Even Russia thinks Republicans are stuck in the 1970s

From Indecision Forever:

If you watched the season premiere of Mad Men on Sunday, you might be forgiven for mistaking one of its scenes of boys' club back-slapping for a GOP debate. Given their attitudes toward birth control and homosexuality, the Republicans seem to be stuck in the past.

And it's not just Democrats who've noticed…

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweaked Mitt Romney for his characterization of Russia as the "No. 1 geopolitical foe" of the United States, saying the comments did not reflect the current relationship between the two countries.

"It is very reminiscent of Hollywood and also of a certain phase in Russian-U.S. relations," Medvedev said at the end of the nuclear security summit in South Korea Tuesday…

"My first advice is to listen to reason when they formulate their positions. Reason never harmed a presidential candidate," Medvedev said. "My other advice is to check their watches from time to time: it is 2012, not the mid-1970s."

In post-Soviet Russia, Russia makes fun of you.

Republicans haven't noticed it, not yet, but we won the Cold War. The Soviet Union disintegrated. Russia is still authoritarian, like many of the countries we deal with, but it's not the enemy.

And no, the Dutch aren't the enemy, either. (Is it any wonder that the rest of the world makes fun of us - and, at the same time, fears us?)

In fact, we have a relative scarcity of enemies these days - mostly just rag-tag groups of religious nuts using improvised explosives. Oh, there's Iran, too - the government, not the people. But the eagerness of Republican leaders to start yet a third war in the Middle East - again, without paying for it, I'm sure - is frightening, indeed.

But Republicans love enemies. They love to hate, they love the military - except when it comes to either fighting in it or paying for it, themselves - and they love having enemies. I'm convinced they feel lost without enemies.

And the world is a dangerous place, too. But it's more dangerous when you see everyone as an enemy. We need to be rational about such things.

I don't like Russia's leaders much, but Medvedev is right about this. Republicans need to stop formulating their foreign policy positions from Hollywood movies. And reason never hurt any one.

Well, OK, it's true that reason would make it harder to get nominated in today's Republican Party. That's why Republican politicians have "refudiated" reason just as strongly as they've "refudiated" science.