Our political Quote of the Day says it all about the truly sad, tragic decline of the Republican Party as a party with serious thinkers who weighed both sides and then came to a decision which could be tinged with ideology, but it was a decision based on facts. It’s from freshman House Republican Ted Yoho (FL) and we’ll give you part of the item on Talking Points Memo that brought this to our attention:
The Post has a profile in motion of freshman House Republican Ted Yoho (FL). The focus is how he’s part of the faction who forced John Boehner to trigger the government shutdown and now wants to move along to default on the national debt. How bad will default be? “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets,” Yoho told the Post.
Which raises the questions a)are serious, thoughtful Republicans who are now or who have been in power willing to surrender their party to fact-denying ideologues such as these and if they are not then when are they going to speak up? (Bravo to Rep. Peter King). b) if this is the kind of thinking then what does it portend for the United States going into the 21st century if this powerful faction of the Republican Party gains more strength?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.