More and more, with each passing election cycle, it seems that the Republican strategy depends on lying to stupid and bigoted people. They have no choice, that's all that is left in their base. It is yet more evidence of Christopher Hitchens' latest assertion:
This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.
Of course, Hitch was talking about Sarah Palin's remark about fruit fly research, but in many ways Elizabeth Dole's ad exemplifies how the right has become a group of intellectually slothful theocratic bullies better than Palin exemplified it. Dole looks more like a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus than Palin does with that ad. Well, at least she does if you're an atheist.
Why else would we get such a blatantly false and bigoted ad from Dole? It's because the candidates know their base. A Newsmax poll showed that 11 percent of Americans claim to believe that Obama is a Muslim. Now, if 11% think Obama is a Muslim and if we generously say that about half of the American population is Republican, a generous estimate these days, and if we assume all those people who believe Obama is a Muslim are Republicans, then we have about 22 percent of Republicans who think Obama is a Muslim despite incredible evidence to the contrary.
Look closely at some of the people who have been speaking for this party, Ben Stein, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin.
The mistake the Republicans might be making this year is that by appealing to the troglodytes that make up its base of right-wing knuckle-draggers they are offending more people than they appeal to. At least I hope so.
Dole flat out lied. What actually happened was that Hagan attended a fundraiser that was co-hosted by a representative of the Godless America PAC. So, it's not that Hagan is even supporting atheists, they were supporting her. Hagan's counter-ad closes by warning Dole about "baring false witness against a fellow Christian." Ahh, I see, it's okay to bear false witness against other groups but don't lie about a Christian?:
We atheists scare everyone.
2 comments:
"Hagan's counter-ad closes by warning Dole about "baring false witness against a fellow Christian." Ahh, I see, it's okay to bear false witness against other groups but don't lie about a Christian?"
I think that you are misreading the subtext. By acknowledging Dole as a fellow Christian, Hagan highlights Dole's hypocrisy, since Christians of course aren't supposed to bear false witness.
Well, if that's what she was trying to do, then I think she could have done a better job. Perhaps saying, "you're a Christian, aren't you? Don't you know you're not suppose to bear false witness?"
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