The Grand Ol' Party is dying. It is dying a very ugly death. Poor Mr. Lincoln, betrayed one final time.
The latest piece of evidence is the pseudo-controversy over the "Ground Zero" mosque. You know the story, yes? New York Muslims are constructing a cultural center at Park 51 in lower Manhattan, about 2 blocks from "Ground Zero" (the site of the former World Trade Center).
There really is no controversy. The Muslims have every right to build the cultural center. Even opponents acknowledge it. But right-wing freaks are having a field day, whipping up their demented base.
Newt Gingrich was on Fox & Friends on Monday, saying "the proposed mosque would be a symbol of Muslim 'triumphalism' and that building the mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks 'would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.'"
Conflating Islam with what happened on 911 (not to mention the gratuitous Nazi invocation): now that's leadership.
Between Newt and former New York Governor George Pataki (who has also been ginning up the Islamophobes) it looks like we have two men who want to run for president in 2012. They know that the only way to the GOP nomination is through nativism, bigotry, and ignorance.
In the past, even as recently as the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican leaders would sometimes urge restraint when the rhetoric got too ugly. Recall when John McCain tried to calm the roiling hatred during his campaign.
But now, as Gingrich and Pataki so gratuitously demonstrate, ambitious Republican leaders positively leap to the fore at any public stoning.
They are killing their party. After 150 years, the Confederates are finally killing the party of Lincoln.
