Politics

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War Crimes and Henry T. King, Jr.

Henry T. King, Jr. who died on May 9 was one of the three American prosecutors at Nuremburg still alive.  His obituary appeared in the New York Times.

Mr. King, along with Whitney Harris and Benjamin Ferencz, both of whom survive, were the last three of about 200 American prosecutors who helped bring dozens of Nazi leaders to trial from 1945 to 1949.

Half a century later, the three joined forces to help shape the creation of the International Criminal Court. When delegates from 131 nations met in Rome to establish the criminal court in 1998, their original draft placed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under the court’s jurisdiction. The delegates did not include wars of aggression as war crimes, as opposed to those fought in self-defense or authorized by the United Nations. The three prosecutors traveled to Rome and lobbied to reshape the draft.

“They used their moral authority; they were persistent, and ultimately the delegates included a reference to the crime of war of aggression in the court’s statute,” said Michael Scharf, the director of the International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

The I.C.C. is the first permanent international criminal court in history. (The United States has not ratified the I.C.C. treaty.)

…

Mr. King was 26 when he stepped off a train in war-ravaged Nuremberg. All about him were the rubble of bombed-out buildings and people begging for food.

“As I walked to the courthouse for the first time, I said I’m going to dedicate my life to the prevention of this,” he said at a conference on genocide held last August by the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, N.Y.

In 1945 and 1946, the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union had joined in the prosecution of 21 Nazi officials. Among them were Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, and Albert Speer, who as minister of war production was in charge of all German industry. Eighteen of the 21 were convicted; on Oct. 16, 1946, 10 were hanged. Speer, the only one to express remorse, spent 20 years in prison; he died in 1981.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of his life what his on-going relationship with Albert Speer.  (Pictured with Mr. King in the photograph.  Mr. King is on the right.)

To gather evidence for the Milch case, Mr. King interviewed some of those already convicted, including Speer. It was the start of a long relationship, one in which Mr. King could never quite comprehend the contradictions in the seemingly contrite Speer.

For more than 30 years, Mr. King corresponded with Speer and visited him. He kept a photograph of Speer by his bedside. Still, he said, he was not taken in by the war criminal.

“Speer closed his eyes to the world of humanity, and thus, a concern for human ethics never intruded on his relentless drive as armaments minister,” Mr. King wrote in a 1997 memoir, “The Two Worlds of Albert Speer.” “In a technological world, the magic concoction for evil consists of blind technocrats such as Speer led by an evil and aggressive leader such as Hitler.”

The United States should agree to participate in the International Criminal Court.  We know the reason the George W. Bush administration refused:  They had a fear of prosecution.  With the growing tide of relevations, their fears were probably justified.  We did fight a war of aggression in Iraq. 

But fear that former leaders will be prosecuted should not stop the United States from doing the right thing.  I believe that courts in Europe will indict many of them in any case.

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What is Dick Cheney Up To?

I couldn’t sleep after something woke me up at 4:15 this morning and I started thinking about Rachel Maddow’s piece last night about former Vice President Dick Cheney.  She presented a video montage of his “torture saves lives” tour of news talk shows.  It is really quite remarkable when you see them one after the other.  Maddow’s piece ends with an interview of Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson who served as Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff when Powell was Secretary of State.  Wilkerson wondered out loud if Cheney realized that he may be making revelations that could provide evidence which could eventually lead to his, Cheney’s, prosecution. 

Then when I finally got out of bed and turned on the computer, there was Maureen Dowd’s column Rouge Diva of Doom.

When Bush 41 was ramping up to the Gulf War, assembling a coalition to fight Saddam, Jimmy Carter sent a letter to members of the U.N. Security Council urging them not to rush into conflict without further exploring a negotiated solution.

The first President Bush and other Republicans in Washington considered this treasonous, a former president trying to thwart a sitting one, lobbying foreign diplomats to oppose his own country on a war resolution. In 2002, when Bush Junior was ramping up to his war against Saddam, Al Gore made a speech trying to slow down that war resolution, pointing out that pivoting from Osama to Saddam for no reason, initiating “pre-emptive” war, and blowing off our allies would undermine the war on terror.

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Asked by Bob Schieffer on Sunday how America could torture when it made a mockery of our ideals, Cheney blithely gave an answer that surely would have been labeled treasonous by Rush Limbaugh, if a Democratic ex-vice president had said it about a Republican president.

“Well, then you’d have to say that, in effect, we’re prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America,” Doomsday Dick said.

Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as Rogue Diva. Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler, Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary organ music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing.

So, back to my question:  What is Cheney up to?  Is he on some long term campaign to get Americans to be afraid so we will elect Republicans again?  Is he trying to influence public opinion so that we don’t think torture is all that bad and we won’t want to bring him to trial?  Or is he just stupid?  Here’s Dowd again

Cheney’s numskull ideas — he still loves torture (dubbed “13th-century” stuff by Bob Woodward), Gitmo and scaring the bejesus out of Americans — are not only fixed, they’re jejune.

He has no coherent foreign policy viewpoint. He still doesn’t fathom that his brutish invasion of Iraq unbalanced that part of the world, empowered Iran and was a force multiplier for Muslims who hate America. He left our ports unsecured, our food supply unsafe, the Taliban rising and Osama on the loose. No matter if or when terrorists attack here — and they’re on their own timetable, not a partisan red/blue state timetable — Cheney will be deemed the primary one who made America more vulnerable.

According to Dowd, even the Bush Family doesn’t like what he is doing.  What scares me is that there is a small segment of the population that will believe everything Cheney says and a larger one that can be influenced by his scare tactics.  But maybe the Bushes would like to silence him before he implicates George W. Bush in a way that will be impossible to ignore.  I think his remarks will lead to more documents being revealed.  Perhaps we should keep Cheney talking.

Rachel Maddow has said several times she would like to interview Cheney and last night issued her invitation again with a twist.  She would have Col. Wilkerson help her to do the interview.  I’d say the odds are not good he will accept.

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Tar Heels Visit the White House

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity has probably figured out I would write about the North Carolina Tar Heels visiting the White House yesterday.

President Obama welcomed Coach Roy Williams and the University of North Carolina Tar Heels to the White House.

Everyone who follows March Madnes(and many that don’t) knows that the President picked UNC to win it all.  Jeff Zelney writes  in the  New York Times

“Congratulations on bringing Carolina its fifth national championship,” Mr. Obama said. “And, more importantly, thanks for salvaging my bracket and vindicating me before the entire nation. That first round was rough on me.”

As he stood on the South Portico of the White House, Mr. Obama played host to yet another group of collegiate champions. But this meeting was far more personal than previous teams that have visited the White House this year, largely because of Mr. Obama’s affinity to the Tar Heels and the amount of time he invested in North Carolina, where he won the statewide primary and general elections.

“Now, I did have a chance to play ball with this crew just over a year ago when I visited Chapel Hill. And I’m not sure whose luck rubbed off on who,” Mr. Obama said. “I think there was just a good vibe going on there, because they’re now national champions and I’m now president.”

A year ago, as his presidential campaign was beset with controversy over the incendiary comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Mr. Obama arrived on the Chapel Hill campus for an early-morning game of hoops and a tour of the Tar Heels’ locker room. (Mr. Obama followed tradition and stepped around the school logo in the center of the floor, a zone of respect where footsteps are not allowed.)

“When we played, everybody went out of their way to pass me the ball, set screens for me, let me take a shot,” the president said, recalling that 7 a.m. pickup game on April 29, 2008. “Tyler chose not to block my shot – of course, I was so intimidated by him being near me that I missed it.”

According to Politico , where you can also see video,

Obama — wearing a shade close to Tarheel blue — recounted a story about playing hoops with the team a year ago when he was a presidential candidate.

“There was a good vibe going on there because they’re now national champions and I’m president,” he said, teasing one player Jack Wooten for blocking his shot and fouling him during the game.

Obama joked that everyone at the White House was excited about the team’s visit “except my assistant Reggie Love,” who played basketball for Duke. The president congratulated the team and coach Roy Williams for “great character.”

Congratulations, Tar Heels.

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So, Is Michael Steele Certifiable?

A week or so ago there was his comment about Republicans and how they wear their caps all different ways trying to show how diverse the party is, I think.   This happened on MSBC’s Morning Joe.

Then he said this about President Obama’s description of what he would look for in a Supreme Court nominee,

Crazy nonsense, empathetic,” said Steele. “I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind. Craziness.”

Here is the link from Talking Points Memo so you can hear Mr. Steele for yourself.

And finally here is what he said about the Minnesota Senate race, also from TPM.

I know what you’re all thinking. You’re thinking that if the Minnesota Supreme Court next month determines that Al Franken should be seated, the national Republican Party will graciously accept their decision, and Norm Colemen will offer up a kind and thoughtful concession speech.

“[N]o, hell no. Whatever the outcome, it’s going to get bumped to the next level,” said RNC chairman Michael Steele.

…

Somewhat implicit in that last sentence is the assumption that Coleman will ultimately lose. And implicit in that implication is the idea that the Republicans are doing this to keep another Democrat out of the Senate for as long as possible, and depriving Minnesotans of dual representation in the process.

Assuming the Minnesota Supreme Court sides with Franken, the question of whether to seat him, even if provisionally, will fall to Gov. Tim Pawlenty–a presidential hopeful who, as we’ve noted before, will face tons of pressure from his party not to certify the victory at all. If this is any indication, the GOP is already turning up the heat.

Can you imagine what Steele would be saying if the sides were reversed and Al Franken was refusing to concede?  Probably something not printable.

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Updates on Recent Posts

Today’s Wasserman cartoon in the Boston Globe is a perfect follow up to my recent post on Banks and Our Money.

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And then you have even more trending toward Marriage Equality.  This happened today.

The Maine House of Representatives approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage Tuesday, bringing the state one step closer toward legalizing the practice.After an emotional three-hour debate, the Democratically-controlled House voted 89 to 57 in favor of the bill.

“The country is watching us, to see how a small proud, independent state will stand on issue of equality,” said Rep. Sean Flaherty of Scarborough, who supported the bill.

The State Senate, which is also controlled by Democrats, approved the bill last week in a 21 to 14 vote. The vote was mostly along party lines, though one Democrat opposed the bill and one Republican voted in favor. The body must now give final approval to the bill.

Everyone is now waiting to see what the Democratic governor, John Baldacci, will do.  It seems to be a race between Maine and New Hampsire.  And also today, Washington D.C. City Council voted to recognize gay marriages.  We continue to make progress.

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Trending toward Marriage Equality?

The Boston Globe ran this AP story this morning which I read in my print copy. (Long may the Globe prosper so I can read it at breakfast.)  According to the AP

In recent weeks, Vermont and Iowa legalized same-sex marriage, while New York, Maine, and New Hampshire have taken steps in that direction. Polls indicated that younger Americans are far are more tolerant on the issue than are older generations. For now at least, the public is much more focused on the troubled economy and two wars than on social issues.

In addition, over the past decade, public acceptance of gay marriage has changed dramatically.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week indicated that a majority of respondents, by a 55-to-38 percent margin, oppose gay marriage. But it also found that people, by a 57-to-38 percent margin, support civil unions that would provide marriage-like rights for same-sex couples, indicating a shift toward more acceptance.

I think it is relatively easy step from “marriage-like rights” to actual marriage so this looks hopeful.  The article goes on

With congressional elections next year, Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisan analysts say the changes benefit Democrats, whose bedrock liberals favor gay unions, and disadvantage Republicans, whose conservative base insists that marriage be solely between a man and a woman.

“This is not a sea change. This is a tide that is slowly rising in favor of gay marriage,” creating a favorable political situation for Democrats and ever-more difficulty for Republicans, said David McCuan, a political scientist at Sonoma State University in California.

Democrats have a broader base filled with more accepting younger voters, as well as flexibility on the issue. Hard-core liberals support gay marriage, while others, including President Obama, take a more moderate position of civil unions and defer to states on gay marriage.

Conversely, the GOP base is older, smaller, and more conservative. Republicans have no place to shift on the issue but to the left, because the party has been identified largely with its rock-solid opposition to gay marriage and civil unions. Also, the GOP has no titular head setting the tone on this or other issues.

And tell me please, how is this couple in Iowa different from any other couple anywhere?

Veronica Spann (left) and Kentaindra Scarver were emotional as their marriage waiver was approved in Iowa on April 27.

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Banks and Our Money

Are the banks using TARP money to – successfully – lobby the Senate?  Sure looks that way.  I first heard this story on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown when he interviewed Arianna Huffington.  But the best story  is by Ryan Grim on the Huffington Post.

The Senate on Thursday rejected an effort to stave off home foreclosures by a vote of 51 to 45. It was an overwhelming defeat, with the bill’s backers falling 15 votes short — a quarter of the Democratic caucus — of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote.

The death of the bankruptcy reform measure — which would have allowed a small number of homeowners who met strict conditions to renegotiate mortgages under bankruptcy protection — is a major tactical win for the banking industry. But allowing the foreclosure crisis to continue unabated may end up being a failed strategy for the financial sector.

A little background from the Washington Post.

The measure would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify troubled mortgages, lowering the interest rate or principal balance, a process known as a cramdown. Bankruptcy courts can already make those changes for a second home or investment property, but not a primary residence.

This would impact owners who are seeing home values drop to the point that the mortgages are larger than what the home is worth.  Sentator Richard Durbin was the primary sponsor and the bill was back, a little tepidly, by the Obama Administration. So back to Ryan Grim.

The Chamber of Commerce has deemed the vote a crucial one that will be heavily counted in its annual scorecard, and those who voted yes will pay a financial price from the Chamber and the banking industry.

Other Democrats stuck with the banks against the homeowners. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) was wheeled into the chamber and pointed his finger in the air, signaling a yes vote, then dramatically swung it down, as if taunting the backers of the bill.

Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) all voted with the banks, as they told the Huffington Post they would. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) voted no, as did the new Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) voted no as well.

Earlier this week, Durbin concluded that banks that “frankly own the place.”

How much did the Senate go for?

The banking and real estate industry has funneled roughly $2,000,000 into Landrieu’s campaign coffers over her 12-year career, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The financial sector is Nelson’s biggest backer; he’s taken $1.4 million from banks and real estate interests and another $1.2 million from insurance firms. Tester has fielded roughly half a million in his two years in office. Lincoln has taken $1.3 million from banking and real estate interests.
Carper has raked in more than $1.5 million. Baucus, chair of the finance committee, has been on the receiving end of $3.5 million over his career. Specter has hauled in more than $4.5 million and Johnson has gotten some $2.5 million.

So don’t these Senators realize how we got into this mortgage mess to begin with?  I see crazy loans made way above a homes value even in good times whose owners are now in trouble.  Where are the mortgage bankers getting the money to lobby?  I thought they were in trouble and needed taxpayer help.  I say, no more bailout for any mortgage bank which lobbied against this bill.

By the way, there is also a list of Senators who voted their consciences:  Evan Bayh, Mark Warner, Jim Webb, and Ted Kaufman (who is not running for re-election).  We need to thank them for their votes.

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The Slow Drip of Torture Revelations

Sometimes it feels like torture.  Everyday it feels as if there are new revelations.  Everyday there is more speculation about why President Obama doesn’t come out and say he will or will not support prosecution of Bush administration officials.  I have said before that I think he is waiting to see what Congress does and what the Justice Department finds in various investigations.  I think he doesn’t want to be seen as too eager and too partisan.  I understand why many are frustrated.  After all, the Republicans brought impeachment procedings and had a multi-year investigation by a special prosecutor about what was essentially a personal crime by President Clinton.  The whole thing sapped energy from things that Clinton could have been doing and I can understand that Obama wants to pass some of his real agenda first.  I want to see criminal prosecutions in the courts, although Judge Jay Bybee is an exception who needs to be impeached.

John Nichols writing in the Nation says

And President Obama, who erred on the side of the transparency demanded by the American Civil Liberties Union in its long campaign to obtain the memos, gets points for ordering an end to the use of the torture techniques they outlined and for expressing at least a measure of openness to a “further accounting” and perhaps prosecution of wrongdoers. But Obama’s fretting about inquiries “getting so politicized” and suggesting a preference for shifting responsibility to a bipartisan independent commission are unsettling.As a former constitutional law lecturer, Obama should have a firmer grasp of the point of executive accountability. It is not merely to “lay blame,” as he suggests; it is to set boundaries on presidential behavior and to clarify where wrongdoing will be challenged. Presidents, even those who profess honorable intentions, do not get to write their own rules. Congress must set and enforce those boundaries. When Obama suggested that CIA personnel who acted on the legal advice of the Bush administration would not face “retribution,” Illinois’s Jan Schakowsky, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, offered the only appropriate response. “I don’t want to compare this to Nazi Germany, but we’ve come to almost ridicule the notion that when horrific acts have been committed that people can use the excuse that, Well, I was just following orders,” explained Schakowsky, who has instructed aides to prepare for a torture inquiry. “There should be an open mind of what to do with information that we get from thorough investigations,” she added.

There must also be a proper framework for investigations. Gathering information for the purpose of creating a permanent record is only slightly superior to Obama’s banalities about wanting to “move forward.” Truth commissions that grant immunity to wrongdoers and bipartisan commissions that negotiate their way to redacted reports do not check and balance the executive branch any more than “warnings” punish speeding motorists.

Impeaching Bybee, as recommended by Nadler and Common Cause, would send the right signal. But it cannot be the only one. The House Judiciary Committee should examine all available avenues for achieving accountability–including the prospect of formal action against former officeholders, up to and including the sort of impeachments imagined by Mansfield and his compatriots in 1974. And Nadler and Feingold should use their subcommittees to begin outlining statutory constraints on the executive branch. The point, again, is not merely to address Bush/Cheney-era crimes but also to dial down the imperial presidency that has evolved under the unwatchful eye of successive Congresses.

“Congress…must be vigilant to the perils of the subversive notion that any public official, the president or a policeman, possesses a kind of inherent power to set the Constitution aside whenever he thinks the public interest or ‘national security’ warrants it. That notion is the essential postulate of tyranny,” California Congressman Don Edwards warned thirty-five years ago, when too many of his colleagues thought Nixon’s resignation had caged the beast of executive aggrandizement. That vigilance, too long delayed, is the essential duty of every member of Congress who swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution.

Here’s most recent example of the drip of revelations.  It appears that former Secretary of State Condi Rice might also be implicated in a conspiracy.  Keith Olbermann ran this tape  of her trying to defend torture.

So I say the Congress should begin impeaching Jay Bybee and we should let the relevatiions continue.  I’m not sure when enough will be enough to begin criminal proceedings but I’m sure Eric Holder will figure that out.

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Specter Jumps Ship

I don’t share a lot of political views with Arlen Specter, but I have to admit that on occassion he has said things and voted in a way that delighted me.  Like his vote against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court and some of his civil libertarian stances.  So I was like D.D. Gutterplan (biographer of I. F. Stone) who wrote in the Nation

…I’m trying to figure out why the news that he’d crossed the aisle made me smile this morning. I don’t think I have a sentimental take on how rapidly, even with 60 Democrats, the U.S. Senate is likely to bring about the blessed community.

I read about it at lunch and immediately thought to myself, now isn’t that wonderful.  But why exactly?  If Specter were to lose the Republican nomination, it is likely that one of several really progressive Democrats would win the general election, giving the Democrats another seat.  So why did the President welcome him to the party and say he would campaign for him instead of a real Democrat?  While Specter has made it clear he is not an automatic vote on anything (his first vote was against the Democratic budget resolution), he also made it clear that, according to the New York Times, he thought he could help President Obama.

Mr. Specter said he was “comfortable” with how Mr. Obama has conducted his presidency, which is 100 days old today, and that his own “centrist” approach on governance would help reach solutions on matters like health care, climate change, immigration, and the fiscal balancing act during a time of economic strain.

 

But let’s face it:  Specter knew he was going to lose in the Republican primary and he wants to be re-elected.  It is also true to some extent that, as he said, the Republican Party had left him.  This was echoed by Olympia Snowe quoted here in the New York Times

But Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a Republican who also supported the administration’s economic stimulus plan, said Mr. Specter’s view that the party had shifted too far to the right reflected the increasingly inhospitable climate for moderates in the Republican Party.

Ms. Snowe said national Republican leaders were not grasping that “political diversity makes a party stronger, and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history.”

I think that the President has embraced Specter and is dissing a sure Democratic vote later because he sees Specter as a 60th vote for health care and education reform now and he wants to pass both before the 2010 elections.   And in the meanwhile it is lovely to watch the Republicans have fits.

Politico.com has a lovely article – quite long – about the finger pointing going on among Republicans. 

Faced with a high-profile defection and the prospect of political irrelevance in the Senate, Republicans took off the gloves Wednesday for a ferocious game of finger-pointing.

Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and George Voinovich blamed the Club for Growth for imposing a right-wing litmus test that chased Arlen Specter out of the Republican Party. The Club for Growth blamed Specter — first for helping to ruin the GOP and then for leaving it. A leading Republican strategist blamed the party for turning its back on moderates. Sen. Lindsey Graham sniped at Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. Specter’s pollster blamed the stimulus bill. Karl Rove blamed Specter himself. 

The Club for Growth President defended himself

But Andy Roth, the Club for Growth’s vice president for government affairs, said the Republican Party is at its nadir precisely because it has tolerated the likes of Specter.

“Let’s look at what a big-tent Republican Party gets you,” said Roth. “Over the last eight years, we had Big Government with a party that had no identity. People like Specter destroyed the Republican brand.”

Republicans also wanted to know why the party let someone run against Spector in the first place which is an excellent question. 

While acknowledging that Specter’s defection was “about political survival,” veteran GOP strategist John Weaver said the party must be concerned about its “political relevance.”

“If [President Barack] Obama and the Democrats control not just the left side of the playing field but also the broad middle, then we are in for generations of irrelevancy,” Weaver said. “Yes, our party principles are important. But we better be more pragmatic in how we advance our cause. There can be a center-right governing party. There cannot be one only from the right.”

Weaver said there’s “plenty of blame to go around,” and that Specter himself should receive his fair share. But he also pointed a finger at Steele, the RNC chairman, who undercut Specter by suggesting, in a recent TV interview, that he could be open to supporting primary challenges to Specter and the other GOP senators who supported Obama’s stimulus plan.

“I would remind Mr. Steele and some of our party leaders: Theirs is a job of winning elections, of increasing party strength, not of forming some sort of party purity police so this grand experiment to shrink the base to its purest form finds us confined to a phone booth,” Weaver said.

What a delicious image! 

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The Republicans at 100 Days

I’ve lived in the political wilderness so I have some idea of what the Republicans must be feeling.  I mean, who is this  guy anyway?  And how come the American people were so silly and stupid as to elect him?  I thought that about RR, George HW, George W and, when I was living in Virginia, George Allen.  But, I sat in my corner and groused.  I worked for candidates, I wrote letters, and I bought funny books about the right wing.  I bought a W countdown calendar. I didn’t go out and buy a gun to protect a woman’s right to choose. I tried to tell myself that it will all end and the good guys will win again and I was right.  The country, by a still surprising to me margin, elected a black man who has a great wife, kids, mother-in-law and now, dog.  Suddenly a family kinda like the Cosbys, but for real, is living in the White House and he is leading people like me out of the wilderness. 

It has been 100 days and President Obama is not going away.  If anything, he is getting higher approval ratings and popularity than when he began.  So what is it with the Republicans?  Bill Maher has written a great piece for the LA Times. His analogy:  “The G.O.P is acting like a Guy Who Got Dumped.”

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because … well, nobody knows. They’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. Even though they’re not quite sure what “it” is. But they know they’re fed up with “it,” and that “it” has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here’s the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It’s sad what’s happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they’re the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

Maher continues

Look, I get it, “real America.” After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You’ve come home to find your things out on the front lawn — or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You’re not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That’s what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him — obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it’s been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She’s found somebody new. And it’s a black guy.

And there, to end on an unfunny note, you have it:  The Republican Party is in real danger of becoming the irrelevant party of white people in a world that is changing.  Janet Napolitano had it right.  We need to worry about the next Timothy McVeigh who is influenced by Representative Michelle Bachman and Governor Rick Perry.