It was inescapable from the very start of Barack Obama’s campaign waaaaay back in January 2007 that race and racism would play a big part in whatever came to pass. And of course it did and it has and it still is and it always will. Now the New York Times — or to be fair one of her columnists — has finally said what is pretty apparent: An awful lot of the screaming incoherent rage ostensibly directed at Obama’s actions is actually just plain racism.
Maureen Dowd put it this …

There’s nothing more staggeringly inane than this from Sarah Palin’s July Fourth Facebook message:
Though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.
Wow. Palin’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska. Almost everyone is out to get her, not the least of which is the big bad “main stream” media (as opposed to the “mainstream” media?). Best of all is …

Barack Obama may be, above all else, a savvier politician than even Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. Why? With his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court Obama has set a defining trap for Republicans: If they take the bait they will dig themselves deeper into the pit of electoral despair that will take a generation to climb out of.
There are two fundamental things to remember about America and voting: Women vote in bigger percentages than men (plus there are more of them to begin with) and Hispanics are …

Conservatives like small. Small government. Small states. Small taxes. And apparently a small political party to call their own. How else to explain the rapid desire to purge the fast-shrinking Republican Party of anyone who dares to suggest small is NOT better for a political party?
The latest example comes from Bobby Eberle who runs the website GOPUSA and it concerns George W. Bush’s first Secretary of State, Republican Colin Powell.
In a recent speech, Powell took swipes at Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Sarah Palin, and made his usual claims that the Republican …

 
Partisan political change tends to move glacially. The South was ruled by Democrats pretty much forever until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Richard Nixon discovered the “Southern Strategy.” Even then it took another 20 years for Republicans to make the South their center.
Likewise New England was rock-ribbed Republican from the Civil War until cracks began to show in the sixties. Only in the last decade has New Hampshire lost much of its GOP sheen and Maine still has two Republican Senators.
The turning point was the same — …

 
Is there an echo in Pennsylvania? You better you bet.
Republicans and especially hard-core conservatives are foaming at the mouth over the defection of Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter, decrying him as another Benedict Arnold. One of the most fevered cries is that Specter put politics ahead of principle. Whether you believe that or not (if the principle Specter is upholding is to win then I guess he’s being principled…) it has brought the battle for the soul of the GOP to the forefront. And the front page of the New …

 
It’s a recurring theme of Get Real but only because Republicans keep doing things that prove the point. The Pity Party seems absolutely bent on self-destruction by following all the old rules for the old game that they can’t stop playing.
 
Take John Boehner, leader of the House Republican minority. Sunday George Stephanopoulos had him on to talk about the Republican alternatives to Barack Obama’s proposals including on global warming:
…the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we …

It will happen in the next 90 days. A decision that may reignite a culture war that could consume the Obama Administration’s best-laid plans on health care and the economy. Or not.
Thursday California’s Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the proposal that it overturn Proposition 8 — the initiative voters approved in November that overturned the Court’s prior ruling making same-sex marriage legal. Prop 8 passed with the help of a massive infusion of people and cash from the Mormon Church along with Christian and conservative groups after more …

The new video on Rush, Barack, and what’s really behind the mutually beneficial relationship. We said it first and Get Real keeps at the reality behind the circus politicus.
 
GET REAL :: Rush Hour from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.

We’ve said it before and we say it again: Rush Limbaugh is the best thing that has happened to Barack Obama all year.
First came Limbaugh’s filibuster-worthy speech at CPAC (the convention for conservatives) on Saturday during which he “doubled down” (as White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs so eloquently put it) on his earlier statement that he was hoping for Obama to fail. The crowd and the conservative blogosphere could barely contain itself.
Then hours later the battle between Limbaugh and new Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele began — a cat …