The rules don't apply to them

Rules for thee but not for me

It sounds like ABC in the Wednesday night Clinton-Obama debate was competing with MSNBC to be even nuttier that FOX News. Our national press corps is seriously, big-time broken.

Now, Jesus Christ himself couldn't dissuade the Republicans from attacking whichever Democrat becomes the Presidential standard-bearer for being an out-of-touch elitist. Given their dubious allegiance to the teachings of Jesus on issues like war and concern for the poor, having Jesus personally tell the Reps not to do it would probably only make them more determined to do so.

But it seems to me that given the level of blatant criminality at the highest levels in the Cheney-Bush administration, the Democrats have an obvious counter to that argument: those Republicans think the rules don't apply to them.

It would be an excellent way to force Maverick McCain to explain again and again and again what he will do to overturn the torture policy and to prosecute those who broke the law by torturing people, ordering torture, and sitting around choreographing in gruesome detail how particular individuals would be tortured. The Democrats absolutely need to make that an issue. But the "yuck" factor there is also high. So frame it as Republican arrogance: They think the rules don't apply to them.

This would probably even have been a good way for John Kerry in 2004 to have countered the Republicans hissing and growling after he mentioned in a debate that one of Dick Cheney's daughters is a lesbian as a way of calling for tolerance. Dick Cheney and the Republican Christianists think for us regular folks it's an awful sin to be gay or lesbian. But if the Dark Lord's daughter is lesbian, why, that's just fine, because they think the rules don't apply to them.

The Republican push for amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms? They think the rules don't apply to them. They say the Republican Presidents don't have to obey the laws or the Constitution? They think the rules don't apply to them.

Why waste a lot of time splitting hairs over which voters are "bitter" when you're dealing with a Party like the Republicans who don't think they're bound by the laws and standards they want to impose on everyone else? They think the rules don't apply to them.

Tags: authoritarianism, republican party, republicans