When AZGOP vice chair Russell Pearce made his latest outrageously hateful comments, it took GOP statewide office nominees Ducey and Brnovich a couple of days to decide how they felt about the comments. That's despite the AZGOP falsely claiming,
Republicans are the party of the people. Republicans believe the formula that will lift all Americans is equality, freedom and limited government. Our party is deeply rooted in protecting human rights... (emphasis mine)Apparently, this statement by Russell Pearce is what they mean by "deeply rooted in protecting human rights,"
"You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job." -- Russell Pearce, AZGOP First Vice-chair.
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Then there's the Arizona Republic's chief GOP apologist, Doug MacEachern. Pathetically crying in his latest missive that Congress is considering repealing, er eviscerating the First Amendment.
They've decided that eviscerating the First Amendment is a really good idea.Not only is it well known that MacEachern is the most radically right-wing editorial writer in the Republic's newsroom, but he consistently demonstrates himself to be the laziest. Editorials in major newspapers ought to be well thought out and present sound arguments for the viewpoints they propound. Not MacEachern who does so rarely, if ever. Consider his latest. To set up his specious claim that Congress has decided that eviscerating the First Amendment is a really good idea, he goes back to Watergate.
It has been 40 years since the Watergate scandal convinced us that by squeezing political contributions, we could squeeze out political corruption, special interests and those ubiquitous "outsiders" with them.
It hasn't worked out. But that doesn't mean the changes that happened in 1974 — again, as a reaction to Watergate, the CREEP bunch and the Nixon slush fund — weren't significant.
Watergate and its aftermath didn't just change how we view the financing of elections. It changed our view of politics, from presuming the opposition is loyal just wrong to believing they are corrupt and malevolent.Let's start with "the CREEP bunch." WTF is MacEachern talking about? He did not define the term. He did not provide any point of reference for figuring it out except to name Nixon in the context. I still had to do more than one Google search to figure out what he meant. How many readers of the dumbed down Arizona Republic editorial page are going to know off the top of their heads? Likely very few, apart from people who have recently studied 40 year old presidential history.
So, Mac draws in his readers claiming this is all Nixon's fault and sets forth a progression hoping to get people to believe the current Move(ment) to Amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United is nothing more than an assault on Freedom of Speech.
This isn't about Watergate or the Committee to Re-elect the President. But it does reasonably trace back to Nixon. Because Nixon appointed Louis Powell to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. And Louis Powell authored the document that has allowed the US Chamber of Commerce and ALEC to capture federal regulators and own Congress.
MacEachern's laziness is not an isolated occurrence. It's consistent and it's pervasive. It's readily apparent in what he puts under his byline but it's also readily apparent in unsigned editorials that espouse the conservative bias.
Ya know, the Republic has another conservative political columnist, Bob Robb. Though conservative, Robb almost always presents his commentary in thoughtful, rational ways. In other words, he's not nearly as lazy as MacEachern.
In order for the Arizona Republican Party to rightfully claim they stand for human rights, they must banish Russell Pearce. The sooner the better.
In order for the Arizona Republic to restore a modicum of editorial integrity to the conservative viewpoints it propounds, it must rid itself of Doug MacEachern. Every day he remains employed by the Republic/Gannett is additional scourge on Arizona.
And don't give me that malarkey claiming I am against free speech. Freedom of speech does not include protection from criticism. Heck, in comments on my blog post about Duplicitious Doug Ducey, John Kavanagh calls me "thin-skinned." I'm not sure why he said that, but it hardly concerns or bothers me.
I will qualify that in today's "capitalist" environment, Freedom of the Press really only means that whoever owns the press has the freedom. And if Gannett decides that MacEachern is a drag on its bottom line, THEY will cut him loose faster than you can shake a stick at them.
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UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
The Phoenix New Times and the Arizona Republic have reported that Russell Pearce resigned his vice chair position at the Arizona Republican Party on Sunday evening.
Now, what about MacEachern?
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