{"id":1198,"date":"2007-04-29T22:54:32","date_gmt":"2007-04-30T03:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/04\/29\/a-sad-state-of-affairs\/"},"modified":"2007-04-29T22:55:34","modified_gmt":"2007-04-30T03:55:34","slug":"a-sad-state-of-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/04\/29\/a-sad-state-of-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"a sad state of affairs…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
There’s an interesting article in this morning’s Washington Post:<\/div>\n
\n
GOP’s Base Helps Keep Unity on Iraq<\/strong><\/a>.<\/div>\n

With public opinion tilting firmly toward ending U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.) might have expected praise for his votes that would start to bring the troops home. Instead, at town hall meetings on the Eastern Shore, the former Marine and Vietnam combat veteran has been called a coward and a traitor.<\/p>\n

After Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s troop increases, reaction in his district was so furious that local GOP officials all but invited a primary challenge to the reliable conservative. Inglis responded with multiple mailings to his constituents, fence-mending efforts and a video message on his House Web site pleading his case. On subsequent Iraq votes, he has not strayed from the Republican fold.<\/p>\n

The experiences of the few Republicans to vote against the war help explain the remarkable unity that the party has maintained in Washington behind an unpopular president. Just four Republicans — two in the House, two in the Senate — voted last week for a $124 billion war funding bill that would require troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1, legislation that Bush has vowed to veto…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The gist of the article is that in spite of the shift in overall opinion about the Iraq War in America in general, the Republican loyalists remain committed and raise holy hell if one of the faithful votes against the Administration. It’s an interesting phenomenon. It’s tempting to speculate that it’s the Bush\/Rove political machine in action, but I actually find myself thinking something very different from that. I don’t think it’s so much not wanting to "lose" the war in Iraq. I think it’s not wanting to "lose" to "liberals."<\/div>\n

The Bush Administration, by design, appealed to the Conservative element in our society who hate "liberals" – still hate and hippies and communists and drugs and rock and roll and cultural diversity and gays and who knows what from the era of the 1960’s. They have been groomed to see the other side as libertines dead set on destroying the family and the church and decency and marriage and patriotism and the Constitution and the pledge allegiance to the flag who knows what else. I don’t think it has much to do with the war in Iraq. I think it has to do with fear and what used to be called "the culture wars." We see such people as destroying our country by supporting the Administration. They see "us" as destroying the very fabric of American Culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an interesting article in this morning’s Washington Post: GOP’s Base Helps Keep Unity on Iraq. With public opinion tilting firmly toward ending U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.) might have expected praise for his votes that would start to bring the troops home. Instead, at town hall meetings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}