Every election has people who switch parties, and for all kinds of reasons. Some people may register to vote and designate their political party at age 20 when they don't know much or care much about politics. Then, 20 years later, their opinions have changed but they're still registered in the same party.
Heck, for anyone who's opinions haven't changed between ages 20 and 40, there are basically only two reasons for that. They're either (a) totally apathetic or (b) brain-dead.
But then there are also the clowning versions, who seem to be especially popular with Republicans right now. You know, the ones who say, "Now, I'm a Democrat but I think the Democrats today are (fill in Republican Party talking points of the day)." Tammy Bruce is one of Fox News' regular "liberal Democrats" who seems to be a fairly extreme version of this type.
But, heck, Democrats can clown like that, too. Actually, this article by a teacher from Washington state is not nearly the clown act that Tammy Bruce or her type represent. But he's a Republican who claims to be having an opposite kind of political epiphany. What really caught my eye about this piece is that he gives a good description of why situations like the Iraq War are so disturbing to the Republican goal of comforting the comfortable:
I initially supported the war in Iraq, but now I must admit that if it were my son killed in that helicopter crash, patriotism is not the only feeling that I would be experiencing. The wars we have fought lately have not instilled in me a belief that these people are dying for their country as much as for their president's agenda -- and I wonder why I am so willing to support a war that is justifiable enough to risk the lives of other people's children, but nowhere near justifiable enough to risk the lives of my own.
You see, in addition to the 5-year-old twins, I have a 16-year-old stepson still asleep in his room. Would his death in a war like this leave me feeling patriotic or just angry? Call me unpatriotic, un-Republican or even un-American, but I can't find many things about this war that would validate in me the loss of my child.
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