Yesterday’s obscene comments about President-Elect Obama by Georgia Republican Paul Broun were only less disturbing than his attempted apology for them. The Congressman stated that he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force, that’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential.”

The comments are beneath contempt and do not even deserve a response from those who support the President-Elect. But those who oppose him, and this nation needs those people as well, must speak out against Broun’s remarks. The Republican Party is at a cross-road. Its leaders must decide if it will slip into four years of ugly heckling or actually make a responsible contribution to the future of this country. How they respond to one of their own is an important indicator of which way they want to go.
Clearly, Congressman Broun does not appreciate the grotesque nature of his words.

The apologies that he offered were characterized by an obvious lack of regret for the contents of his words. Instead he offered regret for any distress that his words caused others, remarking, “I apologize to anybody that’s taken offense”.
Precisely because we need Republican voices now more than ever, because a vibrant minority is crucial to a successful democracy, I hope that Broun’s colleagues speak out. Responsible minority voices are the best corrective on what Tocqueville called the tyranny of the majority. I don’t fear tyranny, but his point was valid 200-plus years ago and we can learn from it still.

In fact, he was preceded by 1,700 years about the importance of minority views by the sages of the Mishna. They too appreciated the importance of multiple opinions and the value of keeping even the losing view in play at all times. Now is the time to draw on these past wisdoms and assure that the change which this country seeks become something more than an ugly ideological battle.
The greatest follow-up to a presidential election in which unprecedented numbers of voters participated, would be four years in which an unprecedented number of opinions and views could be shared responsibly and respectfully across our nation. We’ll see.