Tuesday, February 25, 2014

More Insanity in the Kansas GOP





I often say that to be a Republican nowadays one option is to be insane.  It seems that this well describes the Tea Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Kansas.  Indeed, conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin opens her latest column stating: 

It is hard to decide who is nuttier – Dr. Milton Wolf, the radiologist-turned-tea-party-Senate-candidate in Kansas, or the right-wingers who still back him.
Between posting a collection of gruesome X-ray images of gunshot fatalities and medical injuries to his Facebook page and a deranged written statement, Wolf seems to fully fit the description of being crazy.  Yet, the Tea Party continues to embrace him as does the the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF).  One is left wondering when the swamp fever that has overtaken the GOP base will either break or the patient will simply die.  Here are more highlights from Rubin's column:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s communications director, Brad Dayspring, released a statement via e-mail: “Once again, it is clear that there are a few select groups and organizations  that refuse to properly research candidates or do the necessary work prior to endorsing them, which maximizes risk and hurts the conservative cause. Time and again, it has been proven that the failure to research and vet candidates results in handing winnable seats to Democrats. “

You’d think Wolf would be asked to get out of the race. But one of his biggest backers, the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), didn’t bat an eye. The group tweeted: “The NRSC  can’t compete on the issues so they have to attack the character of conservatives.” Pretty weak spin, even for this gang.

In a subsequent interview Wolf defended his behavior, saying, “It’s an educational thing for people. I take my charge of being a doctor very seriously.” Umm, a variety of medical professionals condemned the behavior. Sunday evening Dayspring reiterated, “Milton Wolf’s strange explanation meanders between irrational and outright absurd.  . . . If his posts and subsequent jokes were truly educational and appropriate, then why didn’t he continue posting them?  It doesn’t add up.  Milton Wolf’s ghoulish behavior raises serious questions about his character, judgement, honesty and stability.” He further chided the SCF: “The fact that any group would rush to defend behavior that medical ethics professionals so quickly condemned raises questions about their legitimacy, structure, and future.”

Well, the way to stop Wolf, others equally unfit for office and the SCF  is to not support or give money to them. And really, you can’t take seriously groups that think the shutdown was a great strategy and that Wolf is a great candidate. SCF, like many other right-wing groups, so prizes ideological rigidity that its leaders fail to use common sense in picking strategy or candidates. Wolf is certainly an embarrassment for the group, but no more so than other candidates it has seized upon or the shutdown gambit it backed. It’s long past the time sober conservatives stop giving them money or listen to what they say.
Among today's Christofascist/Tea Party controlled GOP base, outright insanity and the embrace of ignorance are deemed among the highest attributes.  I really do not know how to kill this Frankenstein Party other than by killing the GOP itself.
 

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