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Lacking Substance
Author: BobR
Date: 03/27/2009 12:36:32
Light, thin, and insubstantial
The press conference held yesterday by Republicans illustrated in a perfect moment of lucidity how truly insubstantial they are. Performing yet another in a series of poorly staged press stunts, they held up what they said was their answer to Obama's request for an alternative budget. What they actually held up was a pretty package containing no details and no numbers. It was a shameless attempt to divert the spotlight from a live appearance by Obama. Unfortunately for Boehner and the rest, the press was actually paying attention to the details (or - more accurately - the lack thereof) and called them on it.
The criticism didn't stop with the press:
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a staunch fiscal conservative, said he would "have to consider voting against a Republican budget if it spends too much."
Meanwhile, centrist Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), said that he may oppose his party’s alternative if it “doesn’t spend enough on education,” and other social programs..
Democrats were quick to pounce on the Republican proposal as a detail-free rehash of President George W. Bush’s policies.
"All House Republicans managed to do here was Xerox all of Bush's failed ideas and change the font," said Doug Thornell, a spokesman for Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
Republicans fired back, insisting there is a difference between an initial roadmap and an actual budget proposal, which they said is coming shortly.
It sounds like more of Bush's "it's hard work" whining as an excuse for actually producing something with substance. If this were an anomaly, one might be more forgiving, or at least cut them some slack. Instead, though, they have apparently completely run out of any ideas at all and keep rehashing their failures, perhaps hoping they'll work this time. They tried to put lipstick on the pig (pig = Bush) and run it as a VP candidate (let's be honest - Sarah Palin was Bush in drag). That failed as well.
Besides trotting out tax cuts for the rich again as their version of a "budget", and embracing incompetence and poor sentence construction skills as presidential qualities, they are still trying the old "FEAR" (booga booga) angle. For Newt Gingrich (yet another empty suit presidential hopeful), that means a - *gasp* - dictatorship!:
Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich got together to discuss the Obama administration’s new financial system oversight and regulation plan. Naturally, Hannity was particularly outraged, bringing out his tired old trope that it "moves America down the road to socialism."
[...]
GINGRICH: We are seeing the biggest power grab by politicians in American history. The idea that they would propose that the treasury could intervene and take over non-bank, non-financial system assets gives them the potential to basically create the equivalent of a dictatorship. [...] Look, it absolutely moves it towards a political dictatorship.
Lessee... What was it Bush said? Oh yeah: "It would be a heckuva lot easier if this were a dictatorship . . . as long as I'm the dictator". The lack of outrage from the Republicans on that one was deafening. Yet an oversight and regulation plan for the financial industry that just melted down from a lack of same is akin to a dictatorship??
If the politicians are empty suits, their supporters in PunditLand are empty-headed. The leaps of logic from Michelle Malkin boggle the imagination:
"A Maryland senator is proposing that newspapers be allowed to operate as nonprofits," the AP reports. "A bill by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., would let newspapers choose a tax-exempt status similar to public broadcasting stations."
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin told Fox's Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade that she feared a bailout of newspapers would lead to government control of the news.
"Doesn't it go against the grain of just common sense? Because already newspapers we all know slant one direction or the other and that's supposedly the free press already," asked Carlson.
Malkin agreed, saying, "In some ways it would only make formal a relationship that many mainstream mainstream national newspapers have with the government."
Did you follow that? Tax-exempt status = bailout = Government control of the media. Methinks someone skipped the logic class in college...
She also missed the irony of her comment about "formal relationships" between media and government as she is talking on FAUX News. The irony continued:
"I think what this raises is the desperation of a monopoly that has dominated the media landscape for too long and has really gotten threatened by competition from new beat media and alternative sources like Fox News," Malkin said.
Sadly, this is the current state of their fear-mongering. They're not even good at THAT anymore.
So this is what passes for the Republican party these days: empty heads, empty suits, empty budget proposals, fear, and poorly formed strawman arguments. Perhaps they should change their logo to something more appropriate...
Like a scarecrow.
