"THANK YOU FOR NOT BLAMING ME FOR THE REST OF MY PARTY'S INSANITY" [View All]

"THANK YOU FOR NOT BLAMING ME FOR THE REST OF MY PARTY'S INSANITY"
May 28, 2009, 4:08PM


My friend Robby, God bless him, has endured my writing about him before, so I don't think he would mind if I do it again--this time, in response to a phone call he made to me today in which he really did say, as soon as I answered the phone:

"Thank you for not blaming me for the rest of my party's insanity."

snip//

But during the recent presidential campaign, Robby called me one day to say that he had given up listening to talk radio, something he had done faithfully for more than 15 years. The blatant racism he heard there was so offensive to him that he complained to me that, "My party ran away from me," and that, as far as people like Rush Limbaugh were concerned: "I don't know who they think I am when they claim to speak for conservative Republicans, because I am not that person."

Of course he voted for McCain, but he told me that, even though he disagreed with Obama on most things and would have preferred seeing a Republican back in the White House, he considered Obama to be calm, rational, reasoned, intelligent, and careful about making decisions.

(Something, by the way, my conservative Republican brother has also said.)

It was Robby who came to me when the viral e-mail campaign started going around in earnest to conservatives, claiming that Obama was dead-set to take away all our guns. Robby had checked those claims out himself, both in legitimate websites such as the NRA, and in right-wing political blogs, and said that, as far as he could tell, it was all sheer baloney.

"Obama has never said a single word, not during the campaign, and not since he's taken office, that would appear to validate these fear-mongering e-mails," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, they have been started and kept going by gun-sellers and others who stand to profit from panic-buying."

He was disgusted at that because it meant he couldn't find ammunition just to go to target practice, and felt that the constant hysteria whipped up by those e-mails--juxtaposed to Obama's calm, sensible demeanor--was making his party look crazier and crazier, which, as a lifelong Republican, he resented.

It's been one thing after another.

Today, he called because he was just so embarrassed, this time, by the whole Judge Sotomayor frenzy.

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