Helen Weir
Dr. Laura, can you take our call?
By Helen Weir
"Hello, Dr. Laura?* This is the Republican base. Thank you for taking our call. We're in dire straits these days, and we were hoping you could help us out. Here's a little background on our situation."
"We've been with the GOP leadership for, oh, maybe, a couple of decades now. It all started with Ronald Reagan. He was a truly wonderful president! We had such high hopes for a real resurgence of conservative values and policies in this nation! The only problem is, it's almost 2008 already, and it still hasn't happened. In fact, politically speaking, things are looking worse than ever."
"You see, lately, the leadership has been keeping company with politicians we just don't approve of. And we can't understand it! We keep trying to tell them, but they don't seem to listen to us. It isn't as if we haven't been trying to do our part."
"Election after election, we have filed faithfully into the voting booths, handing them as many victories as we could manage, and some of those victories were really significant ones, too. As recently as March of 2005, the Republicans held both houses of Congress, as well as the White House and the governorship of the state of Florida. March of 2005 was when Terri Schindler-Schiavo was mercilessly starved and dehydrated to death, as we're sure you recall. The Bush brothers assured us they were doing all they could for her. Our friend Rush keeps telling us that we have to focus on getting Republicans into office first, before we can expect any real results. We've been meaning to ask him what other offices the GOP could possibly have needed to hold, in order for her life to have been saved."
"Now, we're not stupid. It isn't as though we couldn't see all of this coming — we mean, the march from abortion to euthanasia, the erosion of respect for traditional marriage, and the host of other lapses from common decency and traditional American understanding that your call screener warned us we didn't have time to go into here. After all, what was all that 'Big Tent' talk about, anyway? No, unfortunately, we didn't see much harm in it at the time."
"The talk has died down by now, but in the meanwhile the tent itself seems to have shrunken again, so that truly conservative politicians — take Alan Keyes, for example — don't seem very welcome in it any more. Look how they treated him in Illinois. If the Republican Party is as open-minded as it once claimed to be, why are all the current presidential frontrunners socially liberal? It seems as though the leadership is actually intent on moving the tent right off of the platform itself. So, Dr. Laura, what should we do?"
"Do we have a 'ring and a date'? Why, no. To tell you the truth, we don't even have a 'Contract with America' anymore."
"What was that? We don't understand. You mean that all of this isn't just the leadership's fault, that it's our fault, too, and that there comes a point at which we can no longer go on trying to change a relationship into what we want it to be, at which we need to take a hard look at what it is, instead? You mean it's time to get a backbone and some self-respect, to stand up for what we know is right and let the chips fall where they may?"
"It's an idea, certainly. It's something we're definitely willing to bear in mind. What? You'd like us to take a moment to consider how events will probably unfold in 2008, if we don't make the healthy changes the situation warrants?"
"Well, we suppose it will be like Dan Glover, the St. Louis area talk-show host, said on the Glenn Beck Show earlier this week. When push comes to shove, when it is a question of needing to defeat a Hillary or an Obama, the base, he said — and we paraphrase — will just have to put up and shut up, so there is no real need for the leadership to pay attention to all of our whining about wanting a 'real conservative' to vote for, after all. Yes, we have to admit, it certainly does sound as though we are being taken for granted. Yes, there wouldn't even be an Obama to worry about at the presidential level, if we and the leadership both had put principle before 'practicality' and stood soundly with Dr. Keyes in Illinois, when we had the chance."
"But, you'd like to know, is Mr. Glover's assessment of the depth of our convictions correct? Are we really willing to sell out the unborn, not to mention caving in on the plethora of other problematic issues that might well be mentioned, just for the sake of getting another politician — any politician who happens to call himself 'Republican' — into the White House again?"
"Thank you, Dr. Laura. Thank you very much. We'll be getting back to you, in the upcoming presidential primaries, on that."
* * *
* n.b. This article is submitted with all due respect — great respect — to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and for the purposes of political commentary only, without ascribing to her any viewpoint or opinion she has not herself expressed.
© Helen Weir
"Hello, Dr. Laura?* This is the Republican base. Thank you for taking our call. We're in dire straits these days, and we were hoping you could help us out. Here's a little background on our situation."
"We've been with the GOP leadership for, oh, maybe, a couple of decades now. It all started with Ronald Reagan. He was a truly wonderful president! We had such high hopes for a real resurgence of conservative values and policies in this nation! The only problem is, it's almost 2008 already, and it still hasn't happened. In fact, politically speaking, things are looking worse than ever."
"You see, lately, the leadership has been keeping company with politicians we just don't approve of. And we can't understand it! We keep trying to tell them, but they don't seem to listen to us. It isn't as if we haven't been trying to do our part."
"Election after election, we have filed faithfully into the voting booths, handing them as many victories as we could manage, and some of those victories were really significant ones, too. As recently as March of 2005, the Republicans held both houses of Congress, as well as the White House and the governorship of the state of Florida. March of 2005 was when Terri Schindler-Schiavo was mercilessly starved and dehydrated to death, as we're sure you recall. The Bush brothers assured us they were doing all they could for her. Our friend Rush keeps telling us that we have to focus on getting Republicans into office first, before we can expect any real results. We've been meaning to ask him what other offices the GOP could possibly have needed to hold, in order for her life to have been saved."
"Now, we're not stupid. It isn't as though we couldn't see all of this coming — we mean, the march from abortion to euthanasia, the erosion of respect for traditional marriage, and the host of other lapses from common decency and traditional American understanding that your call screener warned us we didn't have time to go into here. After all, what was all that 'Big Tent' talk about, anyway? No, unfortunately, we didn't see much harm in it at the time."
"The talk has died down by now, but in the meanwhile the tent itself seems to have shrunken again, so that truly conservative politicians — take Alan Keyes, for example — don't seem very welcome in it any more. Look how they treated him in Illinois. If the Republican Party is as open-minded as it once claimed to be, why are all the current presidential frontrunners socially liberal? It seems as though the leadership is actually intent on moving the tent right off of the platform itself. So, Dr. Laura, what should we do?"
"Do we have a 'ring and a date'? Why, no. To tell you the truth, we don't even have a 'Contract with America' anymore."
"What was that? We don't understand. You mean that all of this isn't just the leadership's fault, that it's our fault, too, and that there comes a point at which we can no longer go on trying to change a relationship into what we want it to be, at which we need to take a hard look at what it is, instead? You mean it's time to get a backbone and some self-respect, to stand up for what we know is right and let the chips fall where they may?"
"It's an idea, certainly. It's something we're definitely willing to bear in mind. What? You'd like us to take a moment to consider how events will probably unfold in 2008, if we don't make the healthy changes the situation warrants?"
"Well, we suppose it will be like Dan Glover, the St. Louis area talk-show host, said on the Glenn Beck Show earlier this week. When push comes to shove, when it is a question of needing to defeat a Hillary or an Obama, the base, he said — and we paraphrase — will just have to put up and shut up, so there is no real need for the leadership to pay attention to all of our whining about wanting a 'real conservative' to vote for, after all. Yes, we have to admit, it certainly does sound as though we are being taken for granted. Yes, there wouldn't even be an Obama to worry about at the presidential level, if we and the leadership both had put principle before 'practicality' and stood soundly with Dr. Keyes in Illinois, when we had the chance."
"But, you'd like to know, is Mr. Glover's assessment of the depth of our convictions correct? Are we really willing to sell out the unborn, not to mention caving in on the plethora of other problematic issues that might well be mentioned, just for the sake of getting another politician — any politician who happens to call himself 'Republican' — into the White House again?"
"Thank you, Dr. Laura. Thank you very much. We'll be getting back to you, in the upcoming presidential primaries, on that."
* n.b. This article is submitted with all due respect — great respect — to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and for the purposes of political commentary only, without ascribing to her any viewpoint or opinion she has not herself expressed.
© Helen Weir
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