The Life and Times of Elliot Pike

Has anybody else noticed something strange that happened in politics a couple weeks ago? I hate to attribute this to the Foley scandal—to a large degree I think that thing has been overblown. Okay, I’ve enjoy the sick thrill of watching the Republican leadership dig itself deeper and deeper into a hole with all those lame denials and finger-pointing. But no, there’s something else that has changed recently.

As long as I can remember, since the first days of Ronald Reagan, it was always “cool” to be a Republican. I associated Republicans with the meat-head school jocks who weren’t very nice or smart, but were popular and got all the girls. (Funny note: in High School my classmate Dennis who was totally “Mr. Republican and Proud of It” turned out later being gay. I always get a chuckle over that. But I digress.)

Nobody would hate me for being a Democrat, but it was such an un-cool position. Having lived my life a total misfit geek that didn’t really bother me. I knew I would never lose sleep wondering if I would ever be popular. That one was answered easily. My point is that for the average kid I think it was far far easier to just call yourself Republican and stop worrying about politics. It was easily the path of least resistance, and while you were cheering for the winning team you could sip your White Zinfandel and enjoy being part of “the right”.

I’ve always felt like this simple fact—that the ‘cool by default’—aspect of the Republican party was always a huge silent disadvantage. Well, something just broke, and I don’t know why Foleygate caused the tipping point but I think it’s happened:

It’s no longer cool to be a Republican, I swear for the first time since Jimmy Carter was in office. If you want to hold that distinction you now have to have a good argument to back up your position. You have to have the conviction to stay on the sinking ship. You really have to believe in their objectives, not just their pithy slogans. (And when most Americans examine the true Republican agenda that mostly favors the rich and the oil and drug companies, they have a difficult time relating.)

One other thing I’ve noticed with Foleygate is the typically fickle media falling into a sort of blood-lust-driven feeding frenzy. The media (if I can simplify and associate a single mind and spirit to that cloud of chaos) used to hype a story until it starts to get stale and then drop it entirely like a child with A.D.D. They would also tend to accept sound-bite statements (from both parties) and mimic the quotes with little fact-checking or follow-up. Not anymore. It seems to me they’ve even become gleeful about keeping the GOP mired in the bad news about Iraq and Foleygate and the numerous ethics scandals, watching them kick and flail like Bre’r Rabbit and the Tar Baby¹.

Could this be an act of revenge for the Bush Administration’s constant distain and ever-closed-door policy toward the media? Is this an act of revenge where the media is finally convinced the Republicans are down and they can be punished without retribution?

Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not observing this blood bath while licking my own lips. I feel a great deal of sadness that it had to come to this. President Clinton made a speech yesterday in which he longed for the days when the two political parties could have heated debates about ideas without turning them into scorched-Earth battles of personal destruction. To quote our ex-president:

I long for the day when we will return to a debate that is not about who’s a good person and who’s a slug, not about who represents the religious truth and who is basically running for office on his or her way to hell. I long for the day when Republicans and Democrats will sit around and have these raucous, exciting arguments and actually love learning from one another and we create the common good out of the dynamic center.

What would be absolutely horrible is if we followed the example Iraqis are now setting, where Sunnis and Shiites are going around killing each other in makeshift death squads. Part of this started when the long-repressed Shiites finally regained power and hungered for revenge. Maybe the Shiites typify the Republicans a few decades ago when they were constantly being suppressed by the smug Democratic majority since the 50’s. Or maybe the Shiites will represent the Democrats when they finally kick the merciless DeLay-era Republicans back out of Congress and revel in their chance for some good ol’ pay-back. Either way, the Sunnis and Shiites seem to have forgotten that both are children of Islam; the Democrats and Republicans have forgotten that we are are Americans.