Wednesday, May 15, 2013

MAKING SOME SPAGHETTI STICK TO THE WALL

From the first day of the Obama administration in his first term the Republicans went on the offensive. That meant throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick and then trying to blame the stain on the Democrats. Some seems to be sticking again.

Democrats being less binary and more open to nuance and complexity, too often (almost always actually) allow Republicans to frame the argument in simplistic right and wrong terms where the Democrats are always wrong and the Republicans always right in their terms, and on their terms.

Obama and the Dems in the Senate should have started investigations of the Bush/Cheney regime and all its transgressions immediately, and made the charges criminal, and enforced them through the Justice Department until every last member of the Bush regime that collaborated in fake evidence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or not inspected the financial institutions that caused the Great Recession, etc. etc. etc. were locked up, and their cohorts in the bank and financial institutions etc. as well.

The entire Republican Party was on its back after Obama's first victory, but being thoughtful, reasonable and humane, the liberal Dems did not jump on them and make sure they couldn't get up again but instead Obama proclaimed he wanted to look forward and not prosecute all the malfeasance that existed under Bush/Cheney before his election.

Did you know that the person in charge of initiating the IRS policy that led to the investigating of Tea Party organizations' eligibility for tax exemptions which led to the present manufactured crisis was a Bush appointee? No, because that's not what this big fuss is meant to cause. It's meant to make Obama, the Dems, liberals and the government all look bad, despite the fact that the IRS minions, including the one who resigned today (and had nothing to do with that policy) were just doing their jobs, checking if organizations that use the Tea Party name and hide behind the "patriot" facade really deserve tax exemptions that allow them not to disclose their donors or because they aren't really about politics and ensuring that a Tea Party Republican will have a better chance at defeating any opponent thanks to billionaire money that can't be traced etc.

Obama's outrage over this is a little like the Republican tail wagging the dog. I understand the politics of it, the media is sucking it up and there's no way the subtleties and nuances will be reported, just the horse race of who will whip the IRS bogie man harder, the Repubs or the Dems but it's tiresomely familiar and crucial to the right's goal of diminishing the power of government to regulate gazillionaires and their ginormous corporations the right deems persons.

6 comments:

AlamedaTom said...

Precisely! I hearken to the chant that plays out in the Eagles tune "Dirty Laundry:" "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down." 30 days of hearings on Cheney alone!

JIm said...
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Lally said...
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JIm said...
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JIm said...
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JIm said...
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