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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Well, so much for bipartisanship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Thursday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to hold down their own difference over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.
All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-188 vote came a day after Mr. Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing — if not for the package then on future issues.”
There are many lessons to be drawn from that. One is that the president’s attempt to draw bipartisan support got him exactly nothing. The other is that even with all Republicans voting against him, and with 11 Democrats defecting, the plan passed overwhelmingly.
That’s what a mandate does for you.
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Rape by CIA chief in Algeria alleged
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Great. Just great. This is going to go over so very well in the Arab world…..
“The CIA’s station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.
Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.
The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.”
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View the kissing of the godfather’s … ring
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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“Who’s your daddy? HE’S your daddy!”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach. I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing.”
— U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Marietta Republican, defending his party leaders against attacks from Limbaugh and other right-wing talk radio hosts. That was Tuesday.
“Because of the high volume of phone calls and correspondence received by my office since the Politico article ran, I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to grassroots conservatives. Let me assure you, I am one of you….As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values. I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called “stimulus.” And on so many of these things, I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what yesterday’s headline may have read, I never told Rush to back off.
…Now more than ever, we need to articulate a clear conservative message that distinguishes our values and our approach from those of liberal democrats who are seeking to move our nation in the wrong direction. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience. Every day, millions and millions of Americans — myself included—turn on their radios and televisions to listen to what they have to say, and we are inspired by their words and by their determination.”
— Rep. Gingrey, just a day later.
I suspect the good congressman has gotten a lesson in who his daddy is.
(sorry for the earlier glitch)
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The Republicans and the stimulus package
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even before President Obama went to the Hill Tuesday seeking Republican support for the stimulus package, House Speaker John Boehner had instructed his caucus to oppose the measure.
Fair enough. That’s politics.
But the GOP is trying to rebuild its political appeal on a stance widely rejected by the American people. Poll after poll shows strong to overwhelming support for the $825 billion spending plan, which isn’t surprising given continuing headlines of major layoffs. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, for example, 57 percent said the stimulus was a good idea; 36 percent said it was a bad idea.
Of course, sometimes the public is simply wrong; sometimes leadership means bucking public opinion to do the right thing, the smart thing.
However, the overwhelming consensus of economists is that the public and Obama and the Democrats are right: a large stimulus is absolutely necessary. Although there are certainly exceptions, that consensus includes many if not most conservative economists.
“”Most conservative economists are all for it,” according to Mark Zandi, a founder of Moody’s Economy.com and an advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign.
“”Countering a deep economic recession requires an increase in government spending to offset the sharp decline in consumer outlays and business investment that is now under way,” Martin Feldstein, chief economic advisor to the sainted Ronald Reagan, wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month. “Without that rise in government spending, the economic downturn would be deeper and longer.”
Of course, economists are just pointy-headed academics — what do they know? What matters is the opinion of American business, the entrepreneurs and leaders with real-life, firsthand experience in capitalism. Well, most business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, strongly support the stimulus as a whole even if they disagree with some aspects of it.
So why the strong Republican opposition? In a sense, they have fallen into a trap of their own making. Spending and deficits grew so fast during the past eight years under largely Republican rule that the GOP lost all credibility as fiscal conservatives, even (or especially) among their own base.
This vote is an effort to placate that base and begin to re-establish that credibility, even if by doing so they alienate the strong majority of US voters who support the stimulus. That’s a mark of how bad it’s gotten for the GOP: They have to first patch up their support from their own hard-core 30 percent of the electorate before they can even think about trying to expand that number closer to 50 percent.
They have to do what Rush Limbaugh tells them to do.
