Eugene Robinson asks a great question in today’s Washington Post… “When did the loudmouths of the American right become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and professional victims?” Here’s a clip:

…The thing is, though, that the manufactured brouhaha over the Park51 project is part of a larger pattern in which the far right embraces victimhood and stokes fear. The faction that likes to portray itself as a bunch of John Waynes and “mama grizzlies,” it turns out, spends an awful lot of time cowering in the corner and complaining about how beastly everyone else is being.

Witness the frequent eruptions over instances of reverse racism — real or imagined. The Shirley Sherrod affair was the most recent example of how eagerly the far right wants to sell the false narrative that African Americans, once they achieve positions of authority, will use their newly acquired power to punish whites for historical discrimination. The facts of the Sherrod case, as they finally emerged, argue persuasively against this fictional tale of longed-for revenge. But it will be back.

And look at the hysteria over illegal immigration. Facts don’t matter — for example, that the flow of undocumented migrants has decreased, or that border enforcement under President Obama is much tougher than under George W. Bush, or that illegal immigrants are not responsible for any kind of crime wave. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), has gone so far as to sound the alarm about alleged “terror babies.” The idea is that undocumented pregnant women would cross the border so that their children could have U.S. citizenship, then take the babies away to be raised as terrorists — who would be able to come back in 20 years or so, with legitimate U.S. passports, and presumably wreak untold havoc. No, I did not make that up…

Robinson, as he often does, hits the nail right on the head. Today’s Republican party is one of fearful, little people who fancy themselves valiant patriots, willing fight bravely to their last breath, and, if necessary, die to protect our sacred Constitution – a Constitution, by the way, they’d also like to completely rewrite. It’s lunacy. It reminds of me when John Kerry was running against George W. Bush in 2004, and Republicans took to wearing little bandaids on their fingers with purple hearts drawn on them, as if to say that the wounds Kerry recieved in battle – the wounds that earned him a Purple Heart – were nothing more than scratches. The implication, of course, was that they, were they in his shoes, would have just sucked it up and kept on fighting, like Rambo. Do you remember that? I still can’t believe these fanny pack-wearing delegates at the Republican National Convention had the audacity to stand up in public, waving their bandaged pinkies in the air, laughing at the wounds a man received in battle while serving his country in Vietnam. And all this while supporting a craven coward who had his powerful father pull political strings so that he could sit the unpopular war out with other wealthy douche bags in a squadron of the Air National Guard referred to as the “Champagne Squadron.” But these Republicans were then, and still are today, beyond reality. Facts don’t matter to them. All that matters is spin and image. If you fancy yourself a little John Wayne, then, damn-it, that’s who you are. To hell with reality. To hell with the fact that you’d shit yourself if into a coma if you so much as heard that a member of the Viet Cong might be lurking nearby.