What's with these guys?

Do Republicans have any decency at all?

I can understand political attacks directed at an opponent to make him look weak, uninformed and not part of the main stream, but geez, when you go after the neurodivergent child of a candidate, well, that gets pretty low.

That's what happened the other night when vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was speaking about his family during the acceptance speech at the Democracic National Convention. Walz's 17-year-old son, Gus, erupted into tears of joy and the national TV audience saw him point to his father on the stage while mouthing the words, "That's my dad!"

Most viewers saw Gus's display of love and tears as endearing.

But not all.

"Now that's weird," posted conservative columnist and lightening rod Ann Coulter on Elon Musk's social platform X almost as soon as Walz was done leaping for joy. And, apparently, she wasn't the only one.

Souless.

It seems that conservative males become emasculated when they shed tears of joy (or pain, or grief, or heartache), according to recent Republican canon for manhood.

Coulter took down her post when she learned that Gus had learning disabilities, but not without claiming – and I paraphrase here – "well, the Democrats called Republicans weird first." Which totally misses the point in addition to sounding childish.

This episode reminds me of the time when convicted felon Donald Trump, who is the Republican candidate for president and is seeking a second term, mocked severely disabled New York Times journalist Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition.

That was during Trump's first campaign back in 2015, but it apparently opened the doors for sheer, thoughtless meaness to sweep across the country. We see the results to this day. If a presidential candidate can do that, why can't the rest of us?

In a similar but different vein, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan accused the Dems of stealing Republican values during their convention this past week. Values like faith and patriotism.

Say what?

I generally respect Noonan's opinion on most things, but she missed the boat on this. Those aren't Republican values. They're American values. As David Corn, the Washington DC bureau chief for Mother Jones responded, "Stole? No one has an exclusive claim to patriotism." 

C'mon, Peggy. Be better than that.

C'mon, Republicans. Be better than that.

All of us need to be better than that.