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Monday, February 2, 2009
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor rouses his troops for battle against the evil Queen Nancy.
House Republicans are treating their unanimous vote against the stimulus bill as a major victory, which given their reduced numbers in the House might be understandable. After all, it’s the only kind of victory they’re likely to see for a while.
“Look at these faces,” California Rep. Kevin O. McCarthy told a reporter from Politico, pointing to a roomful of Republicans and their families at a House GOP retreat over the weekend. “They’re all smiling. You’d think these people are still in the majority.”
According to Politico, U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told his colleagues that they need to get over the idea that they’re participating in legislation and ought to start thinking of themselves as “an insurgency” instead.
There’s a certain romantic appeal to that insurgency approach. The Republicans are casting themselves as the brave 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, fighting heroically against the invading hordes. Being seen as combative insurgents also helps them with their base back home; most of the surviving Republicans represent solidly conservative House districts where they’re more worried by a primary challenge from the right than by a Democrat in the general.
In fact, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, 43 percent of Republicans trace their party’s problems to an excess of moderation; only 17 percent say their party has become too conservative. So for most GOP House members, moderation has no benefit.
However, if that’s the approach they’re going to take, House Republicans ought to drop the hypocrisy of pretending that they really truly wanted a bipartisan stimulus plan and could have been wooed if only that evil Nancy Pelosi had been a little nicer to them. The truth is, they have no interest in compromise or bipartisanship. Compromise is a danger to the strategy they’ve adopted.
A group that defines and excites itself by saying no cannot risk saying yes. Every effort by their opponents to reach out for support is a threat to their purity and unity, an effort to lure one or more of their number into betraying their holy cause. To say yes is to lose.
Again, if that’s their approach, fine. But don’t pretend otherwise, because it undercuts the image. Did the brave Spartans whine and complain that to the press that the Persian King Xerxes wouldn’t negotiate with them fairly?
Nosireebob, they did not.
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Gregg to Commerce, but GOP keeps his seat?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This seems like a fair compromise:
“WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is poised to pick a Republican senator, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, as his Commerce secretary, but the state’s Democratic governor will likely fill the vacancy with another Republican, leaving Democrats just shy of a filibuster-proof Senate.
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said he has Gregg’s assurances that New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch would appoint a Republican to Gregg’s seat.
“In other words, whoever is appointed to replace him would caucus with Senate Republicans, so I think it would have no impact on the balance of power in the Senate.” McConnell told “Face the Nation” on CBS.
If that happens, the Democrats will be no closer to their goal of holding 60 Senate seats, enough to cut off Republican filibusters if all Democrats vote together. The Republican expected to get the seat until a new election is held in two years is Bonnie Newman, who served as Gregg’s chief of staff when Gregg was in the House. She is a veteran of the Reagan White House. Under the deal that has been worked out, she would not run in the 2010 election.”
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In Iraq, elections mostly peaceful
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Iraqi provincial elections over the weekend went about as well as could be hoped, with minimal violence and vigorous campaigning.
Turnout was a lot lower than expected — roughly 51 percent turnout, with considerably lower turnout in places such as Anbar Province. But as the NY Times reports, “Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and several secular parties appeared to score significant gains….. The relative success of the secular parties may be a sign that a significant number of Iraqis are disillusioned with the religious parties that have been in power but have done little to deliver needed services.”
The real test, of course, is how well the losers accept being losers. Do they stay within the system, or turn to the gun? It’s a hard choice, because in the past being a loser in Iraq often meant being dead. And that cultural memory clearly won’t fade for a long time, as this Times excerpt suggests:
“Ahmed Abu Risha, a powerful tribesman in Anbar Province and the brother of one of the founders of the Awakening councils, which joined the Americans to fight Islamic insurgents, said he believed that the turnout was lower than the 40 percent announced by the election commission and that the numbers were being manipulated by the Iraqi Islamic Party. “If the Islamic Party wins, it will be another Darfur,” he said.”
