Here Is the Real Betrayer

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Here Is the Real Betrayer
By Robert Scheer
Published May 25, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times


The lessons of James M. Jeffords' defection are devastatingly clear: One cannot be both a moderate and remain a Republican senator.

The party of Lincoln through Eisenhower has been captured by the Trent Lotts and Jesse Helmses, and the promised big tent for the GOP has been shrunk to fit the proportions of a Southern religious revival meeting.

The defection is regional; the once-Republican Northeast is now solidly Democratic, offering further proof of the profound realignment in this nation's politics. The Republican Party has been captured by the right wing and is no longer a fit home for moderates.

As Jeffords put it: "I became a Republican because of the kind of fundamental principles that many Republicans stood for: moderation, tolerance, fiscal responsibility. Their party--our party--was the party of Lincoln."

Thanks to the legacy of Lincoln, the moderates of the North, particularly in the East, formed the base of the Republican Party, while the South solidified as the home of racist, pro-segregation whites who voted solidly Democratic. Then came Richard M. Nixon and his "Southern strategy" of snubbing black Republican voters--who were then a force in the GOP--and actively wooing the anti-civil rights Southern white Democrats. This realignment is best summarized by Strom Thurmond's jump from the Democratic to the Republican side of the Senate aisle, and good riddance. But the result has been to deprive the large bloc of Southern black voters of representation in the Senate.

That Dixiecrat Thurmond could join with the reactionaries and find a home in the GOP is just the reason Jeffords no longer can.

The good news is that the country as a whole is moderate in outlook, and that the will of the majority of voters in the last presidential election will now be represented in at least one branch of government to challenge the right wing's control of the House, the presidency and the Supreme Court.

Most Americans will welcome the check that the Senate can now put on the Bush administration's initiatives to further spoil the environment and erode a woman's choice, not to mention the White House's impending assault on the independence of the judiciary. This last is likely the most important battle of all, and the Democrats' control of the Senate Judiciary Committee will make all the difference in confirmation battles for federal judges, from the Supreme Court on down.

Consider Bush's inexcusable elimination of the time-honored role of the American Bar Assn. in the nomination of judges, instead substituting the rabidly right-wing Federalist Society. Imagine the outrage if a Democratic president had declared that he would go first to the American Civil Liberties Union for an "objective" appraisal of a potential judge's professional qualifications.

To understand the betrayal by Republican leaders of the progressive history of their party, particularly on the obligation of the federal government to expansively support civil rights, equality of opportunity and personal liberty, one need only remember that it was that popular Republican governor of California, Earl Warren, who led the Supreme Court through the era of enlightenment that the current court is obsessively reversing.

Jeffords fits comfortably in the Warren-Eisenhower tradition of progressive Republicans. It is of more than symbolic importance that the White House sought to punish his resistance to a tax cut for the super-rich by cutting a program that Jeffords had long supported, which was to provide federal aid for schoolchildren who benefit from special education programs. That was an act of meanness and stupidity unbefitting a president who campaigned as a compassionate unifier.

The signs are unmistakable that the Bush-Cheney administration is bent on being the most reactionary in modern history and that a true moderate must stand in opposition.

"Looking ahead," Jeffords said, "I can see more and more instances where I'll disagree with the president on very fundamental issues."

It is not Jeffords but rather Bush who has betrayed the once-honorable legacy of the Republican Party.

- - -

Robert Scheer Is a Syndicated Columnist

The lessons of James M. Jeffords' defection are devastatingly clear: One cannot be both a moderate and remain a Republican senator.

The party of Lincoln through Eisenhower has been captured by the Trent Lotts and Jesse Helmses, and the promised big tent for the GOP has been shrunk to fit the proportions of a Southern religious revival meeting.

The defection is regional; the once-Republican Northeast is now solidly Democratic, offering further proof of the profound realignment in this nation's politics. The Republican Party has been captured by the right wing and is no longer a fit home for moderates.

As Jeffords put it: "I became a Republican because of the kind of fundamental principles that many Republicans stood for: moderation, tolerance, fiscal responsibility. Their party--our party--was the party of Lincoln."

Thanks to the legacy of Lincoln, the moderates of the North, particularly in the East, formed the base of the Republican Party, while the South solidified as the home of racist, pro-segregation whites who voted solidly Democratic. Then came Richard M. Nixon and his "Southern strategy" of snubbing black Republican voters--who were then a force in the GOP--and actively wooing the anti-civil rights Southern white Democrats. This realignment is best summarized by Strom Thurmond's jump from the Democratic to the Republican side of the Senate aisle, and good riddance. But the result has been to deprive the large bloc of Southern black voters of representation in the Senate.

That Dixiecrat Thurmond could join with the reactionaries and find a home in the GOP is just the reason Jeffords no longer can.

The good news is that the country as a whole is moderate in outlook, and that the will of the majority of voters in the last presidential election will now be represented in at least one branch of government to challenge the right wing's control of the House, the presidency and the Supreme Court.

Most Americans will welcome the check that the Senate can now put on the Bush administration's initiatives to further spoil the environment and erode a woman's choice, not to mention the White House's impending assault on the independence of the judiciary. This last is likely the most important battle of all, and the Democrats' control of the Senate Judiciary Committee will make all the difference in confirmation battles for federal judges, from the Supreme Court on down.

Consider Bush's inexcusable elimination of the time-honored role of the American Bar Assn. in the nomination of judges, instead substituting the rabidly right-wing Federalist Society. Imagine the outrage if a Democratic president had declared that he would go first to the American Civil Liberties Union for an "objective" appraisal of a potential judge's professional qualifications.

To understand the betrayal by Republican leaders of the progressive history of their party, particularly on the obligation of the federal government to expansively support civil rights, equality of opportunity and personal liberty, one need only remember that it was that popular Republican governor of California, Earl Warren, who led the Supreme Court through the era of enlightenment that the current court is obsessively reversing.

Jeffords fits comfortably in the Warren-Eisenhower tradition of progressive Republicans. It is of more than symbolic importance that the White House sought to punish his resistance to a tax cut for the super-rich by cutting a program that Jeffords had long supported, which was to provide federal aid for schoolchildren who benefit from special education programs. That was an act of meanness and stupidity unbefitting a president who campaigned as a compassionate unifier.

The signs are unmistakable that the Bush-Cheney administration is bent on being the most reactionary in modern history and that a true moderate must stand in opposition.

"Looking ahead," Jeffords said, "I can see more and more instances where I'll disagree with the president on very fundamental issues."

It is not Jeffords but rather Bush who has betrayed the once-honorable legacy of the Republican Party.

- - -

Robert Scheer Is a Syndicated Columnist



-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), June 07, 2001

Answers

Yea, you have to read it twice so you will get it therough your head *grin*

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), June 07, 2001.

Jeffords fits comfortably in the Warren-Eisenhower tradition of progressive Republicans

Gag. Eisenhower-Warren was 50 years ago. They were the dying gasp of me-too, country Club eastern elitist Republicans (yes I know that Ike was a Kansan and Warren was a Californicater). The Rockefeller wing is gone. Good riddance. Good riddance to Jeffords and so-called Progressive Republicans.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 07, 2001.


"Extremism in the pursuit of Southern electoral votes is no vice."

-- George W. Bush

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 07, 2001.


When the GOP said goodbye tomoderate and Progressive Republicans, they said good bye to me and many others who used to be republican, before the old south, federalists took over.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), June 07, 2001.

Cherri:

You may be correct. I live in a very conservative county. They voted 80% for Gore. My impression is that they looked at the facts.They didn't like the Kyoto agreement but they, really, didn't want a government controlled by the, religous fanatics, the Southern Baptists. How would I know? I can only guess. To Folk' s around here, it seems to be where the Republicans are going.

People here are a lot less screwy than those in Washington; eating money on, clearly unconstitutional, matters. Well, so it goes.

I have to go to the aerodrome. I will be going away for awhile. I understand that, if you go far enough south, it is winter. I will see.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), June 07, 2001.



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