Note to Republicans: The party's over
Ineptness has ruined the GOP
Garrison Keillor CHICAGO TRIBUTE June 7, 2006

People who live in mud huts should not throw mud, especially if it comes
from their own roofs. As Scripture says, don't point to the speck in
your neighbor's eye when you have a piece of kindling in your own.

I see by the papers that the Republicans want to make an issue of House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the congressional races this
fall: Would you want a San Francisco woman to be speaker of the House?
Will the lectern be repainted in lavender stripes with a disco ball
overhead? Will she be borne into the chamber by male dancers with
glistening torsos and wearing pink tutus? After all, in the unique world
view of old elephants, San Francisco is a code word for g-a-y, and after
assembling a record of government lies, incompetence and disaster, the
party in power hopes that the fear of g-a-y-s will pull it through in
November.

Running against Pelosi, a woman who comes from a district where there
are known gay persons, is a nice trick, but it does draw attention to
the large, shambling galoot who is House speaker now, Tom DeLay's
enabler for years, a man who, judging by his public mutterances, is
about as smart as most high school wrestling coaches. For the past year,
Dennis Hastert has been two heartbeats from the presidency. He is a man
who seems content just to have a car and driver and three square meals a
day. He has succeeded in turning Congress into a branch of the executive
branch. If Mr. Hastert becomes the poster boy for the Republican Party,
this does not speak well for them as the Party of Ideas.

People who want to take a swing at San Francisco should think twice.
Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus
tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (Where are the hippies?), but
the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which
continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by
Baptists in Waco, Texas. There may be a reason for this. Creative people
thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas
start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic progress.
Authoritarianism is stifling. I don't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr.
Packard were gay, but what's important is: In San Francisco, it doesn't
matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal
everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic
future of this country.

Meanwhile, the Current Occupant goes on impersonating a president.
Somewhere in the quiet, leafy recesses of the Bush family, somebody is
thinking, "Wrong son. Should've tried the smart one." Five years in
office and he doesn't have a grip on it yet. You stand him up next to
British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a news conference and the
comparison is not kind to Our Guy. Historians are starting to place him
at or near the bottom of the list. And one of the basic assumptions of
American culture is falling apart: the competence of Republicans.

You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk
through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their
Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math.
To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp
for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up
lite jazz. So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a
costly war, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who
seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the Republicans can offer
is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently
stupid.

It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not
be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the
country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook
needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will
wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to
do what you have to do.