Some keep decency in the Dumpster
Congress’ love/hate relationship with saber-rattlers accelerated with Joe McCarthy and worsened with Richard Nixon. From the start, Nixon unrelentingly accused newspapers of “liberal bias,” even though most news coverage is conventional.
By identifying liberals as his personal enemies, Nixon inadvertently revealed his hatred of good defenders of the Bill of Rights. Such strategies continue to work, and now the worst Republicans are demanding full control of America, behaving like people who’ve seen too many robot movies. “Bipartisan,” lately treated to detonated redefinition, means “do what we want.”
We and trustworthy politicians can pull political decency and statesmanship out of the Dumpster, but it’s difficult to identify those who want to keep it there – except by noting whose wealth hasn’t been harmed badly by Wall Street, and who has the best health care.
Would this be the Bush family, the Cheneys, the biggest CEOs in the biggest corporations? Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, somebody on the Supreme Court? Surely our military contractors.