Frank Rich:The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15rich.html?_r=1

SOMEDAY we’ll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. The subject — which Bush hyped as “one of the most profound of our time” — was stem cells. For a presidency in thrall to a thriving religious right (and a presidency incapable of multi-tasking), nothing, not even terrorism, could be more urgent.

When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced. Their less-famous successors pumped out their pro forma e-mail blasts, but to little avail. The Republican National Committee said nothing whatsoever about Obama’s reversal of Bush stem-cell policy. That’s quite a contrast to 2006, when the party’s wild and crazy (and perhaps transitory) new chairman, Michael Steele, likened embryonic stem-cell research to Nazi medical experiments during his failed Senate campaign.

What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

Not only was Obama’s stem-cell decree an anticlimactic blip in the news, but so was his earlier reversal of Bush restrictions on the use of federal money by organizations offering abortions overseas. When the administration tardily ends “don’t ask, don’t tell,” you can bet that this action, too, will be greeted by more yawns than howls.

[DainBramaged]

1. Another great article by Mr. Rich

The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced.

[peace frog]

3. 'Laid off' fuguratively not literally, more's the pity

Although these leeches contribute little to the good of the nation, they remain fat and happy sucking the teat of wingnut welfare. Would that they felt the fear and uncertainty of joblessness, no prospects for income and homelessness that a growing number of Americans experience. Irrelevance is not enough - they should be vanquished, abandoned, disappeared.

[Hawaii Hiker]

6. Yeah, that was a GREAT quote

:woohoo: :woohoo:

[MADem]

2. Deserves a rec--worth reading. nt

[MasonJar]

4. Beautifully crafted and supremely accurate. You MUST READ the

entire article; it is a joy to see one's own thoughts so perfectly expressed.

[many a good man]

5. "a 40-year exodus for these ayatollahs can pass for an answer to America’s prayers."

:rofl:

[myrna minx]

7. K&R n/t

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. Frank Rich's weekly columns are always the highlight of my Sunday Paper reading.

This is another gem.

[Kurovski]

9. K&R

Everything by Rich is worth a read.

[Journeyman]

10. K&R…