Frank Schaeffer writes an editorial in the Dallas Morning News:
I’m a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican.
On all those counts, I was disgusted by an e-mail I just received that’s being circulated by campaign supporters of Republican George Allen, who’s trying to retain his Senate seat in Virginia.
The message goes like this: “First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. … Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office.”
Democrat James Webb is a war hero and former Marine, wounded in Vietnam and winner of the Navy Cross. He was writing about class and military issues long before me and has articulated the issue of how the elites have dropped the ball on military service in his classic novel Fields of Fire. By the way, that’s a book Tom Wolfe calls “the greatest of the Vietnam novels.”
Mr. Webb’s son is a Marine in Iraq. That’s an uncommon fact in this era in which most political leaders’ children act as if it is only right and proper that it’s someone else’s war to fight.
Mr. Webb also happens to be running against a desperate opponent supported by people who circulated the stupid e-mail, something that reminds me of a 2000 smear campaign aimed at another war hero, John McCain.
I never served in the military. It was my son’s unexpected volunteering that connects me to the military family and to my country. And I’ve been voting Republican for years. My late father – Dr. Francis Schaeffer – was an evangelical theologian, friend to Jerry Falwell and White House guest of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and the first President Bush.
I have nice handwritten letters from various members of the Bush family, including Barbara, thanking me for my books on military service. So I have every reason to stay in the Republicans’ good graces. (It’s nice to be complimented on television by the First Lady.)
But enough is enough. I’ve had it with Republican smears.
Read the rest. Everyone has their breaking point. No one with a conscience can support George Allen for Senate. But it’s not only George Allen. There are several Republicans that have not explained their relationship with Jack Abramoff. There’s Doolittle, Jerry Lweis, and Duncan Hunter in California. Any one of them could be indicted before they can serve out their term. J.D. Hayworth in Arizona has a cloud of suspicion. Conrad Burns should clearly be in jail. Don Sherwood had to settle a suit accusing him of throttling his mistress. Tom Sweeney’s wife told a 911 operator that he was knocking her around the house. Mike Ferguson groped a college girl in a Georgetown bar. Several others, including Dennis Hastert, Tom Reynolds, and Deborah Pryce, preferred Mark Foley’s fundraising ability to the safety of children in the Congressional page system. Speaking of Hastert, he still hasn’t explained Sibel Edmonds’ allegations that he took bribes from Turkish operatives.
The GOP is rotten to the core and they’ve been selling people a bill of goods.