What’s Wrong with American Politics? Exhibit A

March 4, 2011 by PaulM Posted in History, Lowell, Culture, Current Events 2 Comments

Read Tim Egan in the NYTimes today if you want to see what’s rotting the civic culture of the United States. If a person as prominent as former Ark. Gov. Huckabee can say what he said about President Obama and not get ostracized overnight and shunted off the public stage, then we are a long way from having a healthy civic culture. This kind of stuff should be “one strike, and you’re out.” Read Egan here, and get the NYT if you want more.

2 Responses to What’s Wrong with American Politics? Exhibit A

  1. Andrew says:

    Agreed. It seems like, for the Republican Party, the more unbelievably crazy you get, the more popular you are. Next thing you know he’ll be claiming the president is a Muslim (or did he do that already?); you know his polling will go up. Look at Gingrich calling for President Obama to be impeached for declining to defend DOMA. You would think Gingrich of all people would be careful of throwing that word around. Or Romney claiming today that the economy is stagnating because of Democratic policies when any economist who actually looks at data and uses models would tell you the economy is stagnating because we catered too much to the right. But wait, asking economists questions about economics is elitist. But you would at least think that the party that is the champion of the market would listen to the market, which happens to agree with said economists. Apparently not.

    You would think Huckabee’s comments about Natalie Portman would be enough to shame him off the national stage. You want to talk about how we need to go back to the good old days were women were obedient wives and homemakers, well then I question your sanity, but that seems to play well to the Republican base. But you don’t get to say talk about what a problem single women having children is for our country while at the same time opposing abortion even in the cases of rape. But you could get away even with that if you would just criticize your own political party for removing funding to allow poor women access to contraceptives, never mind cancer screening. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

  2. Renee Aste says:

    Hey young man*, remember this blog has at least one obedient wife and homemaker that reads it….

    Poor women don’t have a contraception problem, poor women have ‘a man problem’. The poor (and the famous) don’t get married or if married don’t create healthy sexual relationships, which means the other parent’s participation financially or emotionally in the well being of the child is very much in limbo.

    I don’t care if a man makes minimum wage or maybe can only get part-time work. Just do what you can, I don’t mind helping out those who try their best. If anything I want to promote and reward it. I won’t however, negate a parent’s responsibility. It takes two to make a baby, fathers are equally accountable for their actions.

    *I’m not even twice your age.