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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 3/16/09

Today's Republican Party is a Central Part of our National Crisis

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The Republican Party under Obama is still possessed by the same spirit --divisive, dishonest, hypocritical, shameless-- as animated the Bushite regime.

From my notes:

This whole Republican lot is shameless. The shamelessness was not just something of W’s.

Just imagine how shameless W had to be: to strut before the world and lecture the UN about Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction-- and then there were none, and W botched the war besides. If that wouldn’t embarrass anyone, nothing would. But Bush was never embarrassed-- showing how shameless he is.

Now the Republicans, who more than anyone drove us into this ditch with the policies of their president which they supported in all their dishonesty and shamelessness, do not have enough shame to prevent them from launching the bogus “socialist” “big-spending” “ruining the economy” charges, as Obama tries to clean up what is largely their mess.

The shamelessness of all this should be pointed out. From Limbaugh to Boehner to John McCain, this outfit is shameless about their role in creating our current disaster, or about their having nothing better to propose as a remedy.




2) IF, in the emergency following 9/11, THE DEMOCRATS HAD DONE WHAT THE REPUBLICANS ARE DOING NOW, in this economic emergency, THE REPUBLICANS WOULD HAVE CALLED THEM TRAITORS.


From my notes:

Here's how the Republicans would have dealt with the stimulus and the bailout issues, if they were patriots, putting "country first":

They would object AT MOST by saying, “While this isn’t the way we would design all this, be do believe that something of this sort must be done to rescue the economy, and we support that.”

After all, the Republicans’ own president also tried a “stimulus”-- that ineffective round of tax rebates to everybody early last year. And after all, the Republicans’ own president proposed the bailout of last fall (and was in charge of it—while it got fairly well botched by Paulson).

Being responsible for doing SOMETHING led that Republican president to do the same kinds of things Obama’s doing, only less well conceived probably. Today's congressional Republicans have no reason to cast fundamental aspersions on it –as socialism, wasteful spending, generational theft, etc.

This is how they behave in the face of a serious national danger.

Imagine what they’d have said if the Democrats, in a time of national crisis back after 9-11, had behaved as they’re behaving now. What if the Democrats, instead of rallying around the president in a time of acute need for national unity, had spent all their energies attacking the Bush policy as “fascist”-- which, of course, it actually was in many ways-- instead of primarily rallying around our leader in an emergency? One could just hear them howl “traitors” at the Democrats.

The real traitors are the Limbaughs who want the president to fail, and the Congressional Republicans who are trying to disable the president as best they can rather than to help him do the very best that can be done.

Partisan advantage first. To hell with "country." That's their true motto. The spirit that possesses them knows nothing of subordination of the lust for power for the sake of something bigger than themselves.


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Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia's 6th District. His new book -- written to have an impact on the central political battle of our time -- is (more...)
 
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