Why does the RNC Hate Ms. Cheney?

I’m beginning to wonder if the Republican Party really has it in for, say, Dick Cheney and his family. Who knows. Atrios comments on the opening speaker of the convention, who wrote a Godwin’s-Law-violating article comparing gay rights to Nazism. Sure, the pressure to grant basic human rights to gay people, and the pressure to join the Nazi party are social and political pressures. And I’m sure that they both seem threatening to people who oppose them. The difference is that gay people aren’t actually trying to, say, TAKE OVER EUROPE, KILL ALL THE JEWS, AND ELIMINATE DEMOCRACY. In other words, you may disagree with both genocide and homosexuality, but that doesn’t make them equivalent.

Now, the RNC is convinced they have God on their side, despite the rifts between groups that claim mutually exclusive holds on truth. This should be as interesting as watching the fiscal conservatives and libtertarians battle the “deficits don’t matter” don’t-tax-just-spend crowd.

I’m surprised the Log Cabin’s refusal to endorse Bush hasn’t gotten more coverage. It’s certainly more legitimate news than claiming that Kerry was actually fighting on the side of the communists, or that George Soros is a drug smuggler. Given the right wing’s support for felon and alleged drug importer Ollie North, you’d think they’d hold off on name-calling, especially given that Soros has an extremely well-documented career as a commodities trader and brilliant investor and Ollie’s got a well-documented career as a shady fixer and a financer of violent terrorism. Oh, excuse me, violent “freedom fighting.”

What’s this? You’re not familiar with US involvement in Latin American civil wars in the 1980s? Of course not. US history courses in the US end at 1945 and at the Rio Grande.

Here’s how it was:
Oliver North ran drugs to Miami to fund the Nicaraguan paramilitaries. The paramilitaries were running around killing doctors and nurses and teachers. This was to destabilize the Nicaraguan government, which had suspiciously left-leaning rhetoric. At the time, the Sandinista government wasn’t really communist– probably no more Socialist than, say, France or Germany or Canada. Of course, the US-backed paramilitaries were going to show you how badly the socialists were doing and how a North-America-backed dictator would do so much better (nobody suggested a democracy at this point– that was what got them into this mess in the first place, just like Chile in 73. God forbid they should elect someone– they might pick the wrong guy!). Anyway, the Sandinista literacy programs didn’t work very well once the teachers were all dead. Nor did the economic system function very well when the peasants were hiding in the jungle. Nor did the health system do very well when most doctors outside of Managua were in hiding or in shallow graves.

That’s what Ollie did, but now he’s a respected Republican again with God on his side. Because that’s what it’s all about, you know. Hating, killing, imposing your views on the rest of the world that isn’t as well armed as you. Yay Neocons! We’re going to impose our society as far as our army will reach! It’ll be great!