Dare One Hope?

The anti-union measure in Ohio was soundly defeated. The radical Sharia "personhood" bill in Mississippi went down, too. Can it be that the teabagger wing of the Republican party (not really a wing; pretty much every body part but the head) has gone too far? Might those most adversely affected by the selfish and simpleminded views of teabaggRs (ie everyone but the top 1% -- and when you think about it, as I have, them, too: who doesn't have a stake in the survival of the country?) finally, at long last, be showing signs of cerebration?

Being one who's always sort of admired the idea of America and who prefers to see it stick around, I'd like to think so. On the other hand, the following letters were in my local paper a day or so ago:

I believe it is time to respond to Eugene Robinson's Nov. 1 column, "Let Herman be gone from the spotlight": He seems to be anxious to criticize presidential candidate Herman Cain for something that might have happened 12 years ago. This is another example of researching someone's past to embarrass them and try to get off the real issues that face this nation. There has been no real solid information on these charges, yet Robinson wants him to relax confidentiality rules and release records.

Where was this request when presidential candidate Obama chose not to release educational records, funding, and any background information that could have embarrassed him? When Robinson mentions Mr. Cain's lack of foreign policy, I do not believe President Obama's was very familiar either, with all his voting present during his short time in the Senate. Mr. Cain has many skills for creating jobs, as opposed to a community organizer who blames everyone but himself.

President Obama's statement that he visited 57 states and still had one to go, is rather disturbing, along with so many failed policies. Eugene shows his great writing skills by using words like ignorant, unworkable, goofy, bizarre, unmitigated, ruinous and loopy in describing Mr. Cain. It must be real difficult for Mr. Robinson to see a black conservative excel and he wants to play the race card and confidentiality, both ways. We need a unifier not a divider and a problem solver rather than someone that apologizes for America and needs a teleprompter as his pacifier.

It's as if Fox "news" opened the guy's skull and poured in the talking points. And boy did they stick. Apologizes. Teleprompter. Voting "present."

And the next one:

Regarding the sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain: We've seen this movie before, haven't we? As with Clarence Thomas, some people feel extremely threatened by a successful black conservative who thinks for himself and isn't created by and/or beholden to the mainstream media and liberal ideology. They're frightened to death of him, so they're out to take him down by any means necessary. It probably won't work -- it's interesting that Cain had his biggest fund-raising day the day after the allegations came out. Several questions come to mind:

If the alleged harassment happened 15 years ago, why is it only now coming out? Since when is raising your hand to your chin a sexual gesture? (He was accused of comparing a woman's height to his wife's height by putting his hand under his chin.) If the allegations prove to be false, will the perpetrators be held accountable? Another reason tort reform is badly needed. Losers should pay. Whether or not the allegations are true, does anyone truly care? It didn't seem to matter much when Bill Clinton was having his way with multiple women while occupying the Oval Office. Yes, he was impeached, but not removed from office.

Hook, line, and repeater. And not a little disjointed.

Clearly, there are plenty out there who will buy whatever the RWS™ sells them. I'd have written a letter in response, but there's a three-hundred word limit; how can you say what needs saying in that format? And, obviously, it wouldn't make an ounce of difference.

So, much as I'd like to think it's possible to turn the tide of willful ignorance and that the aforementioned votes are signifiers, I think it's way too soon to exhale. The gullibility of teabaggers and their manifest desire for simplistic answers to complex questions is more than clear. And optimism hasn't been in my bones for a long time. (Which may explain my recent discovery that, sometime in the last couple of decades, I've shrunk from 6' 4'' to 6' 3".)