I am glad to see more and more soul searching in the political chatter box regarding the extremism which has gripped both sides of the political spectrum. After the killing of  Dr. Tiller (the late term abortion doctor) and  that of Pvt William Long (the newly minted Army recruit), we are beginning to see where the fringe kooks are taking this nation. And people are starting to say enough is enough.

First there is this honest mea culpa from someone who was able to emerge from the rightward pro-life fever swamps (not to be confused with the mainstream, centrist pro lifers):

How I (and Other “Pro-Life” Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller’s Murder

My late father and I share the blame (with many others) for the murder of Dr. George Tiller the abortion doctor gunned down on Sunday. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of my former hate-filled rhetoric I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America.

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Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad’s or my words we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen.

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Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which — when taken seriously — lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.

Sadly true. Overheated rhetoric can easily provide a rational for some sick folks to act on their delusions of grandeur. And then there is this piece calling out at the silent condoning of the fringe on the right:

After hearing out 100 hours of indecency hurled at the ardent and articulate Sotomayor by the Nouveau Demagogues and their choir, and hearing nothing in passionate rebuke from the GOP leaders on the Hill, it is time to accuse each and every one of the Republicans in Congress of betrayal. It is time to say they have abandoned the people who elected them to represent a political party that was built, at the heroic moment of its birth under the guns of the slavers, upon a belief in liberty for all. It is time to challenge them to speak up loudly for our better angels in the face of the conjurers or else confess their lack of interest in the history of the party and find another, less-demanding vocation.

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In the first hours, Rush Limbaugh deliberately smeared Sotomayor with the word “racist.” The presenting issue was the now-often-referenced 2001 Sotomayor speech at Berkeley, in which the judge committed the villainous, shocking offense of speaking incautiously and unwisely in public of gender and race. Limbaugh loaded the word “racist” like a dum-dum bullet and fired while trying to cover the gunsmoke with a flimsy equivocation: “Here you have a racist. You might want to soften that. And you might want to say reverse racist.”

Some hours later, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich one-upped Limbaugh by using his Twitter page to fling a misdirecting missile: “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw.” And then in a burst: “Latina woman racist should also withdraw.” Just in case his unoriginal ad hominem remained unclear, Gingrich added, with churlish sarcasm, “New racism is better than old racism.”

Where are the Republicans of Congress to challenge these two giddy character assassins as unacceptable cranks, immediately and loudly? Are they afraid of a couple of middle-aged multimillionaires? Are they ashamed of their own impotence? Don’t they see that their silence encourages the rascals? 

It is not enough to be silent when lines of decency and common sense are crossed. I have been a voice in the wilderness calling out radical nonsense left and right. I am glad to see more and more people have decided to emerge from the fevered swamps of the political fringe and become reacquainted with the heart and soul and center of this great nation.

Tags: Fringe Politics, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Sotomayor