Category Archives: Republican Party

So Much for Bobby Jindal

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Earlier this week, Gov. Jindal sold out the unemployed people of Louisiana for the sake of his own political career. Well, folks, all indications are that Jindal’s career is pretty much over now. He’s still governor of Louisiana, of course, but his performance last night delivering the GOP rebuttal to President Obama’s speech was so bad even the Right is embarrassed by it.

As Tbogg says, if even the rightie blogger Ace of Spades is calling you a dork, “There’s not enough Bactineâ„¢ in the world to make that sting go away.”

The Faux Nooz panel panned Jindal’s delivery, although not what he said. David Brooks, on the other hand, was embarrassed by what Jindal said:

Today Michael Gerson has a puff piece on Jindal in the Washington Post, indicating that the GOP was planning to promote him as the future of the party. Well, kiss that off. He’s toast.

Some of the most interesting, in an anthropological sense, responses are on R.S. McCain’s site. McCain (in short, “He’s no Sarah Palin”), wrote,

A big wiffle-ball swing and a miss for the consensus favorite 2012 candidate of Republicans who look down their nose at Sarah Palin.

And the first commenter said,

I think she has bigger balls. Seriously, this guys burnt Milquetoast.

I think McCain may be right that Jindal was being groomed by the faction of GOP insiders who consider Palin a disaster for the party. And I also think the commenter is right that Jindal fails to manifest the macho swagger so essential to a true movement conservative leader. The candidate who makes their extremities tingle is one who reflects their resentments and fears and sasses back to the scary, dark world with style and lots of ‘tude. Whether the candidate can find Canada on a map is irrelevant.

See also:

John Cole, “The Morning After Look at the Jindal Response”

Greg Veis, “Epic Fail, SOTU Rebuttal Version”

Polls: “Stop the Insanity”

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Glenn Greenwald looks at polls to shred apart the “Americans want bipartisanship” myth. In polls and in the voting booth, the only time Americans are expressing a desire for bipartisanship is when it is applied to Republicans.

Let me suggest that what Americans long for is not “bipartisanship,” but sanity. They’re tired of the clown show.

People allegedly want “bipartisanship.” The nation’s political and media powers translate that to mean people want both parties to have an equal say in government, and that policies should be crafted to the “center” of the current political spectrum in Washington.

But I do not think that’s what most people want at all. What most people want are politicians to stop squabbling like children and get serious about governing. They are tired of childish partisan games sucking all the energy out of government. They want real problems addressed in a real-world way. They don’t care which party is in power so long as that party is behaving like grownups.

The GOP continues to behave like 2-year-old stuck in the “no!” phase.

I think what people want from Washington isn’t “bipartisanship” as the villagers understand the word. What they want might more honestly be called “post-partisan” or “anti-partisan” or just plain “not-partisan.” They want the games to stop.

That doesn’t mean they expect Congress to be of one mind. However, they want opposition to the administration to come from somewhere else than Mars. They want opposition that comes from an honest desire to solve problems and make America better, not from whatever pathological character disorders propel right-wingers to grab power, by any means, that they clearly are not responsible to hold.

If you look at today’s headlines, you’d think President Obama is somehow failing the people on “bipartisanship.” For example, the Washington Post: “Obama Gets High Marks for 1st Month, But Survey Finds Sharp Erosion in Bipartisan Support”

Large majorities of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll support his $787 billion economic stimulus package and the recently unveiled $75 billion plan to stem mortgage foreclosures. Nearly seven in 10 poll respondents said Obama is delivering on his pledge to bring needed change to Washington, and about eight in 10 said he is meeting or exceeding their expectations. At the same time, however, the bipartisan support he enjoyed as he prepared to take office has eroded substantially amid stiff Republican opposition to his major economic initiatives.

In other words, everyone but bitter-ender Republicans approves of Obama. Then the pathological intransigence of the GOP is framed as Obama’s failure and not theirs.

For ABC News, Gary Langer reports — “A Strong Start for Obama – But Hardly a Bipartisan One.”

Barack Obama’s month-old presidency is off to a strong start, marked by the largest lead over the opposition party in trust to handle the economy for a president in polls dating back nearly 20 years. But the post-partisanship he’s championed looks as elusive as ever.

Again, when people express a desire for “post-partisan” government, this does not mean they want right-wing lunatics to have an equal say in government. They want the insanity to stop. Cenk Uygur explains:

As DougJ at Balloon Juice says, “villager” opinion and public opinion have rarely been so far apart.

Choosing Sides

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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has chosen to refuse $90 million of federal dollars that would have benefited his state’s unemployed citizens. His reason for this is that the state would have been required to change its own laws and expand unemployment eligibility. The federal money would fund the expansion for only three years, after which time the state would have to tax businesses to make up the slack. Therefore, accepting the $90 million would hurt business.

Of course, there is no earthly reason why Louisiana couldn’t plan on phasing out the expansion once the federal money ran out. We’re in an emergency mode, after all. And one would think that putting a little extra money into the pockets of Louisiana residents would be, you know, good for business. People who understand these matters better than I do say that unemployment benefits are a particularly effective stimulus, because nearly every penny is spent:

Temporary increases in unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are particularly effective as stimulus: the benefits go to workers who have lost their jobs, so the added income is likely to be spent quickly. As CBO director Orszag recently told the House Budget Committee, “research has shown that the unemployment insurance system is among the most effective dollar-for-dollar economic stabilizers that we have in terms of counterbalancing periods of economic weakness.”

Already Louisiana is a state that receives more in federal tax dollars than it pays. According to the Tax Foundation, in 2005 for every dollar paid in federal income taxes, Louisiana got $1.30 back. Louisiana got $1.37 back in 2004, so don’t blame Katrina.

Governor Jindal, however, has chosen sides. He is being hailed as a hero by the wingnuts, who are calling the federal dollars a “bribe” and the stipulations attached to it “unconstitutional.”

On the other hand, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just signed into law a $12.5 billion tax increase. Michael Finnegan writes for the Los Angeles Times,

With that, the Republican governor broke one of the few bonds left between his shrunken party and California’s mainstream voters, marring its hard-won image as a guardian against higher taxes.

Actually, California has a hard-won image of a state that lacks the sense to come in out of the rain, or back away from a mudslide, or whatever.

To be sure, none of the GOP lawmakers who demanded that the state close its $42-billion shortfall without raising taxes detailed the doomsday cuts that approach would entail, nor did the activists who lobbied against the tax increases. If the state had laid off its entire workforce of 238,000 — every prison guard, firefighter and clerk — it still would have fallen billions shy of a balanced budget.

I bet no one in the GOP still is talking about a constitutional amendment that would allow Ahnold to be president.

Anyway, these two governors have chosen their sides. Gov. Jindal chose to stay on the sinking ship that is the GOP. Gov. Schwarzenegger, whatever his many faults, at least is smart enough to know when it’s time to grab a lifeboat.

Update: From Liberal Journal —

Keeping money out of the hands of the unemployed during a severe recession is just the kind of stunt that could vault him to the top of the Republican Presidential primary field in 2012. And with potential competition from the mighty Sarah Palin, BJ can’t leave anything to chance.

Exactly.

I Bet They Have Secret Handshakes, Too

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Lest you think this is an exaggeration,

Four Tennessee state representatives, all Republicans, have signed up to be plaintiffs in a lawsuit against President Barack Obama, aimed at forcing him to prove he is a United States citizen by coughing up his birth certificate.

After the November elections, the rightie blogosphere smugly declared that, yeah, maybe they lost, but at least they weren’t going to get crazy like loony liberals and their Bush Derangement Syndrome. So all this weekend the righties were in a state of hysterical meltdown because President Obama chose to return a bust of Winston Churchill on loan from Britain.

Update: This is, of course, not the least bit deranged.

Conservative Economics: Let’s Make Sense!

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Sean Paul Kelly of The Agonist found this video clip from August 2006. As Sean Paul says, I don’t know anything about Peter Schiff, but he was right, and econoclown Arthur Laffer is, um, not. The word “fool” doesn’t even come close.

BTW, I understand Laffer has come out against any sort of stimulus package, but I can’t find a direct link to anything he’s written since last fall. Maybe he’s not well; he’s too big a fool to actually shut up.

Dennis Waldman, aka Kagro X, at Congress Matters has a look back at what Republicans said about Bill Clinton’s economic policies in 1993. Give it a look; it’s a hoot.

Republicans: Let’s make sense!

The “Stim”

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The final (probably) stimulus bill passed the House today with no Republicans votes, and it is expected to pass in the Senate this evening with three Republican votes. Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin write in The Politico that

Emboldened by his victory on the stimulus package — but chastened by the pothole-pocked road that got him there — -President Barack Obama and his aides are plunging ahead on a large and expensive agenda that virtually assures 2009 will be marked by intense partisan battles about the size and role of government.

OK, so the GOP does nothing but say no, so the bill will be passed without them. And since it’s clear they are not going to participate in government, as opposed to playing partisan games, the President and his team are going ahead and doing what they want to do, and the hell with the Republicans. There’s nothing to be gained by offering them concessions. But Allen and Martin say it’s the President and his team who will virtually assure future intense partisan battles. OK.

I’m hearing Rachel Maddow point to a Republican congresswoman who said she didn’t vote for the stimulus bill because it included improvement on mass transit infrastructure. Republicans hate mass transit. Mass transit is socialism, you know.

Meanwhile, Charles Mahtesian writes for The Politico that Republicans have been emboldened by Judd Gregg’s withdrawal from the Commerce Secretary nomination.

… the New Hampshire senator’s surprise decision to remove himself from consideration as President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary Thursday has provided the GOP with a new rallying cry, and a new hero against a foe who just a few weeks ago seemed almost unassailable.

Uh, as a “victory” Gregg’s flip flop doesn’t even qualify as symbolic or moral. It’s just odd. And I doubt the American people give a bleep. The Republicans in Congress are becoming a weird roll-playing cult. I bet they all have fantasy personae and cool costumes. They meet in basements and play a game in which they pretend to be legislators.

Eating Their Own (Friday the 13th)

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You probably heard that Sen. Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination as Commerce Secretary. You are probably happy about this. I know I am.

What’s going on? I think Andrew Sullivan is right. One, the Republican Party has declared total war on the Obama Administration. Never mind that Americans are suffering. Never mind that the economic meltdown has replaced terrorism as the number one threat against America. All that matters to the GOP is that President Obama fails badly enough that they can win some seats back in Congress in 2010.

The BooMan thinks the current unified front against Obama will crack and crumble soon enough. He may be right; I hope he is. But it appears the GOP chose to destroy Judd Gregg’s political career rather than quietly stand by and allow him to take the Commerce Secretary position.

The story that’s current at the moment is that originally it was Judd Gregg who approached the Obama team and asked to be part of the administration. Not long ago Sen. Gregg had spoken out in favor of the idea of a big stimulus bill. But the Republican Party, as Andy Sullivan says, made Gregg’s position untenable. He recused himself on the stimulus bill vote, which managed to piss off everyone on the political spectrum. He’s so bruised up now he’s saying he won’t run for re-election to the Senate in 2010, although I understand he has left himself room to change his mind.

By all appearances, Gregg must have caught hell from his party for considering a cabinet position. It’s the most likely explanation for his behavior.

For more commentary, see No More Mr. Nice Blog, Tom Edsall, and Michael Tomasky.

Alerts

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First, I anticipate that sometime today the site will be down while the theme template is being changed. This should not take hours and hours, I don’t think.

Second, today is the 200th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Gallup did a poll showing that only 4 in 10 Americans believed in evolution. I personally think “believing in” evolution is irrelevant. The relevant question is, do you understand it? If you understand it, then you see how it works and how the process of evolution makes life on this planet possible. It’s not a matter of belief.

Third, demonstrating all the understanding and compassion of rabid wolverines, the Fetus People are going after a Planned Parenthood clinic for counseling an 11-year-old who was raped by her boyfriend. The 11-year-old said the clinic counselors helped her cope. But the Fetus People are outraged because the clinic didn’t notify the police. Of course, if the girl had asked them not to, because she wasn’t able to deal with the police, and the clinic had betrayed her wishes, the rape victim would have been put through more emotional anguish and trauma. But who cares about the rape victim? All that’s important is to attack and destroy Planned Parenthood.

Fourth, the usual mouth breathers continue to deride Barack Obama for his lack of leadership abilities. Fine; let them continue to look ridiculous. They’re only fooling themselves.

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

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You’ve probably heard that there’s a joint House-Senate stimulus bill agreement. It’s all over but the signing.

I’m listening to Jonathan Alter on Countdown saying he’d just passed through Times Square, and that it is empty. Times Square is the theater district. In the evening it’s usually swarming with tourists. Yes it’s a weeknight, and February, but empty? That’s so sad. I’m sure he meant it is empty compared to what it usually is, not completely devoid of people. But still, it’s sad.

On September 13, 2001, still in shock from the terrorist attacks, I left Grand Central and walked west on 42nd Street to Times Square. It was bustling. There was considerable construction going on, and the construction workers had hung American flags on the scaffolding. Some of them had flags attached to their hard hats. There were many expressions of defiance against the terrorists, spraypainted on signs and sheets and flapping in the wind high above the streets.

Most of all, Times Square was busy. New York City was bursting with prosperity in those days. As terrible as the week was, as grief-stricken and as angry as people were, outside the financial district the city was beautiful. The cafes were overflowing with diners, and shoppers were everywhere.

Did Republican economics finish the job the 9/11 terrorists started?

On to dumb, dumber, dumbest.

Dumb — Kathleen Parker and other “pundits” who are tsk-tsking Barack Obama for being an amateur. In short, she said, he lacks maturity, toughness, and gravitas. He’s too puppy-eager for people to like him. He won’t give up his Blackberry.

Yea, if he were a real leader, he’d have his stimulus bill by now. Oh, wait … See also Andrew Sullivan.

Dumber — Republicans in Congress, who steadfastly refused to discuss the stimulus bill in good faith, who spent the past several days lying and grandstanding, and who voted against it but for three Senators who are now being targeted by right-wing organizations. Dumb enough? Now the liars and grand-standers are whining that they were cut out of the final House-Senate negotiations. See John Cole.

Dumbest — You’ve heard this one by now, I’m sure — Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH) thinks FDR caused the Great Depression.

Groundhog Day

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Today if Rush Limbaugh casts a shadow over the Republican Party, it means eight more years of Dems controlling the White House and Congress.

Thomas Schaller writes in Salon,

What is the state of the GOP at the dawn of the Obama era? The GOP has not quite ebbed to New Deal or post-1964 Democratic landslide levels, but it has certainly reached its lowest point since the comeback congressional cycle of 1966. Obama’s 53 percent national popular vote share is the highest for a Democrat since 1964, and there is no obvious set of formidable Republican presidential challengers for the 2012 election.

As Salon’s Mike Madden observed from interacting with volunteers and activists on hand at the Capital Hilton in Washington for the national meeting, “If the mood and the speeches at the winter meeting are any guide, Republicans are seeking refuge from electoral defeat in an alternate reality, one where the public still loves them — or would if they could only improve their sales pitch. And where going along with President Obama’s agenda just isn’t in the cards.” If any further evidence is needed, consider this little gem: On the afternoon the 168 national committee members were electing Michael Steele their new chairman, fully 10 days into the Obama administration, the “national leadership” page on the RNC’s Web site still depicted George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as president and vice president.

I just checked; the RNC page has been changed to congratulate Michael Steele.

Schaller goes on to describe a party that can’t decide where it’s going. There is no leadership to speak of. There are no rising stars that look like viable presidential candidates in 2012, although of course they’ve got some time. Basically, the party has a pack of right-wing extremists in the House who think it’s still 1994; some reasonably competent, more moderate but low-profile governors; Sarah Palin (Schaller doesn’t mention her, but I don’t think she’s done messing with the GOP yet); some aged senators who plan to retire; Jim Bunning, who appears to be brain dead but refuses to quit; and a handful of moderate senators that the base doesn’t like.

As I remember it, as far as rising stars go the GOP was in a similar place in 1996. There was no obvious, dominant, star-power candidate to take on Bill Clinton. The best they could come up with was Bob Dole, who was long past his sell-by date.

But then the GOP insiders must’ve decided that George W. Bush would be their rising star in 2000. So they packaged him as a moderate and began their sales campaign. A perfect storm of public complacency, media complacency (plus corruption, incompetence, etc.), wussy Democrats, the right-wing propaganda media machine, dirty tricks, and a lapdog Supreme Court put George W. Bush in the White House. I firmly believe that were it not for 9/11 he would have been bounced in 2004, but of course we’ll never know.

I’m sure party insiders already have been discussing who they will promote as the next heir to Ronald Reagan and how the heir will be packaged for public sale. I’m not counting them out. If the public becomes disappointed in the Obama Administration the GOP will have an opening, and if the entire party can get behind one guy in the next couple of years they could pull off a comeback. Right now it looks like a long shot, but it’s possible.

My larger point, though, is that the extremist, Gingrich/Rove/Norquist Republican Party has been pulling off a trapeze act for some time. Their dominance of media and Washington has far exceeded the real public support for their agenda for many years. And the ideological whackjobs the base tends to fall in love with are unsalable to the general public on a national level. In 2000 they packaged Dubya as a moderate, remember. And now with shifting demographics — their base is getting older, and there are only so many socially dysfunctional white men to go around these days — there is no way they’ll be able to keep the same old trapeze act in the air much longer.

David Lightman writes for McClatchy that the GOP’s winning strategy these days is opposing President Obama. That’s it. That’s all they’ve got. Oh, they’re still talking about cutting taxes and shrinking government, but is anyone (but them) listening?

The strategy carries enormous risks, however, because it could suggest that Republicans are eager to put the brakes on emergency aid to millions of Americans who are trying to survive what’s fast becoming the nation’s worst economic downturn since World War II.

Yeah, that does seem chancy.

It also creates a risk that the GOP, which no longer has a single House member from any of the six New England states and no senators from a Pacific coast state, is in danger of becoming a regional, ideologically focused party.

“We’re all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us,” warned Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Yes. Well, what’s more interesting to me is whether the Senate passes the stimulus bill, and whether the Dems have the spines to put back in the stuff that was taken out to appease the House GOP. Stay tuned.