A Republican Insider Looks at the Rise of the Religious Right

• Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"
• Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)
• Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America.
• A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses
• A Republican’s Lament: ‘It’s a Disgrace’

Frederick Clarkson, Daily Kos

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Lydia Howell

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A career Republican Congressional staffer retired and published an essay for Truthout in September (2011) -- that went viral.  Mike Lofgren wanted us to know what, in broad strokes, had gone wrong with politics and government. He thinks one major factor has been the rise of the Religious Right in the GOP.  Like other Republicans before him, from Barry Goldwater, to John Danforth, to John Dean who each belatedly spoke out, we need to consider his perspective as that of someone who played ball, worked with and even advanced some of the very elements he now criticizes.  

Nevertheless, it is worth hearing and carefully considering what he has to say, not only about what it means to be a professional working in such an ideologically charged environment, but how he views liberals and Democrats as having been weak and ineffectual in response. (I wish he had provided more details.)  There is a refreshingly honest and thoughtful -- if rueful -- quality to his words that puts in perspective a great deal of what we read from all sides, especially as the campaign season kicks in hard.

More...

A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses, Marc Pitzke, Der Spiegel Online

• The US Republican race is dominated by ignorance, lies and scandals. They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic, ignorant, outrageous thing after another.
• The current crop of candidates have shown such a stark lack of knowledge -- political, economic, geographic, historical -- that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to cringe.
• The Grand Old Party is ruining the entire country's reputation.
• Paul Krugman | Send In the Clueless

A Republican’s Lament: ‘It’s a Disgrace’ Bob Gaydos, Zest of Orange
Of the weekly free-for-all (the GOP) calls a debate, one would have to wonder if any adults are in charge of trying to salvage the reputation of the party of Lincoln. If they were, how could they stand by silently while a bunch of candidates has demonstrated a collective unworthiness for the right to run for president, never mind be elected?