The most galling thing about the GOP’s current situation is having their loss of power pointed out in eloquent similes and metaphors by their arch-nemesis President Barack Hussein Obama – triple galling. Nevertheless, the majority of these guys are stalwart old hands at the politics game who refuse to concede gracefully, or at all, for that matter. The problem for the opposition, of course, is that the GOP is completely impervious to facts, data, or appeals to reason or, even, good manners. Once again, it will soon be up to American voters to decide, as they are often (some think too frequently) called upon to do, whether they are more comfortable with logic and change, or illogic and nostalgia for the “good old days”.
The thing that I enjoy the most about this little political passion play is that it has all the bathos, pathos and comic relief of great theater. It doesn’t do much for our national advancement or public image, however, and therein lies the rub. Currently, our global economic credibility as well as our standing as Moral Masters of the Universe is undeniably all shot to hell. But we are, after all, Americans and we are not about to admit such mistakes let alone tone down our insistence that the world will be a far better place if it just does things OUR way.
There are basically two ways forward: either recognize that we have made costly mistakes and change what we are doing, or double-down on old ways because we’ve persuaded ourselves that they worked once upon a time. The lines have been drawn, sides have been chosen and it would appear that both teams have settled on a “delay of game” strategy — and the fans are heading for the parking lot.
In my lifetime, I don’t remember a sillier political season than the current one, but these “players” are carrying on as if they are deadly serious which means one of two things: either they are buffoons or they think we are. Neither bodes well for any sort of sensible recovery and, since the electorate are the ones suffering the major body-blows in this debacle, we must be the ones to call out the deadweight on both teams and replace them, if necessary.
The Permanently Disabled List
House Minority Leader, John Boehner, scores pride of place on the list of GOP non-starters; not because of his rank as top Repub in the House, but because of his relentless (and too often successful) pursuit of an alternate reality. Rep. Boehner’s response to the public spanking the GOP received from Obama was to shoot off a fundraising email to the NRCC list crowing about how the GOP had man-handled Obama in the Q&A session at the GOP retreat last week. Really . . . ! Here’s a taste:
“[Obama] finally acknowledged that we’d been offering solutions — Democrats just haven’t listened. You see, we’re not just fighting to put the brakes on their jobs-killing agenda – we’re showing what a new Republican-led Congress would do differently.”
If that isn’t enough to get you out to vote, how scared do you have to be?
Boehner’s not the only one, either. Jeb (not Jim) Hensarling, another GOP Retreater, was also feeling his oats after his long-winded stump-speech-rehearsal-with-appended-question that eventually turned out to be about the deficit. Media Matters got hold of this one and gave it the full Monty, thus:
“Hensarling, the second-ranking Republican on the budget committee, claimed that “the old annual deficits under Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under Democrats,” thanks largely to the Obama administration’s policies.”
“In response, the president scolded Hensarling for deliberately distorting the facts. “That’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true,” Obama said, explaining that the deficit was $1.3 trillion before he even took office. “I am happy to have any independent fact checker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said,” he added.”
“The folks at PolitiFact.com, unsurprisingly, were eager to accept the president’s challenge. After analyzing both sides, they determined that Hensarling’s claim relied on “some serious cherry-picking” and rated it “false.” Meanwhile, they judged that Obama’s case was “mostly true.”
Evidently, that was not enough refutation to ground our invincible Deficit Hawk, Hensarling. He may be new at this but he knows how the game is played.
In his email asking for money, Hensarling responded to Obama’s “factually inaccurate” line with this:
“I worked hard to become an eagle scout, and I consider myself a man of honor. When I am wrong, I will be the first to admit it. But I am not wrong.”
Well cripes! – nobody told Obama Jeb was an Eagle Scout . . .
Not to put too fine a point on it, the National Republican Congressional Committee piled on with this critique from their Field Office on the Yellow Brick Road:
Historic Encounter: House Republicans Hold President Obama Accountable
“Democrat campaign rhetoric accusing Republicans of failing to offer any ideas was resoundingly proven false at the House Republican Conference Issues Conference.”
“There, in an historic televised encounter, President Obama was presented with a series of common sense solutions that would not explode the deficit or raise taxes. Following the President’s acknowledgement of Republican solutions, he, along with Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats, were then held accountable for their failure to work with Republicans, control spending and follow through on campaign promises.”
“Democrats continue to tune out Americans when it comes to legislating. The time has come to retire Nancy Pelosi and give Americans a voice in the direction of our country.”
“Please forward this on to your friends and family can watch these videos and support the NRCC.”
Astonishing . . .
But it’s not the end . . . emboldened by their imaginary public trouncing of Obama, the NRCC decided “in for a penny, in for a pound” and fired off a Robocall campaign calling for Nancy Pelosi’s firing. Why not? And the charges being levied against Speaker Pelosi? – she doesn’t play well with Republicans – ooooohhhh, it’s a miracle she’s still in office.
These things are, of course, all of a piece. The NRCC has long been banging the drum for Nancy Pelosi’s removal and John Boehner’s ascension to Speaker of the House. Which, of course, are two different issues but the NRCC likes to keep it simple for its base. If Nancy Pelosi were removed from office tomorrow (for God knows what plausible reason), John Boehner would not be moving into her office unless the GOP takes back the majority in the House – that’s why Boehner is walking around with that “Minority Leader” title. He’s a member of the House Minority. Now, suppose, the GOP does retake the majority in the House at some future date, that doesn’t necessarily mean that John Boehner will become the Speaker. His peers would have to vote him into that position. In politics as in the Magic Kingdom, wishing does not make it so . . .
[Full Disclosure: In my opinion, John Boehner is one of the more prominent “Fools on the Hill.”]
Oh No, Not Teh Gay Again
Now this Presidential Q&A fallout has been pretty illustrative of the dysfunction in our government but it is, by far, not the only thing going down on that front. Take, for example the brouhaha occurring over whether or not to officially allow gays to serve in the military – a perfect example of the games politicians play. This debate is even more spectacular than most, given our Puritan upbringing that historically dictates that gays shouldn’t be allowed to do anything but purchase lots of consumer goods and pay taxes.
I salute military prudence on this one (something I don’t do lightly). Admiral Mullen, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke in such a way that there can be very little argument to keep DADT, unless one chooses to stand with those without integrity. He has effectively exploded the myths that propped up Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as a necessary expedient to keep the military whole. The experience of other world armed services, which have long since abandoned a ban on homosexuals’ service, reinforce Adm. Mullen’s position. Even the last iconic holdout, Gen. Colin Powell has moved on and supports repeal of DADT.
Now. Since politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have repeatedly deferred to military leadership’s decision, when changes to DADT have come up, there is virtually nothing more to be said now that the military, through Admiral Mullen, have spoken. Right??
Not quite. John McCain, as expected, did not go quietly down that path, despite the fact that he has, time and again, said that he would support whatever the military decides. Of course that was during a Presidential campaign when one can’t afford to piss off the gay electorate. Here are his exact words from a speech given to a group of Iowa State students in 2006:
“The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.”
Well, so far the Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of Defense Gates, Colin Powell and Admiral Mullen have said “Senator, we ought to change the policy.” I suspect that McCain, in his wildest dreams, couldn’t imagine his beloved military throwing caution to the wind like this. I’m sure he felt, as did others who tossed this hot potato to the military, that society’s mores might change but that the military would forever be the province of the manly and the puritanical.
You can see the dumbfounded betrayal that McCain feels, in this video clip, that puts the lie to his previously stated flexibility on DADT:
Some thought that McCain might have just been having one of his legendary tantrums but that he would come around. Not to be — Sarah Libby of True/Slant reported well on the fallout:
“But now McCain is acting like far from a dutiful soldier: he promptly provided Gates and Mullen with a letter he said was “signed by over 1,000 former generals and flag officers who have weighed in” and think DADT should stay on the books. What’s almost comically hypocritical about McCain’s objection (I say almost, because this is people’s livelihood, dignity, and the very safety of our country we’re talking about) is his insistence that we should retain DADT because “At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.” Got that? At this moment of immense hardship we should be turning away skilled, able-bodied soldiers who want to serve. Talk about doing anything but putting “country first.”
McCain’s response was disturbing enough given his repeated affirmations that the military knew best and that he would support their decision (although, obviously, he never thought that day would come). But it took the gonzo, next generation of GOP kamikazes to take the debate to a whole new level of idiocy. Here’s Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) painfully contorted position on DADT as stated on CNN’s Situation Room program:
“Admiral Mullen and — and Secretary Gates are both political appointees. They’re going to be biased. They’re going to say what the administration wants them to say. What I want to talk to is the Marines Corps commandant. I want to talk to — to — to General Casey in — in the Army. I want to see what the military leaders — the actual service leaders have to say on this, because I think they’ll have a much different take than the political appointees.”
This left old Wolf Blitzer temporarily gob-smacked so he tried vainly to help Hunter walk his “biased Adm. Mullen” allegation back into safer territory; unfortunately, Hunter was having none of that. Blitzer, to his credit, even offered Hunter one more chance to save his credibility, here’s the exchange:
BLITZER: I just want to clarify what the Congressman is saying. You’re saying he’s biased?
HUNTER: Oh, he is biased to the administration. Yes. I believe so.
Blame it on his youth . . .
Having slept on it, though, Hunter decided to take another tack on DADT and show his true colors, this time in an NPR interview the following day, that put the silly icing on the absurd cake. Here’s that gem:
HUNTER: No, because I think it’s bad for the cohesiveness and the unity in the military especially those that are in close combat, close quarters in country right now, it’s not the time to do it. I think the military is not civilian (wha?) and I think the folks that have been in the military in very close situations with each other, there has to be a special bond there and I think that bond is broken. If you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.
HOST: Transgenders and hermaphrodites?
HUNTER: Yea, that’s going to be part of this thing. It’s not just gays and lesbians, it’s this whole thing.
As Jason Linkins of Huffington Post said of this – “Duncan Hunter is not a man to be taken seriously.”
Add to that Susan Collins’ pearl-clutching performance over the notion that we possibly lost valuable time-sensitive intelligence by not pulling out Umar Abdulmutallab’s fingernails when we had the chance. Instead, of course, the grown-ups decided to wait for Umar’s parents to fly over, tell him he’s been a very bad boy and that if he ever hopes to see his family again he damn well better cooperate with the FBI. The result of that time-wasting strategy was to get more and better intelligence from one troubled kid than all of the waterboarding in black sites has for years.
Jesus Wept . . .
Oh, and let’s not forget the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll that came out this week. Research 2000 is an independent, non-partisan polling outfit that sampled the responses of 2,000 self-identified Republicans. Keep in mind that these are card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans not right-leaning independents. Also, keep in mind that the GOP is the “incredible shrinking party” right now, with only 28% of American voters identifying as Republicans. Those two things make for pretty distilled results. Here are a few of the more colorful results from that poll:
Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?
Yes 39
No 32
Not Sure 29
Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
Yes 63
No 21
Not Sure 16
Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?
Yes 42
No 36
Not Sure 22
Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
Yes 24
No 43
Not Sure 33
Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?
Yes 53
No 14
Not Sure 33
Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?
Yes 31
No 36
Not Sure 33
Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?
Yes 23
No 58
Not Sure 19
Do you support the death penalty?
Yes 91
No 4
Not Sure 5
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military?
Yes 26
No 55
Not Sure 19
Should same sex couples be allowed to marry?
Yes 7
No 77
Not Sure 16
Should gay couples receive any state or federal benefits?
Yes 11
No 68
Not Sure 21
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?
Yes 8
No 73
Not Sure 19
From Markos’ introduction to the results:
“Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country. Their base are conspiracy mongers who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States, that he is the second coming of Lenin, and that he is racist against white people. They already want to impeach him despite the glaringly obvious lack of high crimes or misdemeanors. If any Republican strays and decides to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks.”
“Given what their base demands, and this poll illustrates them perfectly, it’s no wonder the GOP is the party of no.”
For you polling wonks, here’s the link to the unabridged poll results.
Given all of the above (which is the yield from just one week), I say, it’s no big surprise that our national discourse has taken a deep dive down the rabbit hole. How can there possibly be a sensible give-and-take in such an environment? Are we all extra-addled by our miserably failing everything?
I have only one word to offer – VOTE – any chance you get, any level of government; it’s the only way that we can possibly dig out of this mess. Vote for anyone – Democrat, Republican, Independent – that seems like a sane, reasonable person that you wouldn’t mind kicking back with on the front porch. Anyone who lies, steals, cheats or has been in government too long to have not done some combination of those things – vote ‘em OUT.
