The Senate, delayed by Republican objections, is finally scheduled to debate the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday to be secretary of health and human services.
This is a fine example of the way that Obama’s first 100 days–a meaningless milestone if you ask me–have been completely blown by Republicans. Not that I’m complaining. But by going out of their way to obstruct and oppose everything and anything right from the get-go, the GOP has ensured their continued freefall. Save your wad, old white guys! You’re gonna need it. And not just for the pageboys and such.
If I were advising an out-of-touch party that is dying a slow death in embarrassing fashion, here’s what I would say, in the spirit of bipartisan outreach:
Dude. Dudes. Seriously. Take a breath. Obama has been president for three or four months. He won in fairly convincing fashion. He’s kinda popular. Hold the sour grapes and take it like the dirty old white men that you are. Oh, there’s a woman? And a black guy? Whatever, you get my point.
See, by opposing everything you lose your ability to be taken seriously. You have to save some of that for later, when it matters. Right now people actually want their president to Do Things. It’s part of the Change We Can Believe In thing. So he has to clean up all the shit you left behind when you Didn’t Oppose Anything. You can’t get all worked up about taxes and tea bag the hell out of each other when you stood silent for 8 years when the deficit grew and the spending ran wild. You just look kinda silly.
I can go on. Torture? Yeah, it’s bad. And so when the orders come from our president and others to torture, well, that makes us all look bad. It’s nothing like frat boy hi-jinks and no, Sean Hannity, you don’t have the balls to be waterboarded. But I’d love to see you try. And it’s so easy to pull quotes from when prominent Republican dudes came out against it (Reagan, Gingrich, a lying George Friggin W. Bush) that trying to defend it now, or dismiss it, is…man, you guys don’t get this one at all, do you?
Distance yourself from Cheney. Stay. The. Fuck. Away from him. People hate him and whatever he says, do the opposite. Not even 20% are left in that camp. And the more Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity talk, the longer the wilderness shall extend. Here’s a secret: they’re in it for the money! YOUR money.
Abortion–give it up. You lost. Gay marriage–enjoy it! The Religious Right? Send ’em back to the hellhole they came from. Because there’s going to be no one left but you and some crazy preacher dudes who think the world is going to end any day. And not because of some war you wish you started.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Thank me later. And because I know you won’t, we’ll see you in 2012 and try not to giggle at your Sarah Palin-led ticket that will doom you all to oblivion. Cheers!
UPDATE:
There’s more. Always more. Arlen Specter has seen the obvious and has switched parties.
Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right…The American people do not care which Party solves the problems confronting our nation. And no Senator, no matter how loyal he is to his Party, should or would put party loyalty above his duty to the state and nation.
Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. And one other thing: getting worked up about the plane flyover in New York–bigger fish to fry, dummies. Really. This means you. And you. And especially you. Are you serious?
If President Bush is to blame for torture, the recession, and trumping up fake WMDs to start a preemptive war as the left has howled for years, then President Obama has earned the “right” to take the blame for this debacle and every other than can be tangentially be blamed on his watch.
Hopeless.
UPDATE II:
I find it interesting that a stimulus spending package in the midst of the steepest recession in memory is the sticking point. For the GOP to have remained mute under the massive increases in spending and borrowing under Bush but to make resistance to the Obama stimulus package a litmus test for conservatism reveals that the deepest principle of the Republican base is partisanship.
As I was saying…