Or
Keystone Kongress At The Wheel
Eric and Irene
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 1, 2011
“Have you left no sense of decency?” That’s the question Joseph Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, as the red-baiting demagogue tried to ruin yet another innocent citizen. And these days, it’s the question I find myself wanting to ask Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P….”
Oh, Grow Up
“Whenever we think Washington couldn’t get more cynical or more craven, it proves us wrong. So we will resist the temptation to say it’s hard to imagine anything more base than the food fight over President Obama’s planned speech to Congress…
“Mr. Obama’s request should have been routine. And The Times on Thursday quoted a White House official as saying it was: Obama aides consulted Boehner aides and then sent a formal request for a joint session on Wednesday. But Mr. Boehner said the date wasn’t convenient, a rebuff of the chief executive that the Senate historian’s office said seemed unprecedented…”
Cassi Creek:
Both these articles describe situations that have been allowed to develop by leaders who should know better.
Cantor’s lust for power and willingness to hold the victims of natural disasters at figurative gunpoint in order to satisfy it should have been recognized and checked by his colleagues, his party, the local and national media, and the voters in his district. But his manipulation of the intense hatred of President Obama that permeates the GOP and teavangelist mobs, and their bases; has allowed him to feed his lust almost daily. He’s obviously come to believe that he is as important to the nation as he is to himself. If there are closets or lockers in the Congressional cloak room, Little Eric needs to spend a week or two in one. Absent that option, a week of well-written descriptions of his financial dealings around the debt-ceiling fight and his personal profits might shake some of his base.
Little Eric has no political stance, no central position that he is loyal to. He has no concern for the people who are going to be injured if he insists upon taking them hostage to use in his drive for more power. Little Eric is an ego which has never realized that others exist. He’s using the teavangelists now for his purposes. He hasn’t the common sense to realize that the teavangelists are using him and will not forget whom he is or why they hate him.
The dust-up over President Obama’s jobs plan speech is another rampant display of hatred and racism. The President could be handing out gold bullion to attendees and the GOP/teavangelists would still find reason to obstruct and reject his plans.
The so-called GOP debate scheduled for Wednesday is a joke. Nothing will come of it, as the participants will spend the evening attacking the President, basing their attacks on lies and manufactured statistics. It is entirely too early for these debates to be taking place. Mr. Obama’s speech would have cost the GOP’s candidates nothing but an opportunity to preen on television. None of the people who would watch the “debate” would likely watch Mr. Obama anyway. The honorable members are also unlikely to pay attention to the President and they certainly know what the “candidates” are going to say.
As for the Thursday night time slot, there is no doubt that more people will be watching a football game than will be watching Mr. Obama. The GOP may be the loser after all. The football fans are not very likely to tune in to hear the GOP opposition speech delivered by whoever is selected to present it. The White House can torpedo that much of the opposition by merely taking up so much time in presentation that the GOP follow-up would cut into the football broadcast. After all, commercials on professional athletics broadcasts are what really matter to Wall Street. The unemployed matter to almost no one in the current fight.
The hostages, remember them? It is easy for Little Eric to use them since they are from mostly blue states. However, there is some risk for him now as GOP governors are caught between their citizens’ needs and demands, and Little Eric’s blatant power lust. Those governors are very aware that their next term in office will not be awarded them by Eric Canto, but by voters who are beginning to realize that it is no longer an unavoidable natural disaster that keeps them from having power, hot showers, hot meals, and the other functions of a civilized, industrialized nation; it is now a man-made exacerbation caused by the small man busily stoking his ego at their expense.
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