Staying angry: Eight loathsome things about the GOP By Michael Manville, Freezerbox

I’ll vote for Kerry because for all that is wrong with the Democrats, the Republican Party is something else altogether. What was once the Party of Lincoln has become the party of obstreperous children, alternately pouting and bullying, dismissive of complicated problems that aren’t easily resolved and fixated instead on the simplistic and the irrelevant. …

This false face of moderation is one of two grand lies perpetuated by the national GOP. The second lie is victimhood, capital-V Victimhood, forever, victimhood. The party of big money and big business laments endlessly that it is marginalized and persecuted, that the government works continuously against it, that the press distorts and ignores its positions. Only sheer repetition could make this scenario plausible. … Thus a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert says with a straight face, “it’s extremely difficult to govern when you control all three branches of government.” …

Gott mit uns: On Bush and Hitler’s rhetoric By Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Free Press

President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson that “I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.”

With 49.3% of New York City residents in a recent Zogby poll believing that some people in our government knew of the 911 attack in advance and allowed it to happen, the President as right-wing evangelical prophet is under siege in his Madison Square Garden bunker. Convention watchers should take careful note of the theocratic nationalist rhetoric at the Republican convention this week.

When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side?