The New G.O.P.
For more than 100 years the Republican anthem has been "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and its initials - G.O.P. - stood for the "Grand Old Party". Only once, fifty years ago - in Stevenson's 1956 loss to Eisenhower - did those initials stand for something else: Adlai called his opposition "Grouchy Old Pessimists."
But now, what is happening in and to this country is no laughing matter. We have bold-faced liars running the government - people who are psychologically and spiritually unfit to have such power and responsibility. They pay no attention to our Constitution. They care not about sound fiscal practice. They do not think -whether about gun violence, global warming or the predatory and abusive sexual practices of fellow party leaders.
I maintain that they do not think because they cannot think. And they cannot think because at heart they are perverted. To psychoanalysts, perversion describes a condition beyond the merely sexual. The word means "turning away" and not just from mature sexual behavior that requires consenting adults. In its fullest sense, perversion means turning away from truth, from reality. Julia Ward Howe's stirring lyrics no longer apply; "His truth is marching on" rings hollow. Put simply, George Bush's view that the war in Iraq is going well is fundamentally mindless and without merit; it is perverted.
Republican leadership is not only perverted, it is grandiose as well. By grandiose I mean arrogant, puffed up, self-important. People use grandiosity to defend themselves against having to argue or think. They regard those who disagree with them as less-informed and misguided - or as Bush likes to say, "well-meaning." They are not constrained by facts, and thus they can confidently assert that WMDs exist where none are found or that experienced generals who insist on having enough troops to run a war are flat-out wrong. It doesn't matter whether you are an intelligence officer with evidence of a terrorist plot or a scientist who knows the value of stem-cell research - grandiose leaders can dismiss you with nary a thought.
It is for this reason that I propose the G.O.P. should stand for what it truly is - the party that consistently turns away from reality and responsibility. I think G.O.P. must now stand for Grandiose Old Perverts - individually and collectively. Who among them is not a pervert? Bush? Cheney? Rumsfeld? Rice? Hadley? Hastert? Foley? Frist? Cunningham? Santorum? Rove? They are all Grandiose Old Perverts. If those running for the House and Senate on the GOP ticket are not defeated in November, we will have Grandiose Old Perverts continuing to run our nation, and the world, into the ground.
But the November election is not enough. For the Republican Party to reclaim its former name - for its eyes to "see the glory" once more - its own party members must cast aside these destructive men and women once and for all.