Leaving the left
I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity

A Rush Interview:

RUSH: Yeah, exactly. How long has this piece of yours been in the works? It sounds like it didn't happen overnight.
THOMPSON: No, it did not happen overnight. And, you know, I've got -- by the way, you'll be interested to hear that I've gotten lots of response. But you know something? I have gotten a significant number of e-mails, over 200 from people in the Bay Area who describe themselves as progressives, as liberals, and even on the left, who said, "You have spoken for me. You've put words to something. Look, I still don't agree with Bush on the following issues, but I cannot abide this any longer myself," and I only gotten a handful of really negative stuff from what I call "the psychiatric wing of the party," the really crazy types. But I tell you, I don't mean to say that I'm a pied piper, I just had my ear to the ground and I'm looking to my own heart and I've been feeling this for some time. One person wrote me and said, "Gee, you know, you felt that about Ronald Reagan back in the eighties about the Soviet Union. How come it took you this long?" and I thought about it. I wrote him back and I said, "Have you ever had one of those experiences where, you know, when you take the garbage out on a Thursday morning -- they're going to pick up the garbage on a Thursday morning -- you set the garbage in a plastic bag on the inside of the door Wednesday night intending to take it out? Well, I forgot to take it out for about ten years," which is to say these thoughts had been ruminating and marinating, and truly it was a pivotal point for me. It all came together when I saw after the Iraq elections the people on Fox News and CNN, on your show and all the other, and mainstream -- you know, NBC, CBS, all of them. The people cheering for the Iraqis were conservative.

RUSH: Yeah.
THOMPSON: The people who were looking for -- spinning marvelous variety of excuses about why democracy is still likely, could very well fail, Nancy Pelosi, Lynn Woolsey, my congresswoman here in California, Ted Kennedy, so-called legitimate mainstream liberals putting forth remarkably well thought out scenarios about how it could fail, and I said, "What is going on?"

RUSH: How they wanted it to fail, Keith.

THOMPSON: Oh, wanted it to fail, absolutely correct.

RUSH: They wanted it to fail.

THOMPSON: They needed it because they need -- the line I felt strongest about was, "They wanted democracy to fail more than they loved freedom," or they wanted George Bush to fail. There's a mania. I mean, you know it well. You deal with it every day. There has not been this mania in the country against a president since Nixon, and I gotta tell you, that includes Bill Clinton. I supported Bill Clinton. He was kind of the last straw for me -- and I know he took a lot of hard-core stuff from the right, but I'll tell you, nothing like Nixon and Bush have received from the left.

RUSH: I got one minute here before I have to take a break. Where do you think the left is headed?

THOMPSON: I think it's a historical defunct dead end. I think, you know [a] scientist said, science precedes "funeral by funeral," and that's a way of saying when people who can't change don't change they die off. It sounds Machiavellian, but I think there's a new generation of young people, they read books like South Park Conservatives. They're not buying it anymore.

RUSH: Well, we'll see. It's clearly a point of view that you've written about that has not yet reached the leadership of the Democratic Party.

THOMPSON: No, I don't mean to say that. They're going to hold on, and there are some good people that call themselves liberals. When I call myself a liberal I mean it in the sense of liberal democracy. If you read Bobby Kennedy's speech in 1966 in South Africa, it reads like something you'd give or Bill Bennett would give.

RUSH: Well, the same thing with Hubert Humphrey talking about "family values" back in the sixties, and that's the thing that amazed me, and it's what your piece is really all about and that is the liberals of today-- Well, let's put it this way: JFK, were he to be alive today thinking as he thought when he was alive, would not have a home in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Keith, I gotta run but it's great to hear from you. A great piece, and thanks for the call.

Egyptian Christian held in mental hospital
Doctors say he'll stay there until he recants conversion from Islam
Now taking bets as to how long this tactic will take to make it to America.