Friday was a bad day for conservative Republicans. It began in Kansas and mercifully ended in Baltimore. Indiana Congressman Mike Pence organized a question-and-answer session with President Obama at a Republican retreat in the Maryland city. For 70 minutes the President schooled House GOP leaders over issues like health-care reform, the economy, federal spending, and the stimulus package. The entire session was broadcast live on MSNBC (it was also aired on Fox News, but the GOP TV machine refused to air the final twenty minutes – I wonder why) and made for enthralling political theater. It was very similar to Britain's "question time," in which lawmakers in the House of Commons have direct access to the prime minister. It was also encouraging to see the Obama that I voted for – the fire, the passion, the common-sense approach to national issues.
The questions were sharp and the President's responses were pointed, both of which were refreshing because the presidential response is usually sanitized and the questions dignified, but these questions were coming from House Republicans, and what do they know about dignity? After the President's opening remarks, Pence asked the first question, a question in which he used "a little boy, an African American boy, named David Cater, Jr." as a pawn for tax cuts. "The first question I would pose to you, Mr. President, is would you be willing to consider embracing – in the name of little David Carter, Jr. and his dad, in the name of every struggling family in this country – the kind of across-the-board tax relief that Republicans have advocated?" The very premise of this question was absurd (as were most of the following questions, the President would later label such deceitful questions as "talking point[s] for running a campaign") because Pence met the child and his father at a Salvation Army homeless facility – little David's father wouldn't be rich enough for a Republican tax cut. And how are such "across-the-board" tax cuts supposed to help the economy? Under the leadership of ol' W. such tax breaks were in place for nearly eight years, the culmination of which was the birth of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
After the session MSNBC's Luke Russert spoke off the record to a Republican official who said that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake." Indeed, the President articulately demonstrated that the chasm between reality and the GOP's demagoguery is large enough to swallow the entire Republican Party, which is probably why Pence, when he later appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, scoffed at the idea of instituting a regularly scheduled question-and-answer session with the House. I just wish more people had been paying attention.
Minutes before the President began his dismantling of the Right, Conservatives were dealt their first blow when anti-abortionist hero Scott Roeder was convicted of first-degree murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. On 31 May 2009 Roeder allegedly drove from Kansas City to Tiller's church in Wichita, Kansas, where he, in front of other churchgoers, shot the doctor point-blank in the head. The defense never disputed the facts of the case and wanted the jury to consider a voluntary manslaughter charge, a charge based on the premise that Roeder killed Tiller to "protect unborn babies"; Judge Warren Wilbert ruled against the manslaughter charge. After deliberating for just 37 minutes, the jury found Roeder guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. The 51-year-old gun-toting crusader faces a minimum sentence of life in prison. He'll be sentenced 9 March.
It is true that some Right-wing groups have condemned the murder of Tiller, but some groups see the murder, like Roeder, as a justified act. When will Americans see that the real terrorists are not bearded cave-dwellers in the Middle East, but middle-aged white men who embrace the radical ideologies of the Right? Indeed, the Right wants you to believe the real terror threat comes from overseas (the land of brown people, more specifically), but it's the Right who are not only attempting to delegitimize a black President by questioning his citizenship, but encourage its fringe elements to take action against a "radical" President who wishes to void the Second Amendment; a "communist" who believes in expanding government into every home (remind me, who penned the Patriot Act?); and a "socialist" who wishes to institute a national health-care plan in which "death panels" determine who lives and who dies. The true threat to America and its freedoms does not reside in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Iran; it lies within our borders, and it uses a holy text to justify its motives. Indeed, the threat is among us. And Islam is not its religion.
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