Editor’s note: John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he served as Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/21/wingnuts.shaheen.delay.art.gi.jpg caption="Cindy Sheehan (L) and Tom DeLay (R)."]
The health care debate continued to heat up with week. There was an eruption of wingnuttery on the left, as liberals went into reflexive protest mode against the Obama administration’s indication that they might support a bipartisan bill with a non-profit co-op instead of a public option.
On the right, rock-ribbed partisans are devoted to doing whatever they can to derail Obama’s health care reform in any form. They share a my-way-or-the-highway approach to politics that condemns compromise and denies the concept of common ground.
This week’s Wingnuts are two hyper-partisan blasts from the past who’ve emerged from semi-retirement in an unwelcome attempt to reinsert themselves into the national debate – Cindy Sheehan and Tom DeLay.
On the left, Cindy Sheehan has announced her intention to protest President Obama on his summer vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, according to the Washington Examiner. Sheehan was a far-left fixture a few years ago, protesting then-President George W. Bush outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Now she’s back because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t stopped per her instructions. Here’s a partial list of her demands:
The body bags aren't taking a vacation and as the U.S.-led violence surges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so are the needless deaths of every side…We as a movement need to continue calling for an immediate end to the occupations even when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office.
If the right-wing can force the government to drop any kind of public option or government supported health care, then we need to exert the same kind of pressure to force a speedy end to the occupations.
“The U.S.-led violence” in Afghanistan – nice. Maybe a few weeks protesting the Taliban up close would give Ms. Sheehan a better sense of the source of the violence. But sense of perspective has never been her strong suit – remember, this is the person who referred to President Bush as “the biggest terrorist in the world” and “worse than Osama bin Laden.”
But the real unified field theory of wingnuttery comes when she compares the health care debate – and calls for a bipartisan bill – to her condemnation of the bipartisan support that exists for defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban. In effect, she’s arguing that anti-war protesters learn from the tactics of the anti-health care reform crowd. Ironically, the area where the Obama administration gets the best grades from the American people is foreign policy because of his centrist team’s simultaneous escalation and depolarization of the war in Afghanistan.
The extremes often take pages from each other’s playbook – it’s the hyper-partisan commitment to an all-or-nothing vision of politics that ends up sowing the seeds of its own destruction. It was defended memorably in the following speech on the floor of the House: “It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle.”
Those are the words of former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in his retirement speech after being indicted on criminal charges of conspiracy and money-laundering. But now, like a bad dream, he’s back and coming into your living room soon as a contestant on the reality show "Dancing with the Stars."
Repackaging himself as the Wingnut Happy Warrior, the spectacle of competitive dance seems like just an excuse to weigh in on politics again, telling Lloyd Grove at The Daily Beast, “That’s just five hours a day that I dance…I’ve got another 19 hours to stop Obama.” He’s joking that he hasn’t gotten a doctor’s checkup before the competition – “I’d really have liked to — but Obamacare prohibits it!”
DeLay’s been enjoying the town hall eruptions like someone watching a comedy from home. “I love what the American people are doing to the Democrats,” he said in reference to the recent raucous town halls. “I’m sitting back and watching, and it’s just amazing. ... They just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper.”
DeLay’s humor has taken many forms over the years. There was this howler about the separation of church and state: “To claim that our founding fathers were for separation of church and state is either rewriting history or being very ignorant of history. It is simply impossible and it's unwise to try to separate people and their government from religion." And this thoughtful statement after the massacre at Columbine: "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence." And given the unhinged Nazi comparisons that are erupting in the health care town halls, let’s give DeLay credit for being ahead of the curve in that game, as in this quote about the Environmental Protection Agency: "The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major clawhooks that the government has maintained on the backs of our constituents."
DeLay has been soaking up the attention with the mini-media tour, offering his wisdom as key to the resurgence of the Republican Party. But it’s worth remembering that the GOP lost its majority as a result of the cronyism, corruption and pork barrel spending that occurred under his watch. So here’s my advice to Republicans who are tempted to listen to The Hammer’s hyper-partisan advice about how to get out of the wilderness: Ask yourself “What Would Tom DeLay Do?” – and then do the opposite.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon.