GOP AIN’T GOT NO CLASS

The Republican Party this week finally solved an ages-old question about the difference between modern Republicans and Democrats, making it easy at last for ordinary folk to spot the difference.

The Republican Party ain’t got no class.

Zero.

Zippo.

Now it’s easy to pick on a group that has long defined “class” as a synonym of “us.” So to a Republican, someone without class was someone who was a “not us.” You know, the sort of folk who got sweaty when they worked and not when they played.

That made them quite different in Republican eyes from the reputable sorts who sweated torrents on the tennis courts and not a drop when they signed layoffs for a few thousand families two days before Christmas. Business, after all is business.

Well, yes, it is.

And cheap, no-account, low-class behavior is cheap, no-account, low-class behavior. The kind that would get you shunned on any street corner, and even – maybe, just maybe – the subject of an archly raised eyebrow at the club.

But let’s not get too graphic.

When Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy finally lost a hand in the game of Showdown he’s played with brain cancer for more than a year, the website of the Democratic National Committee had a tribute.

Expected, after all. Kennedy championed Democratic causes for almost a half-century. The White House had kind words – not a surprise on the passing of a man whose endorsement may have given the current renter the final edge.

And Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and John McCain had words of respect. So did Newt Gingrich. And so did Former President George W. Bush, his dad, Former President George H.W. Bush , Nancy Reagan, and even, apparently speaking for himself and taking care to say “I” and “my” as he offered condolences, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

Those good folk saluted a fallen friend and a fallen ideological foe – never mind that he was on the other side, he had fought the good fight and those who do that recognize it in friend and foe alike.

But then there’s the Republican National Committee, the official voice of the Republican Party.

What statement did the RNC make on its website on Wednesday, August 26, 2009, when news of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s passing flowed across the country with the morning sun?

Well, they issued a statement honoring Women’s Equality Day.

And if by late Thursday evening they had said anything else, I couldn’t find it.

Nor could I find any indication that the party of Ronald Reagan had become anything other than a collection of the small-minded and mean-spirited – folks who ain’t got no class.

Maybe the folks who still do and yet call themselves Republicans ought to start wondering about the company they keep.

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