Kathleen Parker: Too Much God

Wow. Parker is seriously off the reservation.

It's great that a fair number of the more reasonable conservatives are calling bullshit on the GOP. And, of course, it's great that the U.S. may be becoming a little less crazy. A couple of things, though:

First, I have to say I'm not all that optimistic about this in the long run. Winning one election after eight years of the other party mindlessly supporting the worst President in history, and after that party ran the nastiest campaign anyone can remember, and fielded a laughably unqualified VP candidate...well, winning under such conditions does not necessarily require or indicate a sea change in American politics.

Second, it's not religion per se that's the problem, of course--it's lunatic religion that's the problem. Even just following Parker in focusing on the strategic issue: they aren't losing votes because of any association with religion per se. They're losing votes because of their very tight relationship with the nuts. The 4004-B.C.-people-lived-with-dinosaurs-Satan-put-those-bones-there-sex-especially-homosexual-sex-is-evil-Ten-Commandments-in-the-courtroom-prayer-in-school nut cases.

The non-strategic point is, of course, much more important: by allying itself with Christianist nuts, the GOP is harming the country and the world. Unfortunately, this alone was not enough to motivate the GOP to stay away from them. Losing, however--now there's something that might get them to re-think their deal with the devil.