Freedom Line Blog

For a while I thought the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart might turn out to be one of those increasingly rare birds, a thoughtful and constructive and fair-minded liberal. I was wrong. Today, Capehart has a column entitled — I kid you not — “The GOP is out to destroy the country.” Now Capehart obviously knows this is a cheap shot, so he tries to have it both ways, in the have-cake-eat-too mode, by immediately labeling his own headline “rather hyperbolic” and then, in the very same lead paragraph, writing that the headline actually does “seem appropriate” because, as he goes on to explain, those meanie Republicans just don’t want to let Obama “move this nation forward.”

Egads. Since when do we need a president to move our nation forward? Lord forbid that we need a president or a government to move American forward. I thought that was our job as individuals, while government was just there to protect us and ensure our basic freedoms. I guess I made the mistake of actually studying and understanding American political theory and history, while the morally superior folks like Capehart knew they could put all that aside and instead assume a class of elite managers in Washington is best able to move us forward because we just are too inept to do so on our own.

Ignoring any policy proposals he doesn’t like allows Capehart to blast Republicans for “failing to have viable alternative proposals worthy of national debate.” Note the qualifiers. And who, pray tell, gets to decide what is “viable” or not and what is “worthy of debate”? None other than lefties like Capehart. Never mind that Republicans and conservatives for years have pushed policy alternatives on just about every important national issue under the sun, only to be — if one applies his own terminology to his side as well as ours — “blocked” by the “obstruction” of Democrats.

Calling for the parties to work together (by which he obviously means Republicans should work to do what Democrats want), Capehart on one hand blames Republicans for poisoning the well while on the other hand doing some serious poisoning of his own by asserting as a stated fact, that “Half of the legislative branch is in thrall to a band of right-wing zealots unmoved by facts as much as they are motivated by hatred of the president.” Yeah, that’s it: Accuse the other side of nastiness while insulting it in ways you would never accept if aimed at you. That’s just a great way to promote healthy dialogue.

Somebody needs to teach Capehart some manners. And some civics lessons, too.