THE GOP: Divorced From Reality, by Bill Maher; LA Times, 4-24-09

Sometimes you just CANNOT say things better than they've already been said. Looking for a method to sum up the Republican Party's position in the present political climate? Here's HBO "Real Time With Bill Maher" Host, comedian and political commentator on the current state of The Grand Ole Party in these United States:

The GOP: divorced from reality

The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.

By Bill Maher April 24, 2009 Los Angeles Times

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law. And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party."

No, it's not.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning. But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.

Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy. The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib. And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.

The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Voir Dire: The Sword in the Stone

I am just returned from staffing a 4-day Trial Lawyers College Regional Seminar on voir dire in Chappaqua, New York and ---as with all such forays into the TLC method--- I return knowing precious things.

There is a secret to the mystical growth process through which a jury is assimilated. Hiding always in plain sight, the secret is like a mighty sword impaled in a dense stone -- available to all but only the bravest can extract the righteous, ringing blade. I again discovered the secret this past weekend and, as I march away from the memory of that Regional, I wonder if the secret will stay with me this time. Or, will it retreat quietly from my consciousness just as the detail of a vivid dream disappears when day replaces night?

Voir Dire dances amid such dangerous dagger points as race and prejudice, money and greed, judgment and punishment – all coupled with elemental, societal fears of “The Other.” The simple, precious truth is that the entire process begins long before the venire files into the box. Curiously, it starts even before a trial date is selected and even before the event occurs which triggers the need for the jury’s presence. Even before the basest crime, even before a party’s negligence and well before any accident or injury….voir dire is beginning. The mystical process starts before one has received a law degree – before college even.

Who can say when it actually commences?

But, even if the “when” is hard to pinpoint, the “what” and “who” are not. We always know the scary issue in our cases – the thing that wakes us up at 3 in the morning, our hearts hammering. And, if we can be honest, we know the “who” is US. Voir dire begins within each of US first. It coalesced within us the first time we became aware that we were “better” than some and could therefore refers to others by a variety of handy racial epithets which became so much a part of us that they could be trotted out in anger or as a perverse joke. On the other hand, a part of our own voir dire undoubtedly bloomed like lake algae in a smothering "dead zone" the first time we became a derided target of hurtful, ignorant prejudice or jaded bigotry. Or, surely some of it started the first time we became aware that we could lie to obtain advantage or that it was OK to do almost anything ---surrender any aspect of ethics or character--- for money. Having been physically or emotionally hit while still children, we learned to strike back in camouflaged and visceral ways. We learned somewhere early on that there were parts of us which society could not accept and so we repressed that vital part of our soul and denigrated all others who exhibited any sign of what we hid within our own weeping heart.

We acted out and breathed truth into the words of Carl Jung: Fanaticism is the brother of doubt.

During our travels through time we also learned:

Men Don’t Cry.

Women Are Weak.

What Those Goddam People Need To Do Is Quit Livin’ On Welfare And Get A Goddam Job.

We learned many such “truths” that effortlessly immersed themselves within us like parasitic worms.

As I flew home to Baton Rouge, I reflected on all we had experienced in Chappaqua and what would evermore be required of me in order to conduct a Voir Dire. I must first be honest about all that is within me ---assuming I can develop the discernment to sense or see it--- and be thereafter willing to "own it." Before I engage my potential jurors, I first must be willing to stand before them and share what I truly "own," speaking forthrightly about what is deep within me and mirroring the fear I have about the dagger points in my case.

Then and only then can I ask them to share their own heart secrets. Through such exchanges of elemental truth, our tribe is formed.

This is what we spent 4 days learning in Chappaqua. The learning is simple but the task is incredibly hard to do. And, since we have been taught to tightly hold our secrets deep within us, the open sharing of those secrets with others is counterintuitive – especially in an open courtroom before a jury box filled with people who will shortly judge every utterance and nuance of our case.

And yet……we must.

This is why only the bravest warriors can pull the sword from the stone.

--- J.R.