Trent Franks and the no apologies necessary tour
Trent Franks is a Republican Congressman from Arizona. That means a number of citizens actually voted this man into office expecting him to work for them in Washington on the pressing issues of the day. To most that would mean trying to figure a way out of the current recession, bringing jobs to his district, working to make health care a reality for those in his area in need.
But, Trent Franks has his GPS pointed in another direction.
He is considering filing a lawsuit against President Obama because he believes there is not enough evidence to prove he is an American citizen. Obama that is, not Franks. He made this deep announcement at a town hall meeting over the weekend. According to Glenn Thrush of Politico.com, the esteemed Congressman also nodded in agreement with a woman who, with tears streaming down her face, said she was offended that President Obama denounced the U.S. as a Christian country during a recent trip overseas. That he never did any such thing did not alter her opinion one bit. And neither did Congressman Franks make any move to correct her. Such an action does not fit into his master plan.
And there you have it. One more log on this insane fire of hate that burns within the soul of our Christian nation. A Christian nation that allowed slavery for centuries and Jim Crow for decades. A Christian nation that imprisoned Japanese-Americans during World War II for no reason. A Christian nation that sent Italian-Americans into a dust bowl in Montana during that same war, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of them had sons fighting and dying for the US overseas (out of sheer shame at being arrested for no reason, nearly 25% of those men committed suicide). A Christian nation that dropped bombs on Iraq for no reason other than we believed in the Christian President who told us that country was a threat to our way of life.
That Christian nation.
The one which, I’m told, is not even allowed to imply it has ever done anything wrong. It also seems you especially cannot imply that on foreign soil . This I learned only recently after President Obama said we are not a perfect nation while on a trip overseas. That is yet another new GOP rule–a President must never say anything overseas about the U.S. other than we are the greatest country in the world and the rest of you suck. The GOP pulls one of these babies out of their ass whenever the moment suits them.
Mitt Romney, next in line for the GOP run for the White House, in fact has a book coming out in the spring. It’s called No Apology. And for a devout Mormon, you have to admit such a title takes balls. That four wives rule, Mitt? You’re not sorry about that one? How about telling us during your Presidential run, while young men and women were being shot to shit in Iraq, that your five sons were proudly serving their country by helping you get elected? Not even a little teeny “I was off base “on that one?
Sarah Palin also doesn’t think we should ever apologize– for anything. At least I think that’s what she said during the first part of her farewell tour, which will last as long as the Rolling Stones but be nowhere near as much fun. And as Bill Maher noted Friday night, we’re still waiting for Sen. John McCain to apologize to us for bringing Palin into our lives.
Newt Gingrich doesn’t think we should apologize ever, not even if you cheat on your wife while she thinks you are out helping make America a better place. Did I get that one right, there, Newt?
So there you have it. An elected Congressman, during one of the most troubling economic times in this country’s history (not to mention two wars being fought overseas), deciding what we need to do, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is bring the President of the United States to court. Over a birth certificate.
Congressman Franks believes global warming is a myth. He is thick as a thief with James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (so long as it’s, you know, a Christian family that never apologizes). He worked for Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, who cancelled Martin Luther King, Jr. Day while in office. Hey, wait. Wasn’t Dr. King a Christian? Isn’t President Obama a Christian? So I wonder what could be the problem, then? What else, boys and girls, do Dr. King and President Obama have in common?
Congressman Trent Franks is simply the tip of an ugly iceberg floating across our nation. It has been there for far too long and it will never go away. The issue of race is too deep and too imbedded for us simply to wish it gone or declare ourselves rid of the disease because we elected the first African-American President. All that did was bring the racial fever to a boil and allow long supressed emotions to be screamed out, barely hidden beneath a blanket of birth certificates questions, no apology tours, health care reform lies, gun rights gone gun-mad and fake fury over a Hispanic woman appointed to the Supreme Court.
Initially, I was one of those foolish enough to think it had all changed. That perhaps the election of President Obama would lead us down a fresh path, one where we would finally put the issue of race in the rear view mirror and focus on the very real problems in front of us. I was happy to have lived long enough to see my children vote for a man as President not because of the color of his skin but because of his ability to lead us out of the crater left behind by the previous administration. He stood up to a tough and determined opponent during the primaries and then reached out and asked her to be his Secretary of State (not only smart, but a pretty Christian thing to do). He defeated a war hero in the election, an essentially good man who should have been elected President in 2000 but was done in by his own party. He reached out to him as well.
But it didn’t last and it seems as if it wasn’t meant to. Any statement made was magnified and was seen to have a double meaning. The birthers movement was given birth. Gun sales went up. One state ran out of bullets. Death threats against him grew 400% higher than those against President Bush. When Obama proposed a bank bail-out plan, he was called a Socialist. Even though President Bush’s similar plan was called an action of last resort. Obama made the move to universal health care and out came the Hitler photos and the Nazi signs. Prior to that, there were editorial cartoons depicting monkeys offering bananas and, even worse, monkeys shot to death.
And the cancer spreads by the day. Elmore Leonard once wrote of one of his characters, “if he were any dumber, he would need to be watered twice a week.” That definition fits many in Congress, Michele Bachmann first in that conga line.
And now into that tight little circle we can safely shove Rep. Trent Franks.
They are members of the United States Congress.
And for that, I deeply apologize.
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There is certainly a Mad Hatter quality to the GOP or the Grumpy Old People party as I refer to them. A party of personal responsibility that in no way ever accepts responsibility for anything but is quick to blame someone else. The seven trillion dollar deficit? Obama did it, even though six trillion was there on the day of Obama’s swearing in.
Never in our history are we in need of a truth commission as the GOP is currently on an unprecedented campaign of lies.
There is a something of a silver lining to all of this: All the clueless, lobby purchased congress members and American racists and conspiracy nuts and gun toting Nazi lovers are all marching in full view in rehearsals for America’s Most Dangerous Fringe Group.
All we need is a courageous press to expose these angry white men for what they are: Mindless Bullies who confuse aggression with intelligence. I am still waiting.
Lorenzo – I accept your apology. I accept it with love in my heart. In doing so, I acknowledge that you can’t help yourself when you spin one of these political commentaries like one of your best selling novels. Like your great books these pieces are so impassioned that the reader is grabbed tight, and after only a few paragraphs, their blood races through his or her heart. Your gift with the written word is rare indeed. However you present your argument like a teary eyed sixth grader balling to Sister Margaret after a tussle in the school yard.
Your twelve gauge Double O speard is meant to hit any and all opponents of your position. People who you have stated you feel are not “informed” and therfore NOT ENTITLED to an opinion. Instead I believe you put more holes in your already sinking Liberal row boat.
I’ll grant you this, Trent Frank may be a nut job. His Birther law suit WILL NOT go anywhere. A similar suit has already been thrown out by a Federal Circuit Court. He isn’t even worth the ink you wasted by giving him attention in the first place. Unless of course you have another motive. And I suspect you do –
In a tactic that is more and more raidly being associated with Liberalism, you attack people and religious groups personally labeling them as haters and racists. Why? Because you can’t or won’t articulate a sound opposing position acceptable to the majority of the American People.
Like it or not, America is still a Christian nation. BECAUSE – a majority of Americans still believe in God and of that majority, the largest segment are Christians. So how do you decry that, you bring up slavery and Jim Crow. then throw in a little sprinkle of WW II interment camps. And finish off with dropping bombs on innocent Iraq. Never do you mention that hundreds of thousands of white Union Soldiers died to free the slaves or that is was Liberal Democrat FDR who established the camps and by the way Iraq violated the conditions of the 1991 surrender and ignored 17 UN resolutions.
From there you move quickly to defend President Obama’s decision to apologize for American misdeads in Europe. You claim it is a GOP rule to never dis the country on foreign shores. It is not a GOP rule. It is diplomatic precedent. To put it into Hells kitchen terms – it is like kitchen table talk or washing dirty laundry in public. It is just not done. I know you father taught you that.
Next you attack Mitt Romney by using his Mormon religion and it’s long ago abandoned position on polygamy and WORSE implying his five sons were less American because they haven’t served in the military. That was the low point of the piece!
From there you go on to blast Palin, Gingrich and come full cirle back to Frank. Then you go in for the kill with the race card. Race, hate, hate, race that is all the piece is about.
“I was one of those foolish enough to think it had all changed….finally put the issue of race in the rear view mirror….I was happy to have lived long enough to see my children vote for a man as President not because of the color of his skin….” What dribble! I know both of your kids and they NEVER would have voted for or against anyone because of their race. Nice soapy paragraph though. The kind best selling novels are made of. Psst, guess what, the majority of people who voted for Barack Obama were White!
Race has nothing to do with the president’s current standing and falling numbers.
Paraphrasing my fellow Marine James Carville, “Its about leadership stupid!”
First of all, maybe just once respond to what is written and not to what you want to say.
Aa far as Romney, I recall you being very angry at that statement at the time he said it.
But there is no other response, since what you wrote has nothing at all to do with what I wrote.
In response to another comment. See in context »I personally understand the anger at the Christian nation comment. I understand the anger at people like Trent Franks. I hestitate to say too much because I’m sure that politically we’d disagree, but there’s nothing to argue with in this post.
To have representatives of the Christian right who cheat on their wives and are ungracious and full of hate is awful. The worst attack on the name of Christ is not by atheists but by the kinds of people you describe in this post, Lorenzo.