An American Lion

U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith, (R) Alabama

Southern United States, I’m not as enamored of you as I once was. Alabama? Is it still in the Union or has it been awarded to the territory of East Mississippi as part of the Louisiana Purchase?

In the 1980s, you were all good for a laugh. I remember your cheap suits and your badly-tied ties. I remember your overly-familiar way of backslapping and jawboning, and I was never able to loosen up and eat grits or watch The Dukes of Hazzard with you. I remember attending the Republican National Conventions in 1980 and 1984, and I was struck by the ridiculousness of some of the Southern politicians and their fervent belief in family values and Christian values. I say that because those same men were often caught with the floozies no decent man would touch. As you know, I adore whores, but floozies with their business hanging out? I break with you there, brother. So, when I say you’re hypocrites, it’s because I love you, and because I’ve been with you in those hotels, and because I’ve seen what you stick your willies into, and I wasn’t impressed then and I’m not impressed with you now.

A “Blue Dog” Democrat from Alabama, who has spoken out against Health Care reform, has seen the shifting of the political winds. He has abandoned the Democrat Party and now he’s calling himself a Republican.

POLITICO has learned that Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican.

 According to two senior GOP aides familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place this afternoon in Griffith’s district in northern Alabama.

 Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.

 The switch represents a coup for the House Republican leadership, which had been courting Griffith since he publicly criticized the Democratic leadership in the wake of raucous town halls during the summer.

 Griffith, who captured the seat in a close 2008 open seat contest, will become the first Republican to hold the historically Democratic, Huntsville-based district. A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties—and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.

How does a man get to the age of 67 and then suddenly decide that he is a Republican? I don’t get that at all. I’m 65, I’m a certified badass, and I’m an Independent now because the Republican Party has transformed itself into a radical bastion of screaming anti-government Jesus Freak nutjobs. There is no place in today’s Republican Party for my Rockefeller Republican ways and my fiscally conservative but socially moderate beliefs.

Griffith is just pulling a stunt. His switch embarrasses the Democrat Party, but, then again, the Democrat Party just embarrasses itself nowadays. Who even notices anymore?

In the old days, the Republican Party would show him the door, and he’d end up broken and humiliated by the rejection. This is not like joining the Rotary Club. This is more like being a Mason, you know. When I was inducted into the Republican Party, Father had to pay $6,000 to some Congressman in Missouri he didn’t even know to make it happen. In today’s dollars, that would be…who the hell knows? Let’s say it would be $165,000 in order to make this more interesting.

If you haven’t figured out by the age of 67 what’s what, I don’t want to know you (the cutoff is 65—everyone knows this). You switch from Democrat or Republican to Independent late in life based on where the party has diverged with your values. You don’t switch from one to the other unless you’re trying to hang on to your pathetic job.