by Teh Nutroots | Politico's Andie Coller writes that a number of GOP leaders are increasingly worried that their party is being identified with its "fringe element" (so-called). Here's a small sample culled from her many examples of GOPpers fretting over what's happening to their party. [S]ays Republican media consultant Mark McKinnon. “Unfortunately, right now the Democrats generally get defined by President Obama, and Republicans, who have no clear leadership, get defined by crackpots — and then they begin to define the Republican Party in the mind of the general public.”...
Here’s Orly Taitz, insisting that the commander in chief was born in Kenya. There’s a flock of town hall protesters, waving photos of the president in a Hitler moustache. Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin warns darkly that Obama is planning “death panels” for senior citizens. Georgia Rep. Paul Broun equates the president’s plans with “Nazi” policies. Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt — last heard calling John Murtha a “coward” — tells a birther: “I agree with you, but the courts don’t.”...
One veteran GOP official puts it bluntly: “The image of a bunch of white guys booing an African-American president is about as bad as it gets.” ( More at Politico)
Gee, ya think?
Meanwhile, we progressives have our own much better founded complaints against our own lily-livered "leaders." As John Aravosis writes:
The Republicans went insane over August, disrupting Democratic townhall meetings on health care reform, and rather than blasting them, the Obama administration praised them and Democrats saw the raucous protests as a reason to cave. And now, a Republican congressman has an outrageous outburst during a joint session of Congress - an outburst that is still causing the GOP massive headaches 36 hours after it happened - and what do the Democrats do? Do they try to take advantage of Wilson's outburst, and the negative reaction to it, to force the GOP to cave and include something we want in the plan, like the public option?
Of course not....The message we are sending the GOP is horrible. It is now open season on President Obama's agenda. All you have to do is yell, and the Democrats will flinch. It seems one speech wasn't enough to change the heart and soul of a party of cowards.
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