Carlson
Well, frumps, evidently the past week’s political mayhem have broken the GOP’s brain – again. There is so much pseudo-analysis, punditry, pronouncements and renunciations; tea partying and strategizing that the Right is sounding even more like the Babel Party than usual. The “crazy” has such a death grip on the GOP that they appear to have lost their collective ability to distinguish fact from fiction or even wild ravings.
Yesterday was an action-packed day in DC showcasing just how far Republicans have strayed from the reality of their situation. It probably didn’t help, either, that so much was going on in a city still trying to parse odd off-election results that did nothing to clarify much of anything. I haven’t seen such ado over nothing in a long time.
There were bound to be tears following the bizarre “Rush to Endorsement” for the “unknown conservative” who coughed up a brand new Progressive seat in the House just when the Speaker could use one the most . . . thank you very much. The analysis of that event is a perfect illustration of how fragmented the GOP has become.
From the ever-frightful Erick Erickson at RedState.com we learned that the loss of the NY-23 House seat was really a “conservative win” and how the GOP needs to pay attention and pull conservatives back into the tent. Erickson’s rationale is that
“Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won.”
Huh??? Were we to combine Owens’ and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won, too. But we can’t and we didn’t and we won’t and he lost. And he lost because the Conservatives don’t want to be in the GOP tent; they are as disenchanted with the GOP as with the Democratic Party.
EE then shares even more cogent analysis with this humdinger:
“Secondly, and just as importantly, there has all of a sudden been a huge movement among some activists to go the third party route. We see in NY-23 that this is not possible as third parties are not viable. Third parties lack funding and ability for a host of reasons.”
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Independents. Actually, I guess Erickson hasn’t noticed that, if you go by the numbers, the Republican Party (25%) is currently a “third party” in the U.S – lagging way behind Independents (41%) and Democrats (32%). So maybe he’s right, after all, because the GOP certainly isn’t looking real “viable” these days.
According to Chairman Steele
Meanwhile, we have Chairman Steele trying desperately to be right and flip-flopping away like a perch on a pier. Maybe he shouldn’t have stayed up all night bloviating about health care reform with his buddy Mike Pence. He hasn’t changed his position in the past 2 hours, though, so I guess we can now average these two polar positions and nail down where the RNC stands:
A little later we heard from this Michael Steele:
“Hours after Michael Steele warned moderate Republicans that they woud be targeted if they didn’t support conservative principles, the RNC Chairman called discussion of intra-party feuding “stupid” and insisted that the GOP would lose if “we play politics amongst our own.”
“In a conference call with grassroots Republicans leaders to thank them for the work they did in winning two governor’s seats in the 2009 election, Steele laid out a blueprint for expanding on the early success. The RNC chair stressed the need to avoid having Republicans target one another. “It is the first way to screw yourself,” he said.”
Bachmann-alia
Just to round things out and inject a note of hysteria, Michelle Bachmann invited her loyal base to pop in on the House for a last ditch whack at the health care pinata. Yesterday’s Tea Party was notable for only one thing – it was an officially sponsored GOP event. The same diverse grab-bag of the variously disgruntled descended on Congress. An estimated 3,000 to 3,500 Christian Conservatives, Minutemen, Libertarians, Secessionists and Photo-shoppers turned out at the bidding of Princess Wingnut.
The grassroots gang spouted the same incoherent mix of extreme mis- and disinformation, made the same veiled threats and perhaps slightly less sense (although it must be noted that they have definitely honed their skills in the poster, placard and banner division). Huffington Post has a photo gallery of the most disturbing of those artifacts.
Sentiments like “Waterboard Congress,” and “Ken-ya Trust Obama?” were well represented. President Obama was depicted variously as a “Traitor to the U.S. Constitution,” “Black Sambo” and the “Commie in the White House.” There were plenty of Health Care Reform = Holocaust entries; one even showed pictures of stacked dead bodies at the Dachau concentration camp. And of course the anti-Semites contributed their “Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds” sign.
As I mentioned earlier, the most notable difference between yesterday’s teabaggery and that of the summer Town Halls was that just about the entire GOP House Leadership turned out to court the rabble this time. It’s hard for me to imagine any sane adult looking out over a small sea (okay, a bog) of demonstrators waving outrageously disrespectful, racist, ignorant sentiments and egging them on in the hope of adding them to the electoral base. How craven is that?
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell managed to snag Eric Cantor and press him on how advisable or not it might be to promote the ugliness that was so apparent. Cantor predictably ducked and feinted and made a feeble, laughable attempt to downplay the nastiness as being a normal byproduct of Americans’ frustration with Obama and the Democrats.
Nice try, Eric; you know it’s revolting and damaging but you just can’t say so if it means alienating the remaining batch of yahoos who are enthusiastic about the GOP’s undivided attention. It’s also a little baffling that an educated man could know that the President enjoys a 53% approval rating right now (same as Ronald Reagan, by the way, at the end of his first year) but somehow still believe that the Obama administration is so oppressively horrible that it could be blamed for driving these lovely ordinary citizens into an all-consuming, hateful state of distraction. Is it just me? or does that seem delusional?
Poor Eric had an especially tough day, though, because while he was out blowing kisses to the lunatic fringe, the President was busy thanking the AARP and AMA for endorsing Health care reform. Those endorsements were a nice surprise for Democrats and resulted in a nasty case of pouty splutters from the minority whip:
“House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va) scoffed and downplayed the significance of two major health-care related interest groups endorsing Democratic authored legislation. Calling the decision of AARP — a senior citizens lobby — to back health care reform “puzzling,” Cantor insisted that it wouldn’t affect a single Republican’s vote.”
“I don’t think the endorsement of a Washington-based group is going to sway members as much as what they are hearing from their constituents at home,” the Virginia Republican told a crowd of reporters. “It is really puzzling as to why the AARP will endorse a bill that the CBO indicates will take almost 500 billion dollars out of Medicare. It is just, to me, something I can’t quite understand why they would do that. I suspect that they will get a lot of push back from their members.”
Well Eric, you might be half-right, I’m a member of AARP and I suspect that the endorsement was the direct result of “push back from their members.” There’s nothing Cantor or anyone could tell me that would persuade me that “constituents at home” are clamoring for their representatives to “Kill the Bill.” I guess that the “health care reform will destroy Medicare” meme has been so useful to the GOP that they are starting to believe it. You guys really need to get out of your bubble every once in a while.
“As far as the AMA endorsement is concerned,” Cantor said. “I frankly do not think the AMA represents the wishes of the physicians in the communities throughout the ground in this country.”
Then who does, Eric?
One thing we can all be certain of and that is that if the AARP and AMA had endorsed the GOP health care bill Republicans would be sporting AARP and AMA tattoos in no time.
See You in November
Yesterday’s political circus did yield up some priceless moments to store away for future reference when these clowns decide to run for office again:
There was Rep. Todd Akin who decided that a rousing chorus of the Pledge of Allegiance would be just the ticket because it’s such a well-known fact that the word “God,” just drives your basic Libruls crazy.
As John Amato at Crooks and Liars noted:
“I guess he doesn’t understand history very well because the original “Pledge of Allegiance” never had the word “God” in it at all, but nothing is allowed to interfere with their conservative/religious talking points.”
In his frenzy to say the words “UNDER GOD” with appropriate bravado, however, Akins managed to botch the rest of the pledge, leaving out the “indivisible” part. Freudian much?
Then we had John Boehner who, knowing the group’s fondness for the Constitution decided to treat them to the magical moment of a real, live legislator quoting the Constitution at them; unfortunately, after setting up the Constitutional moment, Boehner laid a nice quote from the Declaration of Independence on the crowd, instead. The crowd let it pass, after all, Boehner has already confided that he’s not much of a “reader.”
On a more serious note, though, David Corn scored a few points on the GOP leadership on Politics Daily:
“Extremism was also flowing from the podium, where Republican House members were eager for microphone time. Boehner, for one, declared that the health care bill is the “greatest threat to freedom that I have seen.” That’s some statement – a greater threat than Hitler’s Nazism or Soviet communism? About the same time he was speaking, Obama was making a surprise appearance at the White House daily press briefing to tout the fact that the American Medical Association and AARP, the powerful seniors lobby, have each endorsed the health care reform bill.”
“Here’s a question for Boehner: Are these two groups opposed to freedom? And at one point during the rally — call it a Bachmannalia — when John Ratzenberger, aka Cliff Clavin from “Cheers,” claimed that the Democrats were turning the United States into a land of European socialism, the audience shouted, “Nazis, Nazis.” No Republican legislator left the stage in protest. Boehner and his fellow GOP leaders should be asked how they feel about mounting a rally that attracted intense hate-mongering.”
All Good Things Must End in Arrest
The Bachmann-alia wound up with a call to action issued by Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) who gestured toward the House office buildings and shouted, “Go get ‘em!” Shortly thereafter, ten Operation Rescue-ites, sprinkled with fake blood and sporting large chains were arrested for disorderly conduct outside House Speaker Pelosi’s office in the Cannon Building, where they were crumpling up and tossing the health-care bill one page at a time.
Now Showing in a Parallel Universe Near You
Democrats are predictably gleeful over the AARP and AMA endorsements which are bound to help build momentum for tomorrow’s House vote on the final House version of the health care reform bill. Obama is planning to address the Democrats before the vote and, who knows, he might even be emboldened to go for broke.
Actually, that might be a very good thing; one recent intriguing theory to explain the GOP’s descent into utter madness is that Republicans are afraid that Obama might turn out to be the Democrat’s “Ronald Reagan.” If there’s any truth to that, it’s no wonder the GOP has gone all ninja. They’re imagining they’re in a primal struggle for survival. As they well know, to the victor go the “lobby dollars.”
That theory goes a long way toward explaining the relentless smear attempts, the ridicule and demonization and assaults on Obama’s legitimacy that has become GOP’s sole contribution for a year now. Most important it explains the obsessive behavior that has become characteristic of the “Party of No.” Republicans are afraid that if Americans benefit from any Obama policy a new Permanent Majority might be created relegating them to an equally “permanent” minority.
Here’s a telling glimpse of that fear coming from Orrin Hatch:
Technorati Tags: Republican Party, GOP, Democratic Party, Michelle Bachmann, John Boehner, Todd Akin, Eric Cantor, Erick Erickson, Orrin Hatch
