It was a nice try. Really. I give you credit for trying. And maybe you had to, what with Chris Matthews still obsessing about contraceptives and all even after they were yanked from the stimulus bill (and whose idea was it to put a red flag like that in front of the Republican bulls, anyway?).
But Bob Herbert was right this week when he asked why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. Why indeed. Why does anyone on earth think the GOP has any credibility, when they've spent the last eight years rubberstamping the worst presidency in this nation's history -- and showing signs that they want to continue every aspect of it in perpetuity. Why on earth would you give any credibility to people who really are taking their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh, who is the REAL head of the Republican Party? Are you aware that while Limbaugh is being paid $50 million a year through 2016, Clear Channel, the company that gave him that astounding contract, is laying off people right and left? While Randi Rhodes was in Washington covering your inauguration, 30 people at her affiliate in Tampa and many others were laid off so that Limbaugh could be paid. And his minions are the people you're trying to get on board a stimulus plan designed to create jobs? Do you you see maybe a little bit of irony there? Perhaps soo, as the Mooselini of Alaska, who is already breathing down your neck for 2012 might say.
Did you honestly believe that they would put the nation's interest before that of their party? When in the last three decades have they ever done that? I mean, this is a party that impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob, but that wanted Eric Holder to pledge not to investigate and if warranted, prosecute Bush Administration officials for wrongdoing in the most breathtaking attempt yet to codify the IOKIYAR rule into actual written practice.
This is a party so steeped in cronyism and greed and racism and plutocracy and its own corrupt and discredited ideology that it has become their religion. And like a fundamentalist Christian standing firm against opening his mind to the possibility that the earth is more than 6000 years old, they simply will not budge on their doctrine, no matter how discredited it is.
So now you have made the gesture. You made an effort to include them. And for your trouble you got absolutely no Republican votes in the House. It's going to be worse for you in the Senate, where the REAL Republican blowhards reside.
Now I don't know if this stimulus package will accomplish anything. I'm inclined to agree with Krugman, who looks at the Bush tax cuts and sees the mess we're in anyway, and doesn't think a few thousand in tax cuts will stop the hemorrhaging of jobs that's going on, nor will it stimulate any spending among the middle class, who will tend to take 500 or 1000 bucks and sock it into the bank. Mr. Brilliant thinks it's already too late and it's time to put your head between your knees and kiss your ass and the life you've always known goodbye, because it's all going to shit no matter what we do (and thanks for nothing, Mr. Bush and the Congress that enabled him for eight years). But in trying to placate the Republicans, you may very well have crippled your first effort to try to do something about what's going on out here.
But now that you've made Scarborough and Matthews and Bob Schieffer and David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell and George Snuffleupagus happy by reaching out to Republicans, perhaps now you can start doing what you know is the right thing to do, and let the greedy bastards and their media apologists screech all they want to.
As you so succinctly said last week (and someone ought to work this up in cross-stitch to hang on the Oval Office wall): "I won." Because it's clear you need that reminder every single day.
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