Conservatives against the Radical Republicans

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2012

From the Huffington Post:

-- This week, two esteemed conservative thinkers published a must-read op-ed in The Washington Post entitled, "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem." Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote: The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. 

Mann and Ornstein are no lightweight centrists; they are the Republicans of the Republicans. If they see fault in their party's lurch to the far right, then you know things have gotten out of hand. --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-taylormiesle/when-politics-becomes-the_b_1475294.html

Note that these two men are, and have been for decades, conservative Republicans.  They are not liberals. They are not independents.  They are conservative Republicans. I had to repeat that because the Radical Republican response to all criticism is to insist that it is all a liberal lie.  These two men are members of the Brookings Institute, a respected moderate conservative think tank, and of the much more right wing American Enterprise Institute.  They point out that Democrats are not innocent, but add that at least the Dems are trying to govern and compromise while the Republicans have become rigid and intolerant.

When conservative Republicans declare their party to be the problem in American politics, isn't it obvious that it is past time for a change in that party?  Oh, that's right, the Radical Republicans don't believe in facts or reality. I'll say it anyway.  This country needs two strong parties.  One center left and one center right.  One with many moderate liberals, some conservatives, and some very liberal members. The other with many moderate conservatives, some liberals, and some very conservative members. We do not need any party composed of extremist fanatics who will make no compromise, who demonize their opponents, and who are reality challenged.