MMR 53 (cont’d)

Politics is a rough and tumble business in our country and has been from the “git-go". Even the most casual student of history will acknowledge that, if anything, it has softened over the years. A couple centuries ago it was not uncommon to see cartoons of prominent figures portrayed as animals or having snakes growing from their heads—see Nast here. Hyperbole was king and disparagement was the rule. As laconic as usual, Harry Truman once remarked, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

During my teens, he was president; a man capable of making tough decisions, who brought mid-western practicality, decency, and respect for America to the White House. As with any politician, I disagreed with some of his policies, but he retained my respect for the office and embodied certain characteristics which set an example for my later years. I was entirely comfortable, during the Korean War, to have him as my commander-in-chief.

John Kennedy, although not my personal choice, shared many of the same qualities. I recognized that he faced many issues (civil rights, treaty obligations in S.E. Asia, organized crime, space exploration, etc.) which had no easy answers. I was convinced that, even though sometimes inconsistent with my ideas, he basically had the country’s interests at heart.

His successor, through tragic circumstance, Lyndon Johnson projected an aura of concern for the country as well. One of the most endearing news photos of him was of a man leaned back in a leather swivel chair in the oval office, reading a document while idly scratching his dog’s head. It was too natural to have been posed and spoke to all I needed to know about our president. He was “in touch” but still very much a decent man. Although having too much in common with Jackson, he still retained enough Jefferson to warrant association with a prominent Democrat symbol.

I shall make no attempt to explain what happened to the Democrat party in the succeeding years. Obviously, their rising social consciousness has been a factor, but that alone seems insufficient to explain their disconnect with “regular” Americans. Subsequent members of the party cannot be fairly compared to Truman, Kennedy or Johnson. It is possible that they are the final victims of the cold war.

The current crop is demonstrative of this separation from these quoted historic figures. We have evidence that the latest members have dropped any of the former vestiges of decency, decorum, national pride or genuine concern for their fellow citizens. The contradictions are in no place more apparent than in their response to their own inner party squabbles and the GOP’s pick for vice-president.

Any one not brain dead for the last year, needs no explanation of the carnage wrought by those seeking the presidential nod in the Democrat party primary. My first reaction was a level of enjoyment watching the havoc wrought by that struggle for supremacy. On deeper contemplation I came to realize that it had a terrible affect on the country as a whole. The general result was to suspend civil discourse in favor of partisan fervor. Apparently the Democrat party has been co-opted by a vicious radical fringe whose primary goal is achieving personal victory and agenda, and not the welfare of the United States. This is inconsistent with my living memories of Harry, Jack and Lyndon. These men had, for lack of a better word, class. They were serious, hard working servants of the people with little time for the nonsense which passes for political argument today. Each would have had far too much conscience to yield to the temptation of an attack on a person’s family involving scurrilous lies about easily provable facts.

Inherent in the spreading of rumor about Mrs. Palin and her newborn child, is the “principal” plank in the Democrat party platform; the right to murder children. I find it appalling that a group of people who are alarmed by the alleged carelessness of an expectant mother in choosing to fly in the final days of pregnancy are the same people who have endorsed the murder of over 40,000,000 American children in less than four decades. If capable of consistent thought, they should applaud her choice to take such a risk. Some have even attributed (ignorantly) that the child’s impairment was due to the reckless exposure. Down syndrome is a genetic condition and thus irreversible.

To further the outrage, some have suggested that the child is actually the product of her oldest daughter and Mrs. Palin is the child’s grandmother. They support this with a picture of the girl with a telltale bulge in the abdomen. Never mind the picture was taken in 2006. One needs to explain that the symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant and that each member is not an actual elephant and does not have a gestation of 660 days.

We live in a day when individual party principals do not need to do the dirty work of “smear” politics. There are an abundance of surrogates to carry the water for them. News media and the internet stand ready to disseminate any lie they can come up with. Representative of both is Alan Colmes, featured as part of the team of Hannity and Colmes on Fox and author of his own website. The following was extracted from that site:

“Rogers Cadenhead gives the timeline associated with the birth of her newest child. She had a speech in Dallas and, even after the water broke, continued with her activities, and then boarded a plane for home. She did consult by phone with her doctor.

Still, a Sacramento, Calif., obstetrician who is active in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said when a pregnant woman's water breaks, she should go right to the hospital because of the risk of infection. That's true even if the amniotic fluid simply leaks out, said Dr. Laurie Gregg.”

So the expert says it’s a risk. What the “expert” doesn’t reveal is that she is also a Democrat and a Golden State political appointee as revealed by the Sacramento Bee. How convenient is that? The doctor whom Governor Palin called at home in Alaska is familiar with the health history of the patient and Sarah, as mother of four at that point, is also no tyro in the baby delivery business. She is also no blushing bride in a Lamaze class.

The narrative here is simple: when confronted with a superior person, take refuge in ad hominem attack and hope for sufficient confusion to cloud the matter. It has become the rule for the socialist wing of the elites.
I fully understand that confronting a woman (!) of courage, judgment, principle, experience and leadership ability is a formidable problem. The solution lies not in attacking the individual but countering with some notion of superior qualities. To do otherwise is disgusting and incidentally, in my opinion, un-American.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon