... It’s been a hoot watching Mitt Romney squirm as he tries to distance himself from a plan that, as he knows full well, is nearly identical to the reform he himself pushed through as governor of Massachusetts. His best shot was declaring that enacting reform was an “unconscionable abuse of power,” a “historic usurpation of the legislative process” — presumably because the legislative process isn’t supposed to include things like “votes” in which the majority prevails.
At which point a Republican, just bustin' with talking points, tells you that no, this isn't a democracy, it's a constitutional republic. The majority rules only when Republicans are in power. Otherwise, the majority -- and the president -- are illegitimate, and no decent American can or will accept their leadership.
Try banging your head against the wall and then try to move on.
No, to find anything like what we’re seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president. Like President Obama, Bill Clinton faced a G.O.P. that denied his legitimacy — Dick Armey, the second-ranking House Republican (and now a Tea Party leader) referred to him as “your president.” Threats were common: President Clinton, declared Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, “better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.”
We're stuck with a system in which two parties are expected to act as individuals but honor their marriage vows. Then one spouse turns out to be a violent and vocal abuser and the police the media tell the victim it's her fault: she could have avoided the whole thing by behaving like a humble partner. Meanwhile, he's still out there, shouting and threatening.
That's who contemporary Republicans are, as Paul Krugman reminds us. They shout; they don't listen; they threaten.
... Today’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.
Nowadays it's not just violent husbands and Republicans who are responsible for others getting screwed. Look at religious institutions. Look at the pope -- that's "pope," not Pope, because Ratzinger is certainly no worse than his predecessors in his willingness to use power to violate trust.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.
An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.
What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. ...NYT
Vicious and destructive Republicans? Supercilious financial institutions? Corrupt and destructive religious leaders? Let's not forget ignorant and self-serving Tea Party organizers. Is there a single one of these that has not violated your trust lately, in one way or another?
