Good News From The Republican Party?

by Dick Mac

The headline reads: "Republicans in House Battle Turmoil in Their Ranks"!

Nothing in politics could make me happier this morning.

It seems that gone are the days of the GOP keeping their members in line to form a unified front. The GOP has attached itself to the radical fringe right-wing, helped elect a couple dozen of them, and now has to figure-out how to keep the lunatics in the asylum.

Good luck with that!

The quality of GOP leadership is not the highest, and nowhere near as effective or convincing as previous teams of Republican leadership.

John Boehner (R-OH) is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have been following electoral politics and government in the United States since I was ten-years-old. I have seen some impressive (for better or worse) politicians lead the House: John McCormack, of Massachusetts, was Speaker when I started paying attention, and he had served quite a long time. He was, like his successors, Carl Albert, Tip O'Neill, and Jim Wright, an excellent leader, negotiator and tactician. The word "impolitic" would not be used to describe these men, they were politicians and they knew how to make everybody happy and get things done. John Boehner is not like any of these people.

In the 1990s, things began to change. Tom Foley, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and Nancy Pelosi were horrible leaders; media poseurs hell-bent not on making America a better place (quite to the contrary, in fact), but creating havoc from which they could dip into the wide-open pool of tax dollars that the Treasury became under Ronald Reagan. John Boehner is a lot like this group.

No longer is the Speaker of the House relied upon to do anything more than make his or her own personal headlines, secure directorships for the future, and amass a personal fortune. There is no longer any advantage to being "politic," of bringing together different people to reach consensus about how to proceed, everything is "us and them" and that's all. Thank you, Newt Gingrich.

Boehner, even more than the heinous Pelosi and Gingrich before him, is so self-serving that he can't even hide it and doesn't even try. He is a terrible actor whose displays of "emotion" and "toughness" are unbelievably insincere and unbelievably unbelievable. And on top of it, he can't lead. Nobody takes him seriously, including his own freshman members - the people he should be leading and guiding and showing the ropes.

This may not exactly be good news for Democrats. A fractured Republican Party might be dangerous because their agenda is so disjointed. Nobody really has any idea what the GOP wants to do . . . well, except that they hate niggers and they're going to get Obama at any cost, that much they've made pretty clear - but, that's a different story. What are they going to actually do?

They will not cut taxes for the working American: they never have and they never will, even though that's what they say they will do. The only party that has cut taxes for working people is the Democrats. The Republicans cut taxes for the rich. Period.

They will not cut the budget: if they cut from something they don't like, they will add it to something they do like - always have, always will. No more funding for public education, we need a bridge to nowhere in Alaska.

They will not unify America: they've made it clear that they have no intention of working with anybody, including each other, to bring conclusions or plans of action.

And, most importantly, the party that pretends is supports personal freedom will spend inordinate amounts of time denying homosexuals their civil rights, preventing women from getting access to needed health care, and putting drug users in prison. After all, you are allowed personal freedom, as long as you are like them, and do what they say (just like God and our forefathers intended).

They will do nothing that was historically thought of as Republican; and it seems they will do nothing that has more recently become known as Republican. This is probably for the best.

The GOP has already seen its freshman class side with the Democrats on an attempt to fast-track re-approval of the Patriot Act! Woo-Hoo! Finally, this boondoggle might be allowed to expire. It's only point was to funnel tax dollars to contractors and restrict the movement of taxpayers.

The GOP freshmen also dug in and broke rank regarding a demand of repayment from the United Nations, and passage of a "trade assistance" bill. Trade assistance, by the way, is a Republican phrase that really means: we're going to take some tax money and give it to really rich people who supported our campaigns; no job creation, no stimulus, no hope for investment in the nation's future - just a simple, straight-forward cash payment to rich folk.

Can the GOP freshman class really be a revolutionary force in Washington? Will they really guide their party to sensible budget ideas, campaigns for personal freedom, and investing in the growth of America through infrastructure improvements? This is what the pre-Reagan GOP represented, and perhaps that's what the non-establishment Republicans want to do.

Perhaps they will, and perhaps they should stop calling themselves Republicans!

One thing is certain: John Boehner will have no part of improving America. He has a personal career to promote, a sun tan to apply, and a pack of cigarettes waiting to be smoked. Perhaps his freshman class will be his downfall.

We can only hope!

Republicans in House Battle Turmoil in Their Ranks