Albert Greenland responds to my previous post.

First of all I have no point of disagreement over how Republicans are, historically, spineless when it comes to public relations disasters. In Congress alone, Republicans can be bullied into voting for issues against the party at the risk of being called meanies (who probably want millions upon millions of Americans without health care to dies on the street, for example). Mr. Greenland begs the questions as to why Democrats don’t to cannibalize their own. I don’t know the answer as to why, but it think it is a symptom of such huge moral bankruptcy for them to give the monsters in their midst a pass.

Greenland notes: Democrats rise up to defend those on their team who have been indicted, convicted, caught red-handed, destroying lives (Chappaquiddick), stealing, extorting and cheating. It assumes idiocy (or moral bankruptcy) of the American people to assume that they do not see through this and wonder. In fact, Eric Fettman hits the nail on the head with his column on how Ted Kennedy would never have been president following the events of Chappaquiddick.

I agree that Republicans should stand up for themselves. They should tackle someone down on the football field and then offer the guy a hand to stand up once the whistle to end the play has been blown. And though he notes that he is “not advocating that Republicans throw their values, philosophy and self-respect out the window,” the progression is close enough to become scary.

It starts with little things. I’ll be vile in taking a stab at Mr. Greenland’s Catholicism—well, in the rules of the game I’m allowed to anyway, considering how I was born and raised (but now a recovering) Roman Catholic—by noting that Democrat solidarity despite the wrongdoing of their members is quite reminiscent of the RCC’s solidarity in the face of homosexual abuse scandals by its priests. In both cases their members still stand up for each other.

Yes, Republicans need to grow spines and balls. But there is a big difference between that, and throwing introspection and self-evaluation out the window.

Finally, Mr. Greenland makes a good point that comparing Moore and Coulter is a case of apples and oranges. On one level, he is correct. Moore is a liar and a fraud; whereas Coulter is a truthful but poisonous bitch. Moore’s flaw is in the message, but his skill is in the delivery. A lot of people drink his Kool-Aid only to find out that they’ve been poisioned. Coulter’s message may be truthful, but any facility is lost in the delivery. Both, accidentally, serve to the detriment of their party by turning away not-so-true-believers. Not exactly the way to expand a movement.

(Asides: for the record I consider myself a libertarian conservative, or classical liberal, allied with the Republican party. Then again maybe I don’t belong with them in the first place after all.)