DOMA Response, or John Boehner Once Again Is A Tool

[filkertom]

A number of people have pointed out the good news that, while the Defense Of Marriage Act is still on the books, the Obama Justice Dept. has decided to stop defending it in court. A very welcome development indeed.

And, it brings forth unintended hypocrisy hilarity:

Michael Steel, a spokesman for [House Speaker John] Boehner, said in an e-mail he questions why Obama "thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation" when "most Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending."

As Steve Benen points out:

But the larger problem here is with Boehner's office lacking any and all self-awareness. This Speaker, after all, leads a House Republican caucus that has spent its first seven weeks tackling multiple abortion bills, health care, private-school vouchers, Planned Parenthood, a resolution to promote the phrase "In God We Trust," and even a measure tackling marriage rights in the District of Columbia.

I swear to FSM, I have no idea how these people ended up in charge of anything. How they put their pants on in the morning. How they look at the rainclouds without drowning.

The true comfort I have at this point is that, by and large, the entire Republican political response to everything -- and I mean everything -- is so crude, so ham-fisted, so blatant, that both the Vichy Media and their own grassroots are unable to not notice. It's like when Grandpa goes out in the front yard and strips to his underwear and yells at the grass to get off his lawn. Only, multiplied by both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, fifty states and a whole bunch of pundits who apparently figure They've Got Theirs So Fuggit.

Now and again, we hear politicos say they're going to "focus like a laser" on whatever problem they think we'd like them to focus on. But there's focus... and there's ideological blindness.

Comments

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

They end up in charge of things because they have large sums of money to spend to run campaigns, large sums of money to build an effective organization, no shame about deliberately lying in some cases and no real interest in formally retracting misstatements of fact where they might have made an actual mistake. Oh, and the willingness to pull numbers out of their butt and say that these numbers really aren't shit.

Insert Colorful Analogy Here

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I know all that, but I still can't figure out how. They have no common sense. None. They say and do shit that makes me think someone must have hit them on the head repeatedly, or kidnapped them and replaced them with pod-clones, or mistranslated from the Inje-Inje. I keep thinking of the Grandpa example above, or maybe David Copperfield doing his I'm-so-fucking-mystical smouldering-for-the-ladies look without realizing the damn elephant is still on the stage behind him.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

That is the how. Especially after Citizens United, and maybe even beforehand if what we've heard about Clarence Thomas' massive conflict of interest problem are as true as they seem, throw enough money behind even the village idiot and they can get elected anywhere, provided they're white, male, and nominally Christian. Not to be impolitely blunt here, Mr. Smith, but Christ, after eight years of Bush the Younger, you're still wondering how this works?

Also, there is no such thing as "common sense." "Common" would imply that either it's something posessed by the people* at large, or that sense is in abundant supply, neither of which is true.

I'm beginning to think that Pinky and the Brain (http://realinterrobang.livejournal.com/490619.html) really have taken over the world.

__________
* Obligatory Blazing Saddles reference: "You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I invoke that line all the time. :) And what's this "Mr. Smith" stuff? We're all friends here.

Yes, yes, I know precisely how it works. But there's still this niggling part of my brain -- the part that, I suppose, still thinks journalism is supposed to be both truthful and effective -- that simply doesn't get how they can continually spew such utter bullshit, blatant lies, inane hypocrisy, and then not only show their faces in public but win elections. It's a disturbance in the Force, y'know?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess I've just given up on optimism. Right now, I've pretty much given up. I'm about three steps from "nnnngggh...cats..." :)

By the way, I love your icon. :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks. Bill Holbrook drew it for me.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

I object to your assertion. Pinky and the Brain would be far more benevolent and effective leaders.

Re: Insert Colorful Analogy Here

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I think they probably have lots of sense - but it is focused on getting elected, not on governance.

Re: Insert Colorful Analogy Here

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Roger that. They hate government -- it gets in the way of profit, with its stupid regulations and taxes 'n' stuff -- and their m.o. the past few decades has apparently been to show how awful and incompetent government is by getting elected to it, screwing things up, and saying, "See? Government is bad."

Re: Insert Colorful Analogy Here

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I'm cynical enough to think that many of them don't actually believe what they are selling. They don't hate government, or really choose their policies based upon principles. It is simply a means to an end.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I swear to FSM, I have no idea how these people ended up in charge of anything. How they put their pants on in the morning. How they look at the rainclouds without drowning.

When I read that sentence, I got a sense of deja vu, like how I felt when Dubya was in charge. How I wondered how he got his shoes tied, or if a secret service person helped with that, and how I would cringe to hear a speech knowing that any junior 4-Her in Public Speaking could do better.

Seems now we've switched the problem from the executive to the legislative.

If the pattern holds true, then we'll vote them out, and then the Teabaggers will complain about too many smart people being in charge again. And back come the populist know-nothings. ...OK, depressed now.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"How" is simple: they lied. LOTS. (One might even say they used the Big Lie, but how awful, to suggest that they might be totalitarian wingnuts. It might hurt their fee-fees if we do.)

Glad Benen pointed it out; I woke up to the news on the radio, heard Boehner's comment, and laughed myself out of bed.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

At a speech in PA, Gingrich was confronted with how he's for traditional marriage (anti-equal-marriage) yet has been married 3 times. He dodged the question and attacked the questioner accusing her of "fascist behavior".

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/23/gingrich-marriage-2/

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The joke -- for him, Limbauch, and a number of others -- is that he's so much in favor of traditional marriage that he wants to have as many as he can.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

It's "all our political sins remembered" time. Every hole in the US electoral system that could be exploited, has been. A lot of these people won in an off-year election during a depression, and the Democrats simply let things slide--didn't do anything about jobs or the mortgage market. So the radical right turned out, and the rest of us weren't there to counter them. I think the next two years are probably their death throes. But it promises to be a rough time, and I see no leadership that is going to take us *out* of this mess.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

John Boehner's on the House floor, making drama
John Boehner likes to castigate Obama
John Boehner hates the budget, every comma
John Boehner even hates the Dalai Lama
But he should not be unchaperoned....
EVERYBODY must get Boehned!

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*LOLOLOLOLOL* Well played!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[invader-tak-1.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with hating the Dali Lama? Penn and Teller do, and for very good reason.

As for the rest, I'm with you 100%.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

They seem to think that if they run around shouting "deficit" and "jobs" loud enough, no one will notice that they're frantically busy pushing a social agenda that has nothing to do with either of those things.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's exactly the point. Misdirection by the clumsy... and the media go along with it, and their base goes along with it, and that is the part that really baffles me.

I just realized the real comparison scene: that brilliant episode of M*A*S*H, where everyone is dreaming. Major Winchester dreams that, rather than perform surgery, he is doing magic, while a patient lies dying in front of him. As the patient worsens, Winchester tries more and more elaborate tricks, but the soldier keeps getting worse, and Winchester's audience become less impressed by his illusions and more concerned about the lack of results. The soldier dies, and Winchester is reduced to tapdancing while holding sparklers in a desperate attempt to get back the audience and make the magic happen.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

And Wisconsin tells the unions to hand over their arms.

[bridgeweaver.livejournal.com]

I can't fathom the optimism that says they will do themselves in. Surely the lesson of all this is that sense doesn't matter, honesty doesn't matter. We have the government we deserve because we, the people, the electorate, both those who participate and those who opt out have created an environment where they can get away with murder (almost literally in places like SD) and we won't stand up against them, for whatever reason.

So my friends, what are *we* going to do about it?

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

I understand, though this is unrelated, that they'd also cut every social program out of the budget, substituting If they are to die, then let them do it, and decrease the surplus population..

[nshoe.livejournal.com]

Hey, show me how we can actually pay for those programs and I'll be all for them. (last year 78% of our federal income went to pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the National Debt. I couldn't run a household constantly spending more money than I make, why do we think the federal government can?)

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Simple. Easy-peasy. Repeal the fraking Bush tax cuts. Crank up the tax rate on the richest of the Richie Riches. That is, end welfare for the super-rich.

Easy!

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I swear to FSM, I have no idea how these people ended up in charge of anything. How they put their pants on in the morning. How they look at the rainclouds without drowning.

Easy: they have lobbyists to help them with their zippers and to hold umbrellas over them.