Make no mistake about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the GOP slowly implode since the 2008 elections. Sure they have had what appears to be little upticks, but overall they have been suffering a very slow and painful death. But there is a danger in all that and we are now seeing it.
Today Eric Cantor took to the television cameras to proclaim that the violence aimed at Democrats is the same thing he has been undergoing the past few days. In this instance he highlighted that someone shot out the windows of one of his campaign offices. As more details come out from the local police, we quickly learn that Cantor wasn’t telling the actual story. If this was deliberate or not is something to be debated at a later date, but what we do know is that the bullet that broke through Cantor’s window was a stray, randomly fired in the air and with just enough force to penetrate the window, but not the blinds behind the window.
Then you have John Boehner out there trying to weasel his way out of his “dead man” comment about Rep. Steve Driehaus (and to add a little more interest to that, I literally live on the boundary between Boehner’s district and Driehaus’).
This is the problem with today’s GOP – they have no leadership. Everyone is vying to be the defacto leader of the Republican Party, so they all go out and make their own absurd statements. Imagine if the GOP had a true leader that exhibited common sense. This would be a person that would say “let’s stand beside the Democratic leadership and jointly denounce this activity”. That would have a real impact, but instead we have various high level Republicans making statements that is only worsening the situation.
The Republican Party needs to get its act together, and fast, if it wants to remain a true party in our country. They need to find real leadership and start acting appropriately. We are at the point that we aren’t talking about the well being of their opposition, but rather the well being of our democracy as a whole. If they can’t put politics aside long enough to see us through this turmoil, then the vast majority of voters will quickly realize that these are the people we never want leading our country again.
As a post note, something that really got me about Eric Cantor today was his assertion that no one should talk about the threats. We have seen a lot of these originating from online posts. Just like when we talk about al Qaeda, the people of this country must be vigilant when it comes to lunatic postings on blog sites. Congress, and (more importantly) the people protecting them all need our help in identifying these threats. They don’t have the manpower available to scour the internet 24/7 for crazy postings, so we must be able to help out. This is something that a leader in any party should recognize, and the fact that Cantor dismissed it so readily today really speaks volumes.