So last night was a bit of a bomb for the Democratic party (and, I’d argue, the well-being of the entire country). The GOP (read: Tea Party Party) took over control of the House of Representatives, though thankfully didn’t take over control of the Senate. Also, thankfully, Harry Reid didn’t lose to Sharrrrrrron Angle in his district, which would have made the Repub gloating all the worse on the day-after media circuit.
While I’m disappointed in the results, I’m not that surprised or that dismayed. While it’s going to be PAINFUL to have to watch John Boehner as Speaker of the House, I don’t think the GOP can inflict much damage in their majority capacity.
If anything, it will be interesting to see how the Republican party will have to step up to actually get something done for a change — rather than all the childish, slamming of feet, saying “NO!” that they’ve accomplished during the last 2 years.
I love how, last night in his “victory” speech, Boehner said that it’s now time for him to “roll up his sleeves” and get some work done in the House. If only he had that attitude for the last 20 years he’s served as a Representative.
Stay tuned, this political ride is going to get bumpy, methinks.
Oy, if I hear someone else break out ye ol reductio ad Hitlerum argument one more time, I’m going to scream. An old Mediaite post reminded me of this soundbite from Robert Gibbs (who I still haven’t forgiven for the “professional left” remark):
You hear — in this [healthcare] debate you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning. And you hear it all the time. People — imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler. Hopefully we can get back to a discussion about the issues that are important in this country, that we can do without being personally disagreeable and set up comparisons to things that were so insidious in our history that anybody in any professional walk of life would be well advised to compare nothing to those atrocities.
Adding his voice to Dan Savage’s campaign of “It Gets Better,” here’s President Obama:
My frustrations are pretty clear in the post below this one — but I think Rachel Maddow summed up the significance of the video well:
Americans who care about the rights of sexual minorities have plenty of reasons to be frustrated and even angry with President Obama and his administration. Still, I’m trying to think of another American president who could have given this talk — and it is a talk, not a speech. This is a president, a father, talking to kids the same age as his daughters. President Lincoln in the YouTube age? President Clinton, plus 15 years? In a time when progress feels painfully slow, this counts.
The ostensibly principled position these folks are taking is that they want smaller government. They want government to do less. And just because so many of them are retired Medicare and Social Security recipients who get to their protests in national parks via public mass transit, don‘t let that get in the way of their anti-government message.
When you are shown to demonstrably not believe something you say you believe, that‘s hypocrisy. And reasonably speaking, it should undermine your claim that you‘re acting on principle. You can‘t say you hate government-run health care, for example, and then profess your love for Medicare. It is one or the other. Or you don‘t make any sense.
A clip that includes Republican politicos that doesn’t include any tea-bagging pandering?!
Granted, I still don’t buy some of what they say, but it’s nice to see conversation without fear-mongering or deliberate misinformation. Let’s keep the talk on policy and not so much on riling (or fleecing) the base.
And don’t you just love King’s mispronouncing of the word, “heretic?” I suppose you get more slack when you’re 200+ years old.
President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.
Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.
[...]Politically, this frustration is epitomized by the Tea Party movement. It may have some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.), but its message is lost in the madness. And now the anemic Republican establishment, covetous of the Tea Party’s passion, is moving to absorb it, not admonish it. Instead of jettisoning the radical language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify it. (They don’t want to refute it as much as funnel it.)
There may be a short-term benefit in this strategy, but it’s a long-term loser.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members and found them to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country’s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and “less educated … than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.” This at a time when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future.
So last night was a bit of a bomb for the Democratic party (and, I’d argue, the well-being of the entire country). The GOP (read: Tea Party Party) took over control of the House of Representatives, though thankfully didn’t take over control of the Senate. Also, thankfully, Harry Reid didn’t lose to Sharrrrrrron Angle in his district, which would have made the Repub gloating all the worse on the day-after media circuit.
