In an unintentionally hilarious article by Peter Wallsten in the Los Angeles Times, “Some fear GOP is being carried to the extreme,” we learn just how out of touch the MSM is about the crazies, bigots and wingnut conspiracy theorists that write and hang out at Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily.
I mean come on, LGBT bloggers in particular have been writing about the lunacy and homo-hate being excreted from the keyboards of the writes there for years.WND has been in bed with the GOP for ages, depending on the news organ churning out content to stir and inflame the Base of the party. Now that President Obama is the center of the site’s bashing—endless birther articles, socialist/communist/Nazi screeds, all of a sudden the lazy MSM wakes from its slumber. Also, as prominent Republicans, now afraid of the hate from the Base spinning out of control, they want the party to sever (at least in public) ties to WND:
Some are pressuring the Republican National Committee and other mainstream GOP groups to cut ties with WorldNetDaily.com, which reports some of the allegations. Its articles are cited by websites and pundits on the right. More than any other group, critics say, WorldNetDaily sets the conservative fringe agenda.
Critics charge that the RNC has paid WorldNetDaily for access to its mailing list, estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, and that the RNC is therefore subsidizing the website’s anti-Obama writings.
RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho did not respond to questions on the matter.
The chilling part of the article, and it only confirms what we’ve already thought, is that the GOP’s scorched-earth, patently unpatriotic political strategy based on racism and fear-mongering will continue because they need that unbalanced demographic to win.
Insiders’ criticisms have been dismissed by some conservative leaders, who argue that the party needs an energized base—even if it’s extreme—to gain in future elections. Some analysts think that conservatives’ summer revolt against Obama’s healthcare agenda helped erode public approval of Democratic leadership enough that the GOP could pick up as many as 30 House seats next year.
To show you how scared Republican pols are of the Base (and WND and Glenn Beck, Rush, et.al.), the article cites the cowardly (and idiotic) lockstep behavior of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) when it came to vote on the nomination of Obama regulatory nominee Cass Sunstein. While holding views favorable to business (which should be pleasing to GOPers), the talk-show bleaters declared Sunstein “radical” and built up a frenzied base.
One leading conservative Republican senator, Jim De- Mint of South Carolina, said in an interview over the weekend that he decided to oppose Sunstein after hundreds of calls from constituents demanding a “no” vote due to Sunstein’s “extreme views.”
Asked to say which of Sunstein’s views he considered extreme, DeMint could not answer. A DeMint spokesman later said, echoing the arguments of Beck and others, that his boss objected to the fact that Sunstein had once called for a ban on hunting and to his past statements on the legal rights of animals.
This is a completely steamrolled party that cannot think for itself, it’s a tool of ignorant, bigoted, unelected goons on the air, or in the case of WND, online, who marshall low-information, paranoid voters out there to threaten the party’s small-donation dollars. That’s why you see Michael Steele and the rest of “leadership” bend over for Rush et. al. That’s why you see Mitt, Huckabee and the 2012ers sucking up to the fundies. The moderates are dead in the water in the GOP in terms of any sane influence.
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In other news, the Los Angeles Times reports that water is wet and the large glowing ball of light in the sky is the sun.