19 October 2009

Colorado GOP Short On Gentlemen

The case of Shawn Mitchell is just one more in a long line of cases of Colorado Republican officeholders who seem utterly incapable of acting like gentlemen. It isn't that Democrats don't have a lapse now and then, but the cases are far less common, and far less prone to be tolerated.

The irony of it all is that the Republicans used to see themselves as the party of the establishment. The Democratic party was for the unwashed with fewer social graces and a fire in their belly. Perhaps the demise of the Rockefeller Republican wing of that party is at fault. Perhaps a lack of an ideological commitment to big tent tolerance is the problem.

Whatever the reason, a leading Republican is talking about a Democratic legislator's underwear, while Democrats are trying to balance the budget, fix broken insurance bureacracies, and develop environmentally sound sources of energy. Their young janissaries, meanwhile, are busy eating their own.

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