Political Sanity vs Right Wing Extremism

By: Mike Hersh

"The federal government should consider aviation security as a national security issue, and provide substantial funding for capital improvements. The Commission believes that terrorist attacks on civilian aviation are directed towards the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose."

- Gore Commission final report, February 12, 1997

What if we counted the votes and the Supreme Court let President Al Gore do the job we elected him to do? Many fear we would lack unity during this time of crisis, because right wing extremists refuse to cooperate with any national efforts they do not control.

Some even conclude that we're better off catering to cranks and indulging intransigence. What does that tell us about the state of our nation? A lot, and none of it good. I think we have a better choice.

The right wing recognizes unity as a virtue only when they hold power. All other times, right wing "leaders" reject authority other than their own, and exacerbate disunity for narrow, partisan political advantage. This shortsighted selfishness disadvantages all of us.

We only need consider one glaring, fatal example. Every time President Clinton acted against terrorism, right wingers tried to stop him. They screamed "wag the dog!".

Right wingers dismissed efforts to protect American lives as mere frivolous distractions from their dirty tricks and fake or exaggerated "scandals". Because they would shed blood to divert attention, right wingers assume others would as well. This exposes warped right wing psychology and priorities.

Note: I am not talking about all Republicans or even all conservatives. In fact, real conservatives recoil at the right wing politics of hate. In the tradition of Barry Goldwater, true conservatives criticize the growing and rampant misuse and abuse of power by right wingers like Attorney General Ashcroft. However, right wingers remain disloyal to America.

President Clinton and others believe a President Al Gore would have endured even worse onslaughts. Partisan right wingers who bedeviled American efforts to combat terror during the Clinton years would only escalate their disloyalty and obsession and relentlessly attack Al Gore. They would attack, not because of anything Gore did or didn't do, but because the rabid right wing cannot respect or abide any vision other than their own. That's the shocking but undeniable truth about our politics today.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Albert Hunt predicts what the right wing would do to Al Gore, citing past behavior:

"In the same situation, the vocal right in Congress would have blamed Sept. 11 on the 'weakness' of the Clinton-Gore policies [based on the following actions:]"

• "In 1999, House Republicans refused to support the Clinton/NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo after it was launched."
  
  
• "The GOP House and Senate whips, Tom DeLay and Don Nickles, both suggested the atrocities in Kosovo were more the fault of Mr. Clinton than war criminal Slobodan Milosevic."
  
  
• "[W]hen the U.S. bombed Saddam Hussein, Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott said it was done to deflect from President Clinton's impeachment problems - presumably with the complicity of Defense Secretary Bill Cohen and Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs."
  
  

In a crisis, loyal Americans support solutions no matter where they come from - Republican, Democrats, independents, moderates, conservatives, and liberals. In troubled times Americans who love our country unite to overcome adversity.

Extremists like Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, Tom DeLay, Don Nichols, Jerry Falwell and "Pat" Robertson finger point, backbite, and undermine our unity. Sadly, there's no end to right wing divisive disloyalty.

Josh Gerstein, writing for ABC news quotes commentator/comedian Al Franken: "[President Clinton] said there would be congressional hearings about how [the Gore Administration] let their guard down." Franken recalls President Clinton lamenting that "[right wingers would] probably be impeaching [President Gore] right now", and "the bipartisanship we're seeing now is really a one-way street".

That's because while liberals, moderates and real conservatives are loyal to our country and our cherished institutions, right wingers who run the Republican Party are not loyal to America. Right wingers are loyal only to themselves.

Gerstein reports that "Clinton spokeswoman Julia Payne said the former president... agrees with a Wall Street Journal column by Al Hunt", (quoted above) which concluded: "The political right wouldn't have given [Gore] the leeway and support that President Bush has received."

This is no endorsement of Bush. In fact, it's the opposite. He is a product and beneficiary of the right wing politics of hate. There is no reason to celebrate five Supreme partisans overruling our election. The stolen election demonstrates how little the right wing really cares about its own shopworn slogans like "trust the people" and "the rule of law" and even "states' rights".

However, this is not about Bush or Al Gore - it concerns more than two people. This concerns more than two hundred million people. This is not about politics as usual. This is not even about the stolen election.

As with Watergate, there is a cancer on the Presidency and the nation. A sickness has infected our body politic and now threatens our free society.

This is about the heart and soul of the American republic itself.

There is no limit to the harm and damage right wingers will inflict upon us and themselves, if we let them. Because their hate for President Clinton knows no bounds, the right wing gave aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terror network. Let me make this point starkly. Right wingers' relentless and senseless attacks against President Clinton undermined our efforts against terrorism.

Ironically, one leading right wing hater died because of the terrorism she unwittingly aided. Barbara Olson's blood and the blood of the other innocent dead is on her own hands, her husband Ted Olson's hands, and the hands of other extreme right wing Clinton haters.

This is a shocking statement, but it's supported by the right wingers' actions. They labored tirelessly to destroy our Commander-in-Chief. They failed to undo two elections, but managed to divert million$ and law enforcement resources, hobbling our government and distracting our nation for critical months. Meanwhile bin Laden and his murderers plotted and planned.

During the past Presidential election, in their lust for power, the right wing spat on the Constitution, threw out votes, repudiated every principle, and trampled laws to seize power. The power which they now misuse and abuse.

It didn't stop there.

Enrongate makes Whitewater look like seltzer water. Votergate - the many crimes the Bushes used to steal Florida's electoral votes - makes even Watergate look watered down. Add to that the sealed records, the quashed investigations, the secret military tribunals and secret commissions - a growing list of cover ups, crimes and kickbacks which have already gone much too far in less than a year.

If left to their own devices, right wingers will destroy everything that makes America good and great. This despite their characteristically arrogant and unwarranted claim as the only "real Americans", in the phrase of the hypocritical and hateful Bob Barr.

We must stop this and the rest of the Nixonian sleaze that pours like toxic sludge out of the right wing Bush occupation before it ruins our great nation. Our survival as a free and decent nation hangs in the balance. But to do that, we have to do much more than investigate, expose, and punish these scandals and crimes.

We have to resolve to remake and restore politics in this country. We cannot afford to coddle or indulge selfish extreme right wing tantrum throwing tyrants. We should not return their hate and insanity with our own, but political sanity requires we remove them from power.

Unless and until they are willing to respect our institutions, and abide by the popular will - win or lose - right wing extremists have no business wielding power. We cannot trust them, because they have no ethics, morals, or decency. We have to unite to vote them out before they can outlaw dissent and abolish elections.

With departures of powerful haters like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey and hopefully Pat Robertson, we have a rare opportunity. We must build on this liberating House (and Senate) cleaning by removing from office other "misleaders". We must have real campaign finance and voting rights reform. We have to take back our system from those who abuse it and us.

We have to choose between sanity and extremism. If right wingers will not act responsibly, they do not deserve responsibility. If they cannot curb their disastrous self-defeating extremism, we will have to curb it for them. I hope decent Republicans and all thoughtful, caring people will help us rehabilitate our system. We must restore decency to our politics. It's time to restore political sanity.