conservative with sense. I even got to like Barry Goldwater as a man. We didn’t agree on a lot of things, but we certainly did when it came to Jerry Falwell and the religious right, which the party later embraced. And Gen. Colin Powell seems to be a sensible, sensitive man.
And there are, of course, some local Republicans that I admire very much, even if they’re wrong. Everybody has the right to be wrong.
How it must hurt and embarrass folks like that to see what the GOP has become, a fringe ultra-right group that is anti-choice and anti practically everything, especially things that help the poor and needy: I’ve got mine, sucker. Do the best you can.
On TV, you can see General Powell, for example, almost shudder when the names of clown Limbaugh and his ilk are brought up, to know that Limbaugh is the de facto head of the Republican Party, along with Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, who, truth be told, is drop-dead gorgeous, period. (She wants to teach children that the world started 6,000 or 8,000 years ago.) You can see Powell thinking: We have come to this?
Confession: I voted Republican once, my first time to vote in a national election. Not because I was that crazy about Ike, although he wasn’t bad, but because that year, the Democratic symbol at the top of the ballot was a rooster with a banner proclaiming White for the Right. I couldn’t go there.
If the Democrats are smart, they will play up the fact that Limbaugh is the head of the Republican Party, because in any nationwide election, Limbaugh and his dittoheads wouldn’t have a chance.
Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
I’d missed ryanau99’s statement in his previous comment, “On a day when this guy picks a nominee for the highest court in the land, which has overturned her previous decisions on numerous occasions by the way, you post ...“
The reference to “this guy” is of course President Obama nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayo to the Supreme Court to replace Justice David Souter.
The issue may have read of her “60% reversal rate” which various Conservative outlets claimed reflected poorly on her jurisprudence.
Some on the right, including a few that really ought to have known better, took the five cases she ruled on that were taken up by the Supremes and the math was rather simple as three were reversed.
I’m a big Nate Silver fan, and it’s not because his polling work came after he was a baseball stat guru. Nate explained at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/washington-times-supremes-uphold.html that she’s actually below the average of 75% when using the formula that spit our 60%. Actually, all her civil opinion can be viewed at a 2% reversal rate. There are some nice links in the piece as well.
Finally, if we use just those cases accepted by the Supremes then Stripsearch Sammy Alito had a 100% reversal rate.
There are concerned groups on both the left and the right as to Judge Sotomayo yet even the most partisan will need to look elsewhere than at her “reversal rate”.
I thought Mr. Sanders’s column was excellent.
This appears on the “Opinion” pages ryanau99.
Please explain, “I hope and believe most readers like myself have learned a little more about the OA News than we did before which isn¡¯t very good for profit.“
Of the Newhouse papers of Al.com, I am betting you’ll prefer the Mobile Press-Register’s Opinion pages.
Republicans shouldn’t be judged for Rush any more than Democrats should be judged for Olbermann. Rush and Olbermann are not party leaders or elected officials. They are commentators. Nothing more. Nothing less. Neither one is very intelligent.
If you want to attack Republicans then focus on the ones like MIchele Bachmann who prove that every meth addict in MN must live in her district. How else could she get elected?
Just when I begin to believe the OA news is a good source for good information, you have to go and post non-sense like this. On a day when this guy picks a nominee for the highest court in the land, which has overturned her previous decisions on numerous occasions by the way, you post something like this with absolutly zero thought behind it. I hope and believe most readers like myself have learned a little more about the OA News than we did before which isn’t very good for profit. I’m going back to the birmingham news, at least I expect ignorance there.
Advertisement