Tag: GOP Hypocrisy

Brownback Attack.

Conservative freakshow Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), now head of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the District, threatens Washington DC to back down on its plan to recognize gay marriages (by allowing joint filing for same-sex married tax returns.) Less government? Local control? Surely, it’s obvious by now that today’s GOP is much more interested in policing the bedroom. If you’re still voting Republican these days for any other reason, how much more proof do you need?

Do the Dems have a pulse?

“Instead of allowing themselves to be cowed by the fear of looking like they’re coming down on the immoral side of the moral values debate, Democrats should snap out of it and demand that the president interrupt his next vacation and that Bill Frist hold another midnight session of Congress to address the moral disgrace of 45 million people with no health insurance and 36 million people living in poverty.” Salon‘s Arianna Huffington argues convincingly that the Congressional Dems blew it (again) in addressing the Schiavo fiasco. You’d think they could at least do a better job of hammering on the Hammer’s hypocrisy.

Round 2: Draw.

Well, to my partisan eye, Dick Cheney proved time and time again in tonight’s sole veep debate that he’s not only an inveterate liar but a major-league asshole. (Yeah, big time.) Iraq (“It’s going great!”), Osama (“We never stopped going after him!”), the homefront (“Things are looking up!”), you name it…the guy just seems to have no compunction about dissembling flat-out to the American people. Said the veep early on, “The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.” Really, Dick? How were we supposed to take Saddam “had long-established ties with Al Qaeda” then? Similarly, the audacity of Dick Cheney attacking John Kerry for voting against weapons systems he himself opposed is simply staggering.

From lies to misdirection. How did Cheney try to explain away Halliburton’s sweetheart no-bid Iraq contracts, and the subsequent looking askance at their egregious overbilling of the American people? “Um, John, I’ve never seen you around the Senate before.” (Not true, of course, but nice of Dick to send voters to the Soros-run FactCheck.com rather than FactCheck.org, though.) And, when Edwards skewered the veep with his own voting record from back in the day — no to Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and the Education Dept, no to MLK Day and to condemning apartheid(?!) — what was Cheney’s answer? “Oh, I think his record speaks for itself.” You’re damn right it does, as does yours.

All that being said, I thought Edwards missed a few chances to put the hurt on Cheney in the early going, and should have responded harder to the ridiculous “facing-up-to-Howard Dean” riff. And he didn’t really hit his stride until the domestic-policy-oriented second half, when less-interested swing voters out there had probably started tuning out. (Conversely, I thought Cheney self-destructed for awhile there, mumbling about No Child Left Behind in a question about jobs.) So, while my gut (and the insta-polling) say Edwards took this one, I’m guessing the numbers in the next few days will show a draw, if only because Cheney seemed at least somewhat cognizant of the world around him, unlike his running mate. Next stop: Friday.

Immigrant Song.

“If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.” If you believe that rich people deserve tax breaks while the middle-class struggle harder and the poor send their kids to war, then you are a Republican. If you believe that cutting First Responder, Homeland Security, and Nunn-Lugar funding, lying bald-faced to our allies before the UN, letting Osama Bin Laden disappear into the caverns of Afghanistan, and contriving a casus belli to start a war in Iraq that has further alienated the moderate Muslim world is sound anti-terror strategy, then you are a Republican. If you believe an extramarital blow job is an impeachable offense, but dissembling to the American people about war is hunky-dory, then you are a Republican. If you believe God loves you, but He hates gays, liberals, and foreigners, then you are a Republican. If you’re an immigrant bodybuilder who made it to the top of his field through hard work, discipline, and the judicious application of enough steroids to kill a small horse, then you are a Republican. And if you’re a serial groper who was befuddled enough to think Nixon was a good idea in 1968 and who somehow earnestly believes that the GOP hasn’t moved much further right since the days of Tricky Dick, then you are Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Battle is Joined.

“It just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had ‘other priorities’ at that time would say that…When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil…He’ll be tough, but he’ll be tough with someone else’s kid’s blood.” Iowa Senator Tom Harkin lashes out at Cheney for the “sensitive war” bit he was banging into the ground last week. I don’t much care for the notion that not serving in Vietnam makes anybody a coward…but, then again, the veep had this coming. He should’ve known better than to push the tough guy thing so hard. After all, he’s a war profiteer, not a warrior.

A word about values, from the 3-DUI Ticket.

In his first riposte against his new Dem adversary, Dubya questions Edwards’s qualifications for the Presidency. Good God, man, we let you take the position (although admittedly it did take some prodding by the Supreme Court.) For the Dems’ part, Kerry had a pretty solid response: “He was right that Dick Cheney was ready to take over on Day One, and did, and he has been ever since, folks.“

Apparently, the Bushies are also keying in on “shared values” as their answer to the threat of Kerry-Edwards. Shared values? Puh-leeze. Playing bait-and-switch on the American people? Wading neck deep in corporate cronyism? Handing the rich tax-cut candy at the expense of everyone else? Those ain’t my values, bub.

Verbal Infelicities.

Cheney drops an F-bomb in the Senate and likes it (naturally, the GOP moral arbiters don’t care, despite their tsk-tsking Kerry after an earlier outburst.) Meanwhile Dubya loses his temper on Irish TV when asked relatively basic questions about the failures of his Iraq policy. Yes, folks, these people are in charge.

Escape from New York.

While Dean and Clark parry for New York votes, Tom De Lay laments the loss of his GOP convention booze cruise. As of yesterday, “some Republicans in Washington who supported the cruise liner idea were still saying that it would not have taken much money away from the city and that perhaps there are some Republican members of Congress who want to take their families to the convention but do not want them to stay in Manhattan.” I see. So for the GOP, New York City is a great place to wave the bloody shirt, but God forbid they spend a night there.

Mr. Smith meets Allan Drury.

While the Dems continue their 30-hour marathon filibuster of three Dubya judicial nominees (stunt-scheduled by the GOP to draw attention to – gasp – the Dems fulfilling their advise and consent obligation under the Constitution), Nixon counsel John Dean explains the stakes in this fight…and the GOP’s “nuclear option.” Lest anyone forget, the Dems here are filibustering four of 172 Dubya nominations (2%). By contrast, the Republicans blocked over a third of President Clinton’s nominees to the Court of Appeals. As per usual, the hypocrisy of the Right knows no bounds.