Yesterday, we talked about John Cole giving up on the GOP. John went into considerable detail, and didn’t point to just one problem, but he did note that he’s ended up attacking old friends because he doesn’t know “how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election.”
John, you’re not alone. Frank Schaeffer is a conservative columnist for the Dallas Morning News who describes himself as “a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican.” In his column this week, Schaeffer explains why he, too, has decided to leave the GOP.
Apparently, it was an email circulated by campaign supporters of Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) that did the trick.
The message goes like this: “First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. … Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office.” Democrat James Webb is a war hero and former Marine, wounded in Vietnam and winner of the Navy Cross. He was writing about class and military issues long before me and has articulated the issue of how the elites have dropped the ball on military service in his classic novel Fields of Fire. By the way, that’s a book Tom Wolfe calls “the greatest of the Vietnam novels.”
Schaeffer noted that he’s been a Republican for years; his father was a famous evangelical theologian and friend to Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and the first President Bush; and Schaeffer himself has received handwritten letters from various members of the Bush family, including Barbara, thanking him for his books on military service.
“So I have every reason to stay in the Republicans’ good graces,” Schaeffer said, “but enough is enough. I’ve had it with Republican smears.”
My wife and I have reached the tipping point. We plan to go to town hall to dump our Republican voter registration and reregister as independents. I don’t care anymore what party someone is in. These days, what I care about is what they’re made of.
Wartime demands leaders with character and moral authority. The political party smearing Mr. Webb proves it has neither.
In the very short term, pieces like this one suggest the Allen campaign’s decision to go after Webb for his novels may be one of those gambles that has disastrous political consequences.
But in the more important long term, Schaeffer is pointing to a much bigger problem. If Allen’s campaign tactic were unusual for the modern-day GOP, it almost certainly wouldn’t have prompted Schaeffer to reach his “tipping point.” It’s part of a pattern — Republicans keep pushing the smear envelope, keeping trying to find out just how vicious they can be while getting away with it, and keep embracing patently dishonest campaign tactics in their desire to keep power for power’s sake.
I don’t doubt that some far-right activists thrive on these red-meat attacks, whether they have merit or not. But I can’t help but believe there are a fair amount of John Coles and Frank Schaeffers who repel from the obvious reality that the Republican Party is intent on undermining our discourse and poisoning politics.
On a number of issues, I’m probably not on the same page as Cole or Schaeffer. For that matter, both probably reject a Democratic agenda on policy grounds. But both of them, and others like them, deserve enormous credit for their integrity and consistency, and for showing the good sense to walk away from those who value power more than principle.