The GOP Refuses To Let Its People Think

Did you know if you went to GOP.com, the website for the Republican National Committee, it would WRITE letters to the editor for you?

This is one such letter.

Everything below is copy that Republicans don't believe members of their own party can say cogently in their own words.

For instance:

Nominations
Fix the Broken Nomination Process: President Bush believes that judges should strictly and faithfully interpret the law, rather than legislate from the bench. He has appointed judges to the Federal courts who share his judicial philosophy, and his appointees have been rated the best qualified of any recent Administration by the American Bar Association. No nominee to the Federal courts of appeals had ever been filibustered prior to the Bush Administration, but a minority of Senate Democrats has conspired to filibuster ten of President Bush's judicial nominees. President Bush will continue his efforts to end this obstructionist behavior.

And:

Social Security
Fix Social Security now once and for all: Social Security is sound for today's seniors and for those nearing retirement, but it needs to be fixed for younger workers - our children and grandchildren. The government has made promises it cannot afford to pay for with the current pay-as-you-go system. If we do not act to fix Social Security now, the only solutions will be dramatically higher taxes, massive new borrowing or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs.

And:

Safety and Security
Protect the Homeland: President Bush is committed to keeping the nation strong and secure through strengthening our military, deploying a missile defense, strengthening the NATO alliance and supporting military families and veterans. The President is committed to promoting an independent and democratic Iraq to ensure further stability in the Middle East and the world on the whole.

You see?

By the way, if you go to the Democratic site, it's only slightly better -- it provides talking points, but doesn't make it easy for you to drop DemPolitSpeak into a form and mail it off.

I have read that some newspapers have fallen for this charade, which saddens me. Follow links on Google for the phrase, "demonstrating genuine leadership."

Were I to write a real letter to the editor, I might point out that the luckiest thing to have happened for George W. Bush is Osama bin Laden. Without his heinous attacks, Bush and his "strategery" would have barely made it out of an incompetent first term.

The lesson here is that whatever we think -- favoring the president or the party in power, or opposed to it -- it's good to use our own brains to think about the guys in charge. Blind loyalty -- on either side -- just leads to bad results.