Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

Walk a mile in their shoes

I always read Howard Dean's column in the paper. Most of the time he makes his points without checking the polls or worrying about offending the great unwashed. That's how he excited Democrats during the primaries until they got cold feet and chose Kerry "the chameleon."

In a recent column Dean wrote about moral values and how it's time for the Democrats to frame the argument. Republicans, he says, cannot be allowed to corner the market on American values.

The part of the piece that caught my eye was Dean's reference to a woman supporter who identified herself as an "Evangelical Christian."

"Why was she supporting me?" was the question Dean asked.

It turned out that the reason this woman was in favor of Dean was because she had a child with polycystic kidney disease and the illness prevented her from getting health care.

Health care, as you know, is a privilege not enjoyed by all Americans.

The sad revelation here is that unless a Republican's ox is being gored, they just don't care. The GOP is a party of wretched self-interest.

I feel sorry for this woman with no health care. Nobody should have their financial lives ruined because they want their children to live. Would this woman have supported Dean if her child had been healthy? Or would she have joined 99 percent of her Evangelical brothers and sisters and put her political energy behind preventing gay marriage, outlawing abortion, and getting prayer into schools?

No more beady-eyed Republican ever lived than Nancy Reagan, wife of the recently deceased right-wing icon of all that is conservative. She has recently come out foursquare in favor of stem cell research.

Why?

Because before his death Alzheimer's disease had reduced Ronald Reagan to a vegetable, unable to recognize his family. Suddenly the suffering of thousands of Americans appeared on Nancy's tiny Republican radar screen. Suddenly the anti-science nonsense spewed from the pulpit by holy control freaks didn't hold much water.

Another person close to President Reagan had a similar epiphany.

James Brady, press secretary to the President, was shot and grievously wounded by a lunatic with a handgun. Since leaving office Brady and his wife Sarah have lobbied for Handgun Control Inc., an organization pushing for sanity in our gun control laws. Isn't it a shame that he had to be shot in the head before Mr. Brady could see the sense in legislating against thousands of preventable deaths per year, many of them children?

Vice President Dick Cheney is the poster child for this Republican phenomenon. We all know about Dick's gay daughter. The poor kid was booted around like a football during the 2004 campaign. Cheney is the only senior White House official to come out against an amendment to the constitution that would prevent gay marriage. He wants his daughter to have every right that a heterosexual does.

Why do Republicans need to be slapped across the face with a wet flounder before they can see another point of view?

Republican voters have ignored dishonesty, incompetence, ideological fanaticism, and corruption to vote their Ayatollah into office. Obviously, they are incapable of empathy.

We'll just have to wait until a majority of Republicans are shot, have a gay child, see their loved one struck down by a preventable disease, or have someone close to them killed in Iraq. The way they are going it shouldn't take too long.