Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Civility is just a word

Strange what some people find funny.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected a Miami Beach man's application to trademark the name "Obama bin Laden" because the name "may falsely suggest a connection with the individuals Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama," USPTO lawyer Karen Bush said in a Feb. 6 rejection letter, the Miami Herald reported this week.

You can't get a trademark for "immoral or scandalous matter," Bush said.

The applicant, Alexandre Batlle, sells coffee mugs, T-shirts, hats and such. One has a cartoon of presidential candidates Obama — in a robe and turban and holding a machine gun — and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., in an Arab caftan.
There are always people looking to make a quick buck with stuff like this, but back in the day this sort of thing was reserved for people like Ayatollah Khomeini (anyone else remember "Aya-toilet paper?")

Now various elements on the right seem to think it's ok to treat Democrats as enemies rather than opponents. Which is a thoroughly predictable outcome of years of Limbaugh, Malkin and Coulter, to name just a few responsible for the utter debasement of civic discourse.

So the next time some right winger wants to come on here and demand that we be "civil," let's remember what the Republican Party has become: a home for racists, homophobes and various other borderline personalities. There may be a genuine desire on the part of many Americans for less hostility in politics, but that kind of ignores the smear-based politics practiced by the right. People who object to nastiness can take it up with Karl Rove and Richard DeBolt. You don't think they would do fake sex offender postcards again if they could get away with it?

The very next blurb in the link above is about a new Swift-Boating style movie aimed at Hillary Clinton. If Democrats have to smile and mouth niceties in public when dealing with Republicans, so be it. But you can't trust the Republican Party and 2008 is, again, going to be outright partisan warfare. In many ways it's already started.

I long ago gave up trying to understand why some Republicans seem to think that being as deceitful and nasty as possible is just "good, vigorous politics" or however their apologists like to put it. I do know that they tend to howl like whiny babies when the same tactics are thrown back in their face, and they whine even more when in the minority. God do they whine. You can't disagree with them or you're enabling terrorism, still. It's ridiculous.

So until the GOP becomes a reality based party and somehow controls its worst elements, something that is very unlikely to happen in the next two years, no Republican has any standing to talk about civility. And if that causes them digestive problems, may I suggest my new brand of Mitt Romney Republican NASA diapers, for the GOP whiny baby in your life?

<< Home