Republican Chris Shays Shows the Spineless (I'm talking to Democratic Leaders Who Need a Backbone) How to Talk

I must bow before Rep. Shays for telling it like it is in a way that alleged Democrats like Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Clinton should be hollering from the rooftops. From yesterday's NY Times:

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."

Now Democratic Leadership Council limpdicks and Democratic National Committee, pay attention. Chris Shays is giving you the gift you have been given for five years from the rightwing nutcases who push theocrats Bush and Frist and DeLay, so don't fuck it up AGAIN. This is a secular nation, founded on the clear principle of separation of the religious from the civic, and these people who now dominate the Republican Party are extremists. Got that? Extremists. Say that over and over and over. Bush, Frist, and DeLay are religious Republican extremists. They taint the party, and are dragging it over the edge to destruction.

Don't agree? Well, look back at the formation of this particular coalition after Goldwater's trouncing in 1964 (imagine what he would be saying about these guys. Oh, if only resurrection was true!) The New Right was formed from a weird coalition of religious nutwads, led in Orange Country by one of the characters (Tim LaHaye) who authors the Left Behind series of Christian snuff literature, whose hatred of government (because it was so secular) linked them to libertarians who shared that hatred. Trouble was, true libertarians don't want religious intrusions into government or our private lives, and many libertarians are agnostic or atheists. However, given the dire political situation at the time for the Repugs, they set aside their differences to concentrate on their similarities, namely, hatred of New Deal style government.

I think that coalition is finally peeling apart, with the libertarian wing starting to realize that these religious types will burn them at the stake too, once they gain total power. That's my theory, at least. So it shouldn't be a surprise that Chris Shays would sound the alarm. What is a surprise is that no major Democratic leader has had the guts to do it first.