I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.
David Barton, the nonacademic Christian nationalist “expert” who is rewriting the social studies curriculum for Texas with the help of Don McLeroy, a right wing revisionist member of the Texas Board of Education who is a dentist and not a historian or teacher or academic, and others of his ilk, said Jefferson’s metaphor of a “wall of separation between Church & State” is a “liberal myth.”
David Barton reads the “church and state” letter to mean that Jefferson “believed, along with the other founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination.” Barton goes on to claim, “ ‘Separation of church and state’ currently means almost exactly the opposite of what it originally meant.” That is to say, the founders were all Christian who conceived of a nation of Christians, and the purpose of the First Amendment was merely to ensure that no single Christian denomination be elevated to the role of state church.
Barton’s fundamentalist Christian views are diametrically opposed to those expressed by Thomas Jefferson. It’s almost as if Barton knows it and has embarked on a crusade to stamp out those views of the Founders that do not conform with his extremist fundamentalist religious beliefs in an act of redemptive self-righteousness. He has incessantly used the Bible to meddle in the nation's secular affairs, e.g., called for abolishing the U.S. income tax and the capital-gains tax because the Bible says, “the more profit you make the more you are rewarded.”
It is an easy exercise to cherry-pick the Bible and pluck a quotation to justify any secular or religious bias favored by religious fanatics who reject the separation of church and state or, to be biblical, rendering unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s. But it is inherently a flawed exercise. In this case, as an example, Barton would be well advised to steer clear of Ecclesiastes:
“Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 5:10
In 2007, when the U.S. Senate invited a Hindu leader to open a session with a prayer, Barton strenuously objected: “In Hindu, you have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods. And certainly that was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the Declaration when they talked about Creator.”
Such intolerant views were anathema to Thomas Jefferson and would have deeply offended his sensibilities on religious freedom. Specifically, Thomas Jefferson said (this quote bears repeating) in direct repudiation of Barton’s intolerant statement about the Hindu religion: “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” [Emphasis mine.]
Furthermore, on the question of religious freedom and pluralism Thomas Jefferson specifically repudiated Barton’s false reading of his words and the fantasy perpetrated by the Texas Board of Education of the Founders’ Christian piety. In this passage from Jefferson’s Autobiography, he describes the debate over final passage of the 1786 religious freedom law he had proposed for Virginia, the Statute for Religious Freedom:
“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination. [Emphasis mine.]
Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Modern Library 1993 edition, pp. 45 and 46. (shout-out to //Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)
Exactly what part of
“[T]he insertion [of the word “Jesus Christ”] was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.[Emphasis mine.]
. . .do David Barton and the Texas Board of Education not comprehend? Is it “the mantle of its protection [for] the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.”? Is it “the Jew and the Gentile, […] the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.”?
Because, in their censorious minds, this is what Jefferson really “meant” to say:
“[A] great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile,the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.” [Red Text - DELETE - Texas Board of Ed. (channelling George Orwell)]
With so many pressing issues to consider –- jobs, the economy, healthcare –- the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill last Wednesday banning companies from tracking employees with microchips. On the surface such a measure may have preemptive merit as an ethical curb on the future abuse of technology and shows notable respect for personal privacy. While implanted microchips are currently used to track pets, not humans, the bill sponsor’s motivation is straight out of the lunatic fringe of religious fundamentalist paranoia.
Delegate Mark L. Cole said he proposed the bill out of a concern that such devices could someday be used “as the mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation. Still unclear is why try to stop him (or her), since the rise of the Antichrist is prophesied as inevitable prologue to the end times; is it to score brownie points with the One upstairs in order to get a better place in line when the Rapture comes around? Were that the case, this could be viewed as a self-serving measure taking special-interest politics to entirely new heights. Said Cole:
“My understanding—I'm not a theologian—but there's a prophecy in the Bible that says you'll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times. Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”
A skeptical Democrat (he was being ironic, one hopes), Delegate Robert H. Brink, said he did not find many voters demanding microchip legislation during his campaign: “I didn't hear anything about the danger of asteroids striking the Earth, about the threat posed by giant alligators in our cities’ sewer systems or about the menace of forced implantation of microchips in human beings.” It could be he missed connecting with the Coast-to-Coast Art Bell/George Noory demographic. Perhaps if he’d held a campaign meet-and-greet event advertised as “The Alien Menace: America’s Secret Pact With the Grays.”
The biblical passage that concerns Delegate Cole and his fellow travelers is in Revelations, Chapter 13 which describes the rise of a satanic figure known as “the Beast:”
“He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
Naturally, one of the main proponents of the microchip/Antichrist conspiracies is WorldNet Daily, the wingnut site peddling the Obama birth certificate (“Birther”) conspiracy. They’ve penned the usual paranoid articles --“Next Step in H1N1 Scare: Microchip implants” and “How Obama Prepped World for the Antichrist” –- and are set to release a book called The Islamic Antichrist. It is well documented by the Left Behind series of Jerry Jenkins and right wing activist Tim LaHaye that apocalyptic Revelation as popular fiction is big business. It is likely Delegate Cole was influenced and inspired by the series, an avid WND reader, or both.
Enter Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson, one of Virginia’s most famous sons second only to George Washington, would be appalled. The author of Virginia’s constitution would be horrified by the weirdness of state delegates such as Mark Cole and his fellow believers, not for their beliefs per se, but that they would codify those religious beliefs into law. Next, Mr. Jefferson would surely question the wisdom of any presidential actions he had taken that might have contributed to Texas joining the Union. He might even encourage the separatist Texans who wish to secede.
Jefferson’s approach to Christianity is well exemplified by his treatment of the New Testament. He edited the ethical teachings of Jesus and published them as a succinct book, known as the Jefferson Bible. In it, the teachings of Jesus are shorn of the “artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms as instruments of riches and power for themselves.”
Texas is Ground Zero for the latest assault on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Founding Fathers. Religious fundamentalists in control of the Texas Board of Education are making changes to our children’s textbooks that must have the author of the Declaration of Independence turning in his grave. The Texas Board sets the standards for what children will learn in all subjects from science to American history, and what their textbooks will include and omit. As the deciders of curricula that shapes young minds and educates future generations, these individuals wield enormous power.
For example, they have tried to excise César Chavez, the legendary labor leader of the migrant workers, from Texas textbooks. Only a popular uproar saved Chavez. Ted Kennedy, widely recognized as the Senate’s greatest legislator, was nixed but Newt Gingrich, the windbag whose claim to fame is the contract on America and his unsuccessful closure of the government over deep Medicare cuts which President Clinton refused to make, was deemed worthy of mention in Texas textbooks.
The Texas Board also censored the children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? because they confused its author, Bill Martin Jr., with Bill Martin, the author of a book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. So what if it were the other author? What does a political science book for adults that wasn’t being considered have to do with the content of a children’s book? And we have yet to broach evolution. Worst yet, as the Washington Monthly notes, “what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy.”
What these people are doing to Education, to the teaching of sound science instead of religious mythology, and factual, not revisionist, history is enough to make any educated, rational person’s skin crawl. This only begins to scratch the surface. Thomas Jefferson’s deism is considered an “anomaly” by the ultra-conservative ideologues in control of the Texas Board of Education who favor a historical fantasy that distorts the truth, casting the Founding Fathers as devout Christians.
David Barton, one of the “experts” being consulted by the Texas Board is the right wing religious extremist rewriting the history America’s children will “learn,” from fact to Christian fantasy. Among other Orwellian excesses, omissions, gross distortions, and outright lies, Barton and his fundamentalist allies argue that the notion of a wall of separation of church and state, penned by Jefferson, is a liberal myth.
Jefferson wrote that, as president, it was not his place to get involved in matters of religion. Under the First Amendment, he said, the state must not establish a state religion (establishment clause) and ensure the free exercise of religion (free exercise clause), which meant there was “a wall of separation between Church & State.” Barton claims that Jefferson meant to say is that no single Christian denomination should become a state religion in a Christian state.
Historians and scholars, the real experts, strongly disagree. Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College and writer of the documentary “Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham,” said:
“David Barton has been out there spreading this lie, frankly, that the founders intended America to be a Christian nation. He’s been very effective. But the logic is utterly screwy. He says the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ is not in the Constitution. He’s right about that. But to make that argument work you would have to argue that the phrase is not an accurate summation of the First Amendment. And Thomas Jefferson, who penned it, thought it was.” (David Barton declined to be interviewed for this article.) In his testimony in Austin, Steven Green was challenged by a board member with the fact that the phrase does not appear in the Constitution. In response, Green pointed out that many constitutional concepts — like judicial review and separation of powers — are not found verbatim in the Constitution.”
Speaking for himself, Mr. Thomas Jefferson begs to differ with the Christian fanatics, wingnuts, and Texas Board revisionists who have deigned to dance on his grave. On religious intrusions in government (and against theocracy), Jefferson wrote:
“The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.” (Letter to J. Moore, 1800).
And here’s a zinger:
“The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.” (Letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800).
Jefferson forcefully rejects precisely what Barton represents. He was not in the least inclined, as Barton argues, to piously defend Christian denominations solely to prevent the installation of a Christian state religion. Instead, Jefferson is downright hostile to the “clergy” as a whole. He is an equal opportunity church and state separatist. As they say in Olympic parlance, he nails the landing.
In the following passages, Jefferson further clarifies his stance, railing against the corrosive and anti-democratic history of religion in government:
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” (Letter to von Humboldt, 1813).
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” (Letter to H. Spafford, 1814).
Finally, on the question wrongly argued by Barton that Jefferson had referred solely to the establishment of a Christian denomination in his famous declaration of a “wall of separation between Church & State” rather than the broader separation of the state from all religions, Mr. Jefferson is emphatic and worldly:
“Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.” (Letter to J. Fishback, 1809).
Here Jefferson is arguing for the protection by the state of religious customs that are not Christian, e.g., the right of a woman of the Islamic faith to wear a burka. In the U.S., unlike France where this custom is outlawed by legislative fiat, this religious custom is protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. Whatever fantasies Barton and the Texas Board may harbor about the alleged Christian piety of the Founding Fathers, as far as Mr. Jefferson is concerned, “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” (Notes on Virginia, 1785.)
In other words, Barton and the Texas Board are the very antithesis of educators; they are history’s pickpockets. Or, as George W. Bush famously said: “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
Well, not quite. But this is happening more often. Journalists with guts and a penchant for cutting through the mainstream media BS to get to the truth are no longer content to be silent and well-behaved, in the corporate style of boring breezespeak that passes for “serious” discussion embraced by Gregory, his mentor Tom Brokaw, and NBC puppetmaster Charlie Rose.
There is a dirty little secret that interview shows such as MTP and its network imitators, PBS Newshour, CNN's State of the Nation, and the rest don't want viewers to know. The one thing they all share in common is a ratings-driven necessity to book interesting guests who will agree to come back. When President Obama refused to grant interviews to Fox News because of the obvious right wing bias of Murdoch's GOP network, the mainstream media rushed to Fox's defense with almost hysterical outbursts of self-righteous indignation. It was both amusing (for a profession held in such low esteem by the public) and illuminating.
The MSM's professional sustenance is based on access. Any threat to one's access is a threat to all. When Lawrence O'Donnell went off-script on “Morning Joe” with Republican Lites Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezhinsky, ripping into a GWB hack for his hatchet job book alleging President Obama is helping terrorists, Joe Scabrous cut O'Donnell short and invoked the MSM's censorship clause -- the commercial break:
This imbecile, Mark Thiessen, claims that the Obama administration's drone attacks are killing too many terrorists, which is a bad thing because: “[If] you vaporize a terrorist with a predator strike you're vaporizing all the intelligence in his head that we could be getting by interrogating him.” I see. So therefore, the U.S. should hold back on drone attacks when we have actionable intelligence on the terrorists' whereabouts in hopes of capturing them at a later date when we might extract really reliable information by waterboarding them 187 times? Where have we heard this tune before?
Somehow, wingnuts -- being wingnuts -- have automatic license to make the most ridiculous claims against Democratic presidents and get away with them. Imagine what the right wing reaction would be had liberals claimed the Bush regime was vaporizing too many terrorists instead of seeking to capture and torture them for the intel that might be gained. They'd be ridiculed as traitors and soft on terror, inviting attacks when they had the means to take out the terrorists, etc. The wingnuts might even assert with that false outrage they do so well, that torture is illegal. True to form, the wingnuts have smeared O'Donnell as a “9/11 conspiracist” (an absurd lie) and “nutty” (for exposing a wingnut smear) while praising the ferret-faced Thiessen as “classy.”
Similarly, when Rachel Maddow ripped into baby-faced Illinois Congressman Jim Schock for his hypocrisy in praising stimulus spending in his district while trashing it in Congress and voting against it, Schock's lame retort was that she wasn't giving back her Bush tax cuts for the 2% of American wage earners. In fact, Warren Buffett and other beneficiaries of welfare for the rich have said the tax cuts are ill-advised and they do not need, or want, them. Meanwhile, Gregory tried to keep things moving with an apologetic grin. While he wasn't as heavyhanded as Scabrous, the MSM is concerned that hacks, hucksters, and hypocrites may refuse to leave the friendly confines of Faux News if they are continually subjected to such truth-abuse by the Maddow-O'Donnell truth squads.
Here's what Rachel said to Congressman Hypocrite:
“You, in your district, I just read that you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district. You voted against the bill that created that grant. That's happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That, I think, is a problem that needs to be resolved within your caucus. Because you seem like a very nice person but that is a very hypocritical stance to take.”
“If you vote against the omnibus bill, if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that is funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against.”
Positive note: Not as gaudy as the Chinese, yet for me the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver were simply magnifique!Sure, there was a mechanical glitch in the end, when one of the cauldron decorative beams didn't cooperate, but the Great One's facial expressions as the torch bearers sweated it out more than made up for it. The Canadians are among the world's most simpatico people, and they put on a great show. My pick for best moment: K.D. Lang singing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. Beautiful.
Tragic note: Death on the course of the young luge athlete from Georgia. The claim by Olympic officials that it was “human error” does not compute. There were grumblings from the competitors that the track was too fast, the fastest in the world, and its configuration raised safety concerns. Wipeouts are part of this type of event; deaths are not. After the luger's death, adjustments were made to the track lowering speeds. I have a feeling this story is far from over.
Sour note: Is it just me, or is the IOC, from Jacques Rogge to Samaranch to the rest of those sexist, elitist dinosaurs, the most obnoxious sports governing body ever? I thought FIFA was bad, but these guys take the cake.
Very cool but slightly spooky cutting edge mapping technology. As advertised, TED has ideas worth sharing. It's all about the limitless potential of technology to transform our lives. There's something here for everyone.
America's patriotic superhero, Captain America, seen here slugging Hitler in issue no. 1, ten months before Pearl Harbor, is at it again fighting FASCISTS in issue 602, in which he and his African American buddy, Falcon, investigate and infiltrate a right-wing anti-government militia that looks an awful lot like a Teabagger demonstration. Notice the authentic details (lily-white loons and "Tea Bag the Libs..." sign, among others) in a street scene reminiscent of Les Misérables.
When the Teabaggers protested -- how stupid is that, objecting to comic book immortality?! -- being accurately portrayed by America's liberal! Comic Book media, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada apologized and promised to remove offending references to "Tea bag" from future issues. INSTANT COLLECTOR'S EDITION!
Bill Nye, the Science Guy, today on the Rachel Maddow Show termed the Republican assault on science and the indisputable facts of climate change as “unpatriotic.” Those who are fans of Professor Nye's engaging way of teaching hard and complex science and making it fun for the uninitiated, would know that this is as harsh a criticism for the mild-mannered, apolitical scientist to make as can be.
These Republican morons, the party of anti-science, of senators James Inhofe, Mitch McConnell, and Jim Vitter, who yucked about Al Gore as if he had invented global warming -- a deliberate misnomer, since the term of choice among scientists is climate change -- not coincidentally are bankrolled and in the pockets of our nation's largest corporate polluters that fund fake “studies” to deny the overwhelming scientific evidence.
Professor Nye said that in his experience as an educator there is a generational factor to understanding the science of climate change. Older people, he said, have a hard time grasping the processes that would lead an ovepopulated planet with a very thin atmosphere to generate the greenhouse gases that trap higher temperatures on the planet's surface and more moisture (water) in the atmosphere. Young people, on the other hand, grasp the concept right away.
I know what he means. Back in December, when we had the first big snowstorm in the Chicagoland region, an older gentleman went off about global warming to me as we walked into the warmth of an office building and stamped the snow off our footwear. He prattled on about all this snowfall and what a crock this global warming was, that his brother in Norway had to dig himself out of a mountain of snow -- the sort of thing people all along the eastern seaboard are doing right now.
Obviously, I didn't agree but remained silent; it's pointless to argue facts against such attitudes. Facts like: NASA reports 2009 was the second hottest year on record and the past decade the warmest on record. According to the National Weather Service the snowfall in D.C. broke a 110-year record. That, by itself, as any scientist including Professor Nye will say, does not prove or disprove climate change, as the Republican climate deniers gleefully play to their base and the kind of attitude I encountered. Logically, though, it's not rocket science to conclude and understand that extreme weather events such as the record snowfall in Washington, D.C. in February occur due to more moisture in the atmosphere, moisture that is trapped by the greenhouse gas effect that returns to earth in much heavier precipitation (snow). Overall the world is getting warmer. That is a documented, scientific fact.
Meanwhile, multimillionaire liars Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck seize upon this narrative to prey on the ignorance of their followers convincing them to vote against their own interests. When a thoughtful Republican like Lindsay Graham, a conservative who understands the science and is trying to work across party lines on an energy cap-and-trade bill, is skewered by troglodytes to his right for working with Democrats, then the bipartisan jig is up.
This incarnation of the Republican Party, whose nativist hard-right element took root after the election of Ronald Reagan, is the most irreponsible, unpatriotic (as Professor Nye said), and criminal major political party since Germany's Nazi Party. This is not hyperbole; this is fact. There have been many fringe political parties and movements with extremist ideologies, but they have never had the power to put their extremism into effect; not since the German Nazi Party and this Republican Party.
It's unfortunate that in the currently charged political climate, the ‘F’ word is censored in mainstream liberal news sites, largely because it has been co-opted by extremist elements such as the Teabaggers, who couldn't tell a fascist from that face in the mirror. This is a conservative's description of the Tea Party Convention:.
“After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It's more John Birch than John Adams.
Like all populists, tea partiers are suspicious of power and influence, and anyone who wields them. Their villain list includes the big banks; bailed-out corporations; James Cameron, whose Avatar is seen as a veiled denunciation of the U.S. military; Republican Party institutional figures they feel ignored by, such as chairman Michael Steele; colleges and universities (the more prestigious, the more evil); The Washington Post; Anderson Cooper; and even FOX News pundits, such as Bill O'Reilly, who have heaped scorn on the tea-party movement's more militant oddballs.
[...] none of them seems to realize how off-putting the toxic fantasies being spewed from the podium were.
Perhaps the most distressing part of all is that few media observers bothered to catalog these bizarre, conspiracist outbursts, and instead fixated on Sarah Palin's Saturday night keynote address. It is as if, in the current overheated political atmosphere, we all simply have come to expect that radicalized conservatives will behave like unhinged paranoiacs when they collect in the same room.”
The Republican Party is in a quandary. It cannot disavow its extremist right wing represented by the Teabaggers because of their enthusiasm and activism. The party is playing a cynical, despicable game of non-cooperation, obstructionism, and defiance of anything President Obama tries to do, short of deploying the U.S. military into the midst of another war, so that they can “break” him and destroy his presidency. Just as it was in the Nazi Party's interest to make Germany ungovernable, so it is that this Republican Party -- a once proud and vibrant party -- aims to prevent the President and the Democratic Party from governing, in the interests not only of short-term political gain but of taking power.
Lately, the President has complained bitterly (for him) about this; he seems genuinely puzzled. Unfortunately for the progressives, who have a more grounded, realistic, and cynical view of the Republican opposition, what seemed lofty rhetoric turns out to have been part of the President's core beliefs. This is what Mr. Obama said three years ago today, announcing his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois:
“It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable -- that it's possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we're willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.”
Well, Mr. President, as I'm sure you have discovered, Illinois state government is not Washington. For one thing, Illinois has that endangered species, the moderate Republican, in greater numbers than the national party. Perhaps it's because this is, after all, the Land of Lincoln, and Republicans here are somewhat chastened to behave responsibly by that historical fact. I don't know. I can certainly understand it when you say it's nice to get out of D.C. The reality is, Mr. President, that progressives have spent an entire year pleading with you to stop trying to convince ultra-conservatives like Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Susan Collins to come around.
You gave it more than the old college try, wasting an entire year in a fruitless quest for bipartisanship. Democratic healthcare bills have passed the House and the Senate. Now it's your solemn responsibility to grab the Democrats by the scruff of the neck and drag them across the finish line. Get this thing done, once and for all with 50 + 1 votes and break the back of the Republican filibuster, for the good of the country, for the people, and for the perpetuation of a healthy two-party system.
Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” In the wake of the SCOTUS decision opening the floodgates to a corporate takeover while the Republican right wing maneuvers, in obstruction of Democratic governance, to seize this merger, only you and the fractured Democratic Party can prevent this.
Politically it's high noon. It's time to get tough, Mr. President, unite the Democrats, and get it done. This outrage is what you should remind the American people of every single day:
The Illinois nominee for Lt. Governor with “issues,” Scott Lee Cohen, has “resigned” from what office (?) it is yet unclear. It happened during the Super Bowl half-time show as The Who played “We Won't Get Fooled Again” with his son crying copiously (why subject the kid to this?) and family gathered for another bizarre presser. Yup, this is Illinois.
“It should be a simple message (and it should have been the central message in Massachusetts): a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis. But by now, we know how the Obama administration deals with those who would destroy it: it goes straight for the capillaries. Sure enough, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, accused Mr. Shelby of “silliness.” Yep, that will really resonate with voters.”
In her speech before adoring fans at the Tea Party Convention, Sarah Palin outlined a program that makes no sense at all (a more detailed analysis to come), which she summed up as ENERGY, TAX CUTS, AND DIVINE INTERVENTION. After criticizing President Obama as a “guy with a teleprompter,” Sister Sarah was busted consulting her dumbed-down teleprompter: HER HAND! What’s worse, this was during the Q&A session, a kind of de riguer thing for politicians with presidential aspirations after President Obama DEMOLISHED House Republicans without the benefit of a teleprompter or notes; they had their notes, but it didn’t help them one bit!
The shocking truth about Sarah’s hand-prop is revealed in all its cheatiness. Unlike President Obama’s tour-de-force, Sister Sarah’s questions were pre-screened, so it was just a matter of the most primitive 5th grade level memorization. This lady's no quarterback; obviously (to use the appropriate football metaphor for the day) there's a only a few plays she can memorize at a time.
Here is the transcript, and video:
JUDSON PHILLIPS: “As soon as that happens what do you think are the top 3 things that have to be done?”
PALIN: “We’ve got to rein in the spending, obviously.” —Glances at hand— “We have got to jump start these energy projects that we have heard so much about.”
What is it about this state that produces such salacious political scandals? Is it the Great Lakes drinking water? Here's a small sampling, not counting Rod Blagojevich nor the latest political eruption swirling around Democratic Lt. Governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen. Casting aspersions on the nominee would seem like piling on. Mr. Cohen can speak for himself:
Mr. Cohen, a pawnbroker -- his legitimate claim to the fashionable “outsider” label in this year’s Illinois elections -- beat out three other “inside” pols for Lt. Governor, completely surprising the party establishment. It’s not the first time a wild-card candidate for Lt. Governor has won a major party primary. In 1986, candidates from the extremist Lyndon LaRouche faction -- those charming people responsible for the Hitler mustache posters of Obama -- “sent the party into a tailspin” by winning Democratic nominations for two statewide offices.
Former Illinois Senator Adlai Stevenson, III had narrowly lost the governorship to Jim Thompson in 1982 and was in a good position to unseat Thompson, who was vying for an unprecedented 4th term. That is, until the LaRouche debacle forced Stevenson to run on the so-called “Solidarity Party” ticket -- invoking Lech Walesa’s Polish labor revolt was, sadly, insufficient to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And so, when Adlai III came out of retirement the other day to implore Cohen to step down, it was like déjavu all over again.
Cohen refuses to drop out, despite pressure to do so from the entire Democratic establishment. Maybe Elvis can convince him? I’m inclined to blame Rham Emanuel and David Axelrod for this one, too. Why not. I can just picture Rhambo on the phone with the big boss man of Illinois Democrats: “How did this fucking thing happen! Can’t I fucking delegate any-fucking-thing anymore!? In my own FUCKING STATE!”
Governor Quinn claims he never saw a Chicago Sun-Times 3-17-09 column in which Mr. Cohen’s problems first came to light. Strange how this story was apparently deemed unworthy of wider exposure in the cutthroat, competitive Chicago media. Almost like mischievous collusion, as if they sat on the story waiting for it to explode in full bloom.
Lynn Sweet, the Sun Times’ chief political correspondent, did she? Of course she knew about it; she knows everything that’s going on in Chicago politics. That’s her meal ticket. When I saw Lynn on TV talking about this she looked like she’d had a face-lift. Times (no pun intended) are tough in the newspaper media business. Nothing like a salacious political scandal to boost their ratings and enhance job security. Call it the fortunate alignment of the world’s three oldest professions -- prostitute, pawnbroker, and politician -- in one story: The Case of the Terrible Ps!
Ultimately, though, it was the state Democratic Party’s responsibility to vetits candidates before the election. It seems that vetting potential officeholders has not been a strength of the current administration. Perhaps it’s a systemic Illinois thing. People here seem to favor glass houses. And what is it about insurgent politicians with the first name “Scott” that makes them so toxic to the Democratic Party?
Fomer Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo opened the Tea Party Convention in Nashville with a racist rant ticking off the nativist themes embodied in the Teabaggers’ Struggle for the soul of America: “The race for America is on right now” said Tancredo, warning ominously “the revolution has come. It was led by the cult of multiculturalism aided by leftist liberals all over who don't have the same ideas about America as we do.”
Then Tancredo struck a fatal blow at the very heart of the Tea Party movement:
And steps into the leadership vacuum left by the White House and Harry Reid; the jury's out on Nancy Pelosi, but at least she held her group together and, like FDR, did “welcome the hatred” of her enemies on the right, from Republican obstructionists to Teabaggers. Senator Franken was fed up with the lack of leadership coming from the White House, and proposed a very simple way forward around which progressives can rally. Reconciliation and 50 + 1:
“If we in the Senate pledge to fix those top priorities right away through reconciliation... the House of Representatives should pass the Senate bill. The exact details of this process need to be worked out by the leadership and the President.”
Sounds like a plan. Meanwhile . . . the President continues to send mixed messages -- “we should be deliberate . . . take our time . . . not let the moment slip away” -- zig and zag, which infuriates progressives in Congress, who patiently went to bat for him. Rham Emanuel's “fucking retards”* swallowed concession after concession to get something, anything, done on healthcare. I'll say it again: Mr. Emanuel and his Clintonian strategy of deference to the DINOs, sweetheart deals, and concessions to corporate interests while throwing progressives under the bus, has achieved exactly . . . what? A rerun of the Clinton healthcare debacle of 1995, when Emanuel was in the White House!
The President keeps pushing the “bipartisan” button, which is like trying to accelerate a Toyota Prius and hoping it doesn't stall. Mr. Obama's latest fantasy is to sit down with Democrats and Republicans and healthcare professionals, go over the bills, and have a final vote; on live TV. Not gonna happen; the Republicans WILL NOT participate. How many times, in how many different ways, do we have to say this, Sir, before it registers? “Maybe I’m naïve,” mused Mr. Obama. (You said it.) Yes Sir, YOU ARE. Jeez . . .
Of the 40 or so people invited to the President’s Super Bowl party, one Republican will attend: Rep. Joseph Cao, the single Republican YES vote for the House healthcare bill. Now that’s “bipatisanship” we can believe in. Incidentally, DINOs Mary Landrieu and Evan Bayh sent their regrets, but will not attend. Doesn't that tell you something, Mr. President?
Just take Senator Franken's suggestion, Democrats, and GET IT DONE.
*If Rham Emanuel gets this done, he should stay; if he blows it now, he should go. As for the comment, made last year in a closed-door meeting, Mr. Emanuel apologized, as he should have. But Sarah Palin's conduct is the height of hypocrisy. After criticizing Emanuel and calling for his firing, Palin refused to apply the same standard to Rush Limbaugh when he used the term in a more despicable way -- broadcast live to millions (see below). Limbaugh even boasted that Palin's “spokeswoman” called him “in a panic” to say Palin did not use Limbaugh’s name. Sarah “Caribou Barbie” Palin: You are contemptible.
Has anyone read The Plot Against America by Philip Roth? It’s a terrific “what if” novel that imagines what this country would be like had America’s hero, Charles A. Lindbergh, run against and defeated FDR for the presidency in 1940. Lindbergh captured the public’s imagination with his solo transatlantic flight and had the country’s sympathy with the tragic kidnapping and murder of his infant son. Lindbergh was America’s John McCain (heroic aviator) and Sarah Palin (attractive, charismatic vehicle for simplistic nativist emotions) all rolled into one. He was also “a rabid isolationist, Nazi sympathizer, and crypto-fascist.”
Lindbergh ran under the Republican Party banner. To find out what happens you’ll have to read the book. The point is, this same Republican Party which has a dark history of close association with real German Nazis is, similarly, teeming with crypto-fascists –- who harbor hidden, and not-so-hidden, sympathies for an authoritarian ideology that
subverts civil liberties in the name of national security (Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, terrorist fearmongering, torture, military trials);
promotes U.S. hegemonism through military might and wars (PNAC/Heritage neoCon/Fascist think tanks, Iraq/Af-Pak wars);
incites hatred and racism in its base to intimidate the “ruling” party into rejecting the program on which it campaigned, with lies (corporate attack ads) and propaganda talking points from its contemporary Joseph Goebbels (Frank Luntz);
employs right wing hate radio (Limbaugh and acolytes) and Fox broadcasting network (Roger – I’m into ratings, not news – Ailes, Beck/O’Reilly/Hannity et al) as its communications arm, to mobilize the Teabagger storm troops/including corporate agitators to disseminate the fascist agenda, and
embraces the right wing Judiciary’s putsch against government of, for, and by the people, legalizing the total corporate takeover of our government, resulting in the creation of a ruling oligarchy and permanent underclass.
Kiss the political parties goodbye –- good thing? Consider this: Henceforth elections in this country will be, e.g., between corporate factions representing oil, coal, and gas industries vs. Wall Street bankers, with the green energy folks standing in for the old Green Party. But wait, unlike more civilized countries, we don’t have campaign finance laws that restrict corporations . . . It’s already happening; only now the corporations can be open and out front about it. Hmmm. A boon for Frank Luntz and the so-called “optics” consultants trafficking in political propaganda. The people lose.
How’s that for the America of your dreams, right wing/Tea Party tools? It's always amusing to see multimillionaire sophist tycoons such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh liken Democrats to Nazis. The charges are so absurd that only morons in the so-called Tea Party movement take them seriously. But that’s enough, for purposes of the corporate owners in their ivory towers manipulating the street agitators with those crude racist signs. Nazi Germany had its Brown Shirts, a paramilitary mob whose charge was to intimidate the political parties and identified enemies of their (“minority”) state. Eventually the Brown Shirts were purged after they had exhausted their usefulness to the Nazi Party.
Such purging is already underway in the internal sniping among Tea Party factions and in the confiscatory price of admission to the so-called “Tea Party Convention” just to catch a glimpse of their very own Sarah “Lindy” Palin. She is pocketing $100,000 of the Teabaggers' hard-earned cash for her (no doubt) “inspirational” keynote speech. At this moment, the corporate elites are trying to harness and bottle the Teabaggers' diffuse energy to serve their aims. Can you spell “patsies” and “tools,” Teabaggers? Write it out in big kindergarten block letters across your T(ea)-shirts.
Today the Massachusetts everyman elected by the people, in its infinite wisdom, was sworn in to occupy the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. To be sure, Scott Brown is no Charles Lindbergh. He has distanced himself from the Teabaggers, denying any knowledge of Palin’s congratulatory call. Although Brown ran to the right in Massachusetts to attract the Teabagger vote, he is on record as having voted for Massachusetts’ comprehensive healthcare coverage, is pro-choice and has earned a top rating from the environmentalist Audubon Society.
But that hasn’t stopped the right from claiming Brown as one of their own. Scott Brown is the empty vessel into which people’s aspirations and frustrations will be poured. He is the model stealth candidate, who purged any mention of the Republican Party from his literature, used the blue Democratic colors in his website, and falsely, outrageously, wrapped himself around one of the Democratic Party’s and Massachusetts’ iconic figures: JFK.
Now that Brown is a working member of America’s national fascist party, the question of his political independence is most relevant. As long as he makes no waves, he will fit right in. What’s more, Brown’s moderate image will help the GOP immeasurably in masking its hard-right agenda. Since Brown has self-identified as “Brown 41” -– the 41st vote necessary to sustain a filibuster –- the expectation is he will be a loyal GOP soldier, cementing the party’s obstructionism of Democratic governance and paving the way for a fascist corporate takeover of America.
This isn’t Glenn Beck tinfoil hattery; it’s simply an observation. When it comes to seducing the public with imagery and volks-messaging, few do it as well as Republicans, who have learned and internalized the lessons of Nazi propaganda better than most.
Consider these images from Scott Brown’s campaign compared to Hitler's. The first is a poster of Hitler wrapping himself around Hindenburg, one of the few iconic hero-figures in Germany at the time; the little-known Hitler needed the legitimacy with the German people that Hindenburg provided. Next to it is Scott Brown’s notorious JFK-Scott Brown morphing ad, in antique black-and-white with identical details. Just like JFK’s New Frontier evokes memories of a mythical last century Camelot, so had Nazi ideology appealed to romantic notions of a lost 19th century German greatness and the myth of Nietzsche’s “superman.”
The next image is Scott Brown, regular guy, in his black pickup truck contrasted to Hitler in a Volkswagen, which means, literally, “people’s car.” These are strikingly similar images, right down to the vehicles’ color.
Coincidence? Perhaps. Certainly, this is not meant to equate the Republican Party with the Nazi Party’s most heinous crimes; only to point out the similarities and effective use of its propaganda messaging techniques by the GOP. And one thing is clear: Once Scott Brown looked like he had a shot to win, the RNC sent some of its top operatives to Massachusetts, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce dumped a ton of cash into Brown’s campaign, effectively nationalizing it. Heil Brown?
The New York Times today had a fascinating story that patients once thought to be in a permanent vegetative state may actually have vestiges of consciousness and the capacity to communicate. The very last sentence of the article, almost a throwaway, quotes a skeptical neurologist warning against equating brain activity and identity:
“Physicians and society are not ready for ‘I have brain activation, therefore I am,’ ” Dr. Ropper wrote. “That would seriously put Descartes before the horse.”
Is it just me, or is this stupid pun in a medical journal about something with such profound ethical implications, not to speak of unfathomable suffering for those trapped inside paralyzed bodies -- so utterly inappropriate as to be beyond tasteless?
By the time these pasty, diseased white guys (below) are finished brainwashing scared, low-information voters --
Beck: “They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!” / Limbaugh: “There’s gonna be a retard summit at the White House.” / Hannity: “Liberals should adopt someone who needs healthcare.” / Ailes: “Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people.” / Bill-O: Four-year trial at $200 million a year equals “almost a trillion dollars.”
This is the end result:
A poll taken by Daily Kos/Research 2000 gives us a disturbing glimpse into the dark underbelly of the GOP beast.
39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 29 percent are not sure, 32 percent said he should not be voted out of office.
36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 22 percent are not sure, 42 percent think he is a natural citizen.
31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a “Racist who hates White people” -- the description once adopted by Fox News's Glenn Beck. 33 percent were not sure, and 36 percent said he was not a racist.
63 percent of Republicans think Obama is a socialist, 16 percent are not sure, 21 percent say he is not
24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants “the terrorists to win,” 33 percent aren't sure, 43 percent said he did not want the terrorist to win.
21 percent of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election, 55 percent are not sure, 24 percent said the community organizing group did not steal the election.
23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States, 19 percent aren't sure, 58 percent said no.
53 percent of Republicans said they believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.
And we’ve got snow, which could depress turnout or excuse the enthusiasm gap among Democrats, if it should manifest itself today.
In the Governor’s race, for what it’s worth, Governor Pat Quinn gets the nod. Last year, then Lt. Governor Quinn ascended to the governorship at a difficult moment for the state after the Rod Blagojevich corruption scandal and impeachment. He restored honesty and openness in government, passed ethics reform (recognizing that more needs to be done), and stabilized the state’s finances.
On Illinois’ long-term structural deficit, Governor Quinn is the only grown-up in the race, giving the voters –- and reluctant legislators –- straight talk that we’re not digging ourselves out of this hole without raising taxes and targeted budget cuts.
Governor Quinn has had a distinguished career as an exemplary public servant. From his days as a grassroots activist (which mirror President Obama’s public service in many ways), his fight against corrupt government and special interests, his campaign on behalf of the people of Illinois against utility rate price gouging, and his steadfast support for Illinois veterans and their families make him a true people’s champion in the Illinois statehouse.
There’s much more to be done to restore integrity to state government and economic prosperity to the state. Governor Quinn has a vision for Illinois that includes campaign finance reform, lobbying restrictions, sunshine laws, rebuilding the state’s infrastructure, investing in green jobs and education for our children, and promoting science and technology in our leading universities to spur innovations for the economy of the future.
Governor Quinn likes to say that politics, like democracy, is not a spectator sport, it’s a participatory responsibility. Let’s elect Pat Quinn for his own term as governor of Illinois.
In the Senate Democratic race for President Obama’s vacant seat, former Chicago inspector general David Hoffman, 43, is surging. Hoffman built his reputation rooting out corruption, waste and mismanagement in Mayor Daley’s administration and making a dent, at least.
If Hoffman’s insurgent campaign succeeds in toppling machine pol and bankrolled (in more ways than one) state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, it will be a clear indication that the voters’ angry mood extends far beyond the right fringes of American politics.
In a sentence, Giannoulias’s claim to fame is having played pickup basketball with Barack Obama; Hoffman’s is giving Mayor Daley hives.
Better than Leonidas at Thermopylae, Obama at Baltimore faced off against 140 House Republicans in their aptly named “retreat” and vanquished them. Said the President, flexing his muscles, with a wry grin and a steely gaze: “They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive.”
Could’ve fooled me. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the President was the only one to come out alive from this political steel-cage. It was a singular moment in American history of unscripted political combat, somewhat akin to Prime Minister’s Q&A, except that in the parliamentary system the PM gets to field an equal number of softball questions from the ruling party.
This was President Obama going toe-to-toe against the House Republicans, and he beat the crap out of them. One GOP aide lamented later that allowing cameras to roll was “a mistake.” Too late, sparky. Watching the carnage unfold, Fox News (We distort; then we decide what you can handle) pulled the plug on the broadcast and switched to the familiar tones of its racist Obama-bashers.
The President politely accepted the GOP booklet of legislative proposals -– “I've read your legislation. I mean, I take a look at this stuff; and the good ideas we take” –- then called their bluff: “But specifically it's got to work. I mean, there's got to be a mechanism in these plans that I can go to an independent health care expert and say, is this something that will actually work, or is it boilerplate?”
In an exchange with Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the President became irritated by the right winger’s political posturing –- “Jeb, I know there's a question in there somewhere, because you're making a whole bunch of assertions, half of which I disagree with, and I'm having to sit here listening to them. At some point I know you're going to let me answer. All right.” -- took the gloves off for a moment, perfectly framed their hypocrisy, and blew the Republican Party away:
“Jeb, with all due respect, I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign.
The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. -- $1.3 [trillion.] So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true.
And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade -- had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000 when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for.
You had a prescription drug plan -- the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades -- that was passed without it being paid for. You had two wars that were done through supplementals. And then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession. That's $8 trillion.
Now, we increased it by a trillion dollars because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus. 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.”
Game, set and match. President Obama exposed the Republican hypocrisy of the lost decade of the 21st century, and took no prisoners. For nearly a decade, with Republicans in control of the presidency and Congress, they had a chance to implement their so-called “better solutions” and they did nothing. Nada. Nein. Jobs growth Zero. Except explode the deficit for future generations so they could waste our surplus giving tax breaks to the super-rich.
The party of NO tried to spin this as the President acknowledging Republicans had ideas. Sure, and they were included in the healthcare package -– hundreds of amendments and ideas –- taken from Mike Enzi to Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snowe to Eric Cantor. But as President Obama schooled them in Democracy 101, “If there's uniform opposition because the Republican caucus doesn't get 100 percent or 80 percent of what you want, then it's going to be hard to get a deal done. That's because that's not how democracy works.”
Mr. Obama reminded them that his plan is similar to the one proposed by Bob Dole, Howard Baker, and Tom Daschle last year –- “not a radical bunch” –- and to the Republican alternative to the plan President Clinton proposed in 1995. The point being that most, if not all major concessions, were made by liberal and progressive Democrats in the interest of achieving that bipartisan chimera so important to the President.
When it came time to vote on the “centrist” reform package that included those ideas, the extremist pull of the Republican Party dominated by teabaggers and reactionaries forced erstwhile “moderate” Republicans to vote NO en masse to ensure the President’s “Waterloo” and “break him,” just as progressives had predicted all along.
That is amazingly shameless behavior for a political party whose criminal negligence in “governing” the nation was punished by the voters with a historic smackdown leading to the loss of the presidency and its majorities in Congress. Instead of stepping aside and allowing the Democratic Party to govern, the “loyal opposition” was anything but: In the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, one that the Republican Party had enabled and helped create, Republicans reverted to the same criminal behavior of obstructionism, demonizing President Obama, and inciting racist anger from its white know-nothing base to block the bill.
Once again, Republicans have sided with corporate interests to defeat healthcare reform as the nation barrels toward a healthcare meltdown that threatens to bankrupt it. Even Ronald Reagan, who started this nightmare, was responsible enough to make a deal with Tip O’Neill to extend the life of Social Security. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled giving corporations unfettered spending power over our elections, the window to pass meaningful healthcare reform is closing fast. Unless Democrats move to act fast it will be shut for years and decades to come.
Today’s Republican Party more resembles the Nazi Party of 1930s Germany than a legitimate conservative party, such as exists in Britain and Canada. These parties support and helped introduce universal healthcare in their countries. Like the 1930s Nazis, this Republican Party is a minority regional party populated by ideologues and crass opportunists bent on seizing power no matter the consequences to the nation. It has roughly the same level of popular support as the Nazis did when they took power.
In contrast, the Democratic Party behaves more like a traditional center-left party, which is part of its problem. The ruling majorities have made Democrats timid when they should be bold. As President Obama said, “I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security.” The Democratic Party has not adjusted nimbly to the Republican Party’s obstructionist tactics, thuggish behavior, and Frank Luntz talking points propaganda.
The Republicans have nothing to offer. The CBO found that the so-called alternative introduced by John Boehner would extend insurance coverage to about 3 million people by 2019, while leaving about 52 million uninsured. What a fraud.
The House Democratic bill extends health benefits to roughly 36 million people over the same time period, leaving about 18 million uninsured. The cost of the House Democratic bill was about $1.05 trillion over 10 years, while the Republican bill would cost just $61 billion. The President exposed their fraud: “If you say we can offer coverage for all Americans and it won’t cost a penny, that’s just not true. You can’t structure a bill where suddenly 30 million people have coverage and it costs nothing.”
Indeed, the President emphasized that you can’t get something for nothing:
“The easiest thing for me to do on the health care debate would have been to tell people that what you’re going to get is guaranteed health insurance, lower your costs, all the insurance reforms. We’re going to lower the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and it won’t cost anybody anything. That’s great politics. It’s just not true.”
The Republicans had no argument. They are liars and frauds. They have no intention of working with President Obama to solve America’s critical problems. They will posture, pretend, delay, and hope that their bait-and-switch obstructionism can translate into multiple Massachusetts-like wins that will propel them to the majority in Congress.
So every second, every minute and hour Mr. Obama devotes to the illusion that Republicans and Democrats can work together is time irreversibly lost doing the people’s business. The President’s best approach is to isolate them, call their bluffs, and destroy them, as he did at their “retreat.” The question is, has the President learned the hard lessons; are his eyes wide open?
The President seemed genuinely frustrated by Republicans’ redusal to recognize the reasonableness of working constructively on behalf of the American people. That, by itself, is a puzzler. The Republican Party is a captive of its far right wing. Intellectually the President knows this. His analysis of the problem is right on the mark:
“I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America.”
Even if the moderate Republicans who would fit in a phone booth wanted to, they could not work with Mr. Obama. The backlash and challenge from their extremist base would be immediate. They have voted NO even on bills they should support, such as PayGo. Conservatives are suspect as the party lurches further to the right. In Florida, the Tea Party candidate, Marco Rubio, has pulled ahead of Governor Charlie Crist in the GOP primary for Senate, and in Arizona John McCain’s approval ratings are the lowest they’ve ever been. He faces a challenge on his right from a wingnut radio talk show host.
Following his spot-on analysis of the GOP’s runaway right flank, President Obama needlessly softens his tone:
“And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It's not just on your side, by the way -- it's on our side, as well. This is part of what's happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do.”
With all due respect, Mr. President, you are wrong, and you know it. The worst game Democrats can play is to cede the argument to the other side by accepting the false parallelism of what each side does, not in the interest of the truth but to accommodate the adversary.
Democrats have a reflexive need to be fair and tolerant and bend over backwards to their political opponents as if somehow the Republicans will suddenly decide to change their stripes. It makes Democrats look weak and indecisive conceding the “politics as usual” turf to Republicans. That is one lesson unlearned; a major reason voters have lately punished Democrats at the polls. Voters don’t like apologetic, programmatic Democrats. They don’t like appeasement and excuses. They can handle straight talk and the truth.
As a community organizer, Mr. Obama frequently negotiated with corporate and moneyed interests from a position of weakness and had to use every power of persuasion in his quiver to bring them around. As state senator from a blue state, the President forged alliances with Republicans who were far more moderate and pragmatic than those in Congress in order to craft legislation that would pass muster both with a Democratic assembly and a Republican governor. A much different dynamic exists within the national Republican Party.
President Obama said he is not an ideologue. But they are. As he noted, “If you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.” Precisely. The President’s appeal for Republicans to “close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality” is not going to happen. He should heed Harry Truman’s words:
“Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.”
“I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's Hell.”
As for the Republicans, this is the only language they understand:
The New York Times Magazine reports:
