As we noted HERE, yesterday’s Tea Party sponsored “Million Vet March on the Memorials” featured far less than a million (or even 250,000) vets, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her protege Texas. Senator Ted Cruz, a huge dose of chutzpah from Cruz — and a confederate flag held high in front of a White House occupied by an African-American family. In a CNN panel on Saturday headed by Don Lemon, Lemon laced into conservative talker Ben Ferguson about the flag and how Republicans should feel about it.
MUST VIEWING:
As I’ve noted elsewhere, what has happened in America is that the bar is being constantly lowered so things that would have been consider the extremist fringe are now not just occuring but defended by partisans who would never have defended them even 10 years ago. It’s all about defending your political sports team, or acting like a defense lawyer — going on attack. But the BULK of Americans can see this for what it is — and as polls are showing it is a political boomerang and the Tea Party and along with it the Republican Party are losing support.
The fact is, Tea Party members and their sympathizers will always go on the attack when asked if they condone this behavior or condemn it and add a “yes but” or maybe a “but Obama” or use the favorite “but under Clinton.”
Our bar is being lowered and lowered on not just the tone of our discourse but the intelligence of our discourse. And as it occurs, there is a built in ideologist, hyper-partisan cheering section that wants to see it go lower and lower.
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.