The Party of We Can't Be Serious

The GOP spin coming out of the House GOP's meeting with Obama is "He said we have proposals! He's read them! He likes us, he really likes us!"

Okay, maybe not that last part. But almost.

We're not the "Party of No" they want to say.

But having policy proposals and the sincerity and seriousness to stand by them if it means ceding political ground to the President is another matter.

Dana Milbank:

A month ago, a bipartisan group of senators asked Obama for his "strong support" for a commission to solve the national debt crisis. "We don't recommend this special process lightly," they wrote, calling it "the best way to reach a lasting bipartisan solution that will put our nation back on a sound long-term fiscal path."

One of the signatories, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), issued a news release trumpeting his sponsorship of the legislation. "Now is the time," he proclaimed.

Obama agreed and gave the idea his backing. When the measure reached the Senate floor on Tuesday last, four of the Republican Senators who had sponsored it -- including the aptly named Crapo -- voted against it.

They can't be serious.

Dan Balz and the GOP

WaPo writer Dan Balz has a front page piece today that begins:

"One year after hitting bottom in the aftermath of President Obama's elections, Republicans have taken their first concrete steps toward recovery."

Balz's story then goes on to highlight how seriously F'd up the Republicans are, making mockery of his lede. Someone should punch his editor.

Okay, yes, the GOP won in VA and NJ, but those victories were pegged more by candidates than the party. The GOP was lucky that it ran against two lackluster Dems and the Republican candidates ran better campaigns than their opponents. It's difficult to see how you can draw Party-wide "concrete steps" from such victories. Especially when Nov. 3 also saw the loss of a House District that has been in GOP hands almost since the GOP was invented. And, as Balz himself points out:

"But New Jersey and Virginia voted against the party holding the White House in the past six gubernatorial elections and are therefore unreliable harbingers of the 2010 campaign."

Duh. Well, that inconvenient truth doesn't prevent the Washington Post and the rest of the MSM from treating those victories as "concrete steps" towards a GOP rebirth.

I think the portent most important for 2010 is the NY House race. The Republican loss there defied history, while their wins in NJ and VA were with history's tide. The GOP, by giving in to the most scurrilous of the tea baggers and birthers will push away moderating voices. And continue to lose.

Republicans are taking concrete steps alright. Concrete tied to their heels as they step cluelessly on water.

Republicans: Not a Political Party: It's an SNL Skit

I think after 2008 the GOP must have decided that trying to win elections and govern in today's troubled world was just too much of a drag. And they noticed how much everyone loved those SNL skits during the election. People hated Sarah Palin; but they loved Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.

So I think they have secretly decided to mount a perpetual SNL satire in real time.

What else can explain:

1) The Michael Steele goofiness
2) The Bobby Jindal speech
3) Renaming the Democrats the "Democrat Socialist Party"
4) Rush
5) Newt
6) The Cheney self-parody

And now, this:

National Review Online's Mark Krikorian: "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

The National Review? Really? You have stooped to this? William F. Buckley must be rolling in his grave.

It's all so lame it has to be a joke.

Right?

So it must no longer be about the votes. It's about ratings. They want us to laugh.

1980. Not.

I often (somewhat) jokingly ask my Republican friends it they realize it's not 1980. In an effort to get back to their Gipper-roots, they often seem to be parroting his anti-tax, anti-government message as if the challenges we face today are the same (they're not) or as if the last 20 years of history had not occurred. David Ignatius points out today's Republicans are missing a more fundamental key to Reagan's success:

The Republican leadership, with its gloom and doom talk about the budget, is falling into a trap that its modern patron saint, Ronald Reagan, would have dodged. Reagan succeeded by contrasting his optimistic vision about America with the malaise and intellectual exhaustion of the Jimmy Carter era...Now, the Republicans have taken over as the "tut-tut" party, and they are unwittingly embracing the narrative of America as a nation in decline. That's never a good bet.

Ronald Reagan had a message that was pitch perfect for his time. But this is not 1980. And singing the same tired refrain is going to get the GOP tuned out.

Karl Rove is Still Lying

How do you tell when Karl Rove is lying? His lips are moving. He goes after Obama in a column in the WSJ, writing:


"On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama told Congress and the nation, 'I reject the view that . . . says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.' Who exactly has that view? Certainly not congressional Republicans, who believe that through reasonable tax cuts, fiscal restraint, and prudent monetary policies government contributes to prosperity."

Okay, so the Obama stim package has the largest tax cut in history and that's "unreasonable?" Bobby Jindal provides the official GOP response with an opening anecdote to remind everyone how ineffective government was in responding to Hurricane Katrina and that anecdote wasn't intended to de-legitimize government's role in aiding its citizens? (nor was the anecdote really, well, true.) And aren't most of the "congressional Republicans" in Congress today the same ones who earmarked and abetted George W. Bush's spending binge that left us $4 TRILLION in debt?

Does anyone take Karl Rove seriously anymore? The bloom is off this turd blossom and only the turd remains.

Palin/Plumber Ticket in 2012?

Why not...the GOP says Palin is who they most want to be like and they're listening to Joe today to get his advice on the Stimulus package.

Sarah Palin & Joe the Plumber...Palin/Plumber 2012. You heard it here first.

The GOP Guvs Want the Money

The Republican governors want the stimulus money, even as their Congressional brethren vote -- and campaign -- against it. Says LA Gov Bobby Jindal:

"Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a former member of the House, said he would accept the stimulus money but would have voted against the bill if he were still in Congress"

Um, "I was against the money before I spent it?"

McCain Opens 15 point Lead Among Independents

Read it and weep.

What is happening in this campaign is truly absurd. McCain is winning by proclaiming himself a maverick despite the fact that he caved into the entrenched evangelical wing of the Republican Party that the former truly maverick McCain denounced.

Sarah Palin was not John McCain's first choice for the person who should succeed him if needed. He was forced to abandon his preferred veep because the pro-life party establishment made him.

This...is a maverick?

Why Republicans Are Good at Winning

From the Illinois state finance committee's letter urging Clinton supporters to stay firm:

We also know she is the Democratic candidate best able to beat John McCain in the fall. One thing we are certain of is that the Republicans are good at winning elections. We, as Democrats, allowed them to win the last two contests, and we cannot afford to let that happen again.

(via Politico).

Well, yes. It's much easier for Republicans to win elections when the Democrats are so good at tearing each other apart. Claims that voters in two states were wrongly "disenfranchised" and constant attacks on Obama's electability, claims that she is denied the nomination somehow because she is a woman, all that will leave Democrats embittered and fractured. As a Republican president understood so well, houses divided don't stand.

And that's why Republicans are "good at winning elections."

Oh -- this just in: Hillary is ahead in the popular vote in states ending in vowels that were founded in an odd-numbered year.

Peggy Gets It

Peggy Noonan gets Obama, in a way many Democrats do not. Her latest WSJ column is getting a lot of play for the "Mrs. Clinton is losing this thing" paragraph, but I was drawn to the end of her essay:

With Mr. Obama the campaign will be about issues. "He'll raise your taxes." He will, and I suspect Americans may vote for him anyway. But the race won't go low.

Mrs. Clinton would be easier for Republicans. With her cavalcade of scandals, they'd be delighted to go at her. They'd get medals for it. Consultants would get rich on it.

The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it's fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He's not Bambi, he's bulletproof.

The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented--"He's too young, he's never run anything, he's not fully baked"--the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.

The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell.

I'm not as sanguine as she is about an Obama win of the nomination. But I have hope.

A Right-Leaning Republican on Obama

I'm telling you, the man has cross-over appeal

Honoring and Dishonoring Gay American Veterans

Yesterday was Veteran's Day, and today the government is closed to honor the service of our men and women in uniform. Here are a few stories of gay veterans, proud Americans deemed unfit by our country to wear a uniform, though in some cases they left their blood and limbs in the desert of Iraq.

One of the first soldiers wounded in the Iraq war, Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, speaks out against Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Sgt. Robert Stout, an Iraq war veteran and Purple Heart recipient. His Senators, Mike Dewine and George Voinovich, both Republicans of Ohio, refused to meet with him in 2005.

A short documentary on Stephen Benjamin, a Navy Arabic Translator discharged under Don't Ask Don't Tell.



And here the Republican Presidential Candidates dishonor the service of these Americans: