Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over

Bipartisanship My Ass

26. NeoCons are not interested in bipartisanship. To them, bipartisanship is when the Democrats cave in and accept the NeoCon position. It doesn’t work any other way.

President Obama needs to wake up. Listening to the NeoCon-run GOP and their failed ideas only wastes his valuable time. Bipartisanship cannot take place while republicans refuse to compromise, insist on the same old tired tactics, and then crow to the press that they won the battle of ideas. They lost the election and somehow think they won the war of ideas. Have you seen the shape the country is in? 

Tonight at his press conference, President Obama was still trying to placate disaffected republicans and reach across the aisle. All it’s gotten him is three GOP votes in the Senate. Admittedly, those three votes helped push the Democrats past a 60 vote total so they could vote on the stimulus package. I may be wrong here but I predict those votes will dry up once Al Franken is seated as Minnesota’s senator and there are 60 votes on the Democratic side. Then obstructionist republicans can appeal to their base by continuing to block the progress of legislation knowing how short the public’s memory is about these kinds of things.

Given that the majority of republican congress-slugs are hardcore NeoCons, they have nothing to lose by standing up to the President. It merely solidifies their base’s attitude and gives them a concrete sense of pride in having done so. History teaches NeoCons nothing. They are always right even when they are wrong. Back when Bill Clinton was trying to pass the Deficit Reduction Plan (the plan that solidified the eight years of positive growth the Clinton years are famous for) it passed Congress without one GOP vote. They were proud of that accomplishment for years and even won Congress back from the Democrats by running on that platform. Ignoring the effects of Clinton’s plan was SOP for the GOP and, from the looks of things, nothing has changed in the NeoCon/republican mindset. 

They new Chairman of the RNC even praised the “beautiful goose egg” that the current bunch of clueless House republicans dumped on the President’s plan completely ignoring the fact that they had no real counter-response to the President’s Stimulus plan except that tired old “more tax cuts” mantra. If we followed their plan, taxes would soon be cut to the point that there won’t be enough money coming into the government to run anything. That is the REAL republican goal: starve the government of tax money so every social program gets eliminated and private sector companies can step in to take over. Again, history is not a strong republican subject because we tried that 100 years ago under republican presidents and it was a complete failure then.  (See: The Guilded Age.) Nothing changes with these people.

My favorite Texas Senator, John Cornyn, spent the last two weeks getting all kinds of publicity bashing the Stimulus plan but when it came down to putting up or shutting up Senator Cornball was nowhere to be found. Even Senator Kennedy dragged his ailing body to the Senate chambers to vote on the plan but where was Loudmouth Cornball? Off in NYC for a meeting with rightwing media slimeballs and Wall Street money people, that’s where. That should tell you his real priorities and sum up the republican agenda in three cogent points:

1) Make as much media noise as possible but have no authentic counter proposals.

2) Congratulate each other on sticking together as the ship of state is sinking.

3) Chasing after re-election money is more important than doing the people’s business.

President Obama should make republicans earn any future concessions by offering up votes in exchange for a seat at the negotiating table. Giving them parts of the program free of charge just plays to their misguided sense of entitlement and gets you nothing in the end. Bipartisanship, my ass. Time to play hardball. The country’s future is at stake.