Republican Hypocrisy category archive

Via Bob Cesca.

Tom Ricks calls out Fox News, among others, for trying to gin up a scandal about Benghazi.

Linda McMahon stiffs paid campaign workers.

Guess Vince got tired of paying for her fantasies.

At the Guardian, Lizz Winstead considers the Republican crusade against Susan Rice:

I guess, for Susan Rice, her sin was that she ran with information provided to her by the CIA, who happens to be the keepers of all the information. And I guess, if your name is Susan Rice and you do this, you are covering up something that you had nothing to do with in the first place. I also guess, when your name is Susan Rice and you do this, as more details became unclassified, you will be branded an unqualified liar because you repeated the information you were given by the CIA; and until further notice, you will be relentlessly doused with buckets of scorn by the bitter brigade.

But these things only apply if your name is Susan Rice.

If your name is Condi Rice, the rules are different. Condi Rice played an actual role in the planning of an unnecessary war, then went on the very same shows and told America and the world that Iraq owned unicorns that shoot mushroom clouds, as a way of scaring people into supporting her war. Condi Rice was considered very qualified to be secretary of state.

Ron Paul goes all in for secession, describing it as follows (follow the link for more of the wit and wisdom of Ron Paul):

Secession is a deeply American principle.

Remember, when someone says, “states’ rights,” ask, “states’ rights to do just what, exactly?”

If you get an honest answer, it won’t be a pretty one.

Republicans: Watch what they do, not what they say.

Case in point:

In that interview with Politico, he (Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal–ed) said Republicans have to “stop being the stupid party” and “cease this dumbed-down conservatism and stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

This is good advice from a former Rhodes scholar. Yet this is the same Bobby Jindal who signed a bill that his right-wing legislature passed encouraging the teaching in Louisiana schools of creationism alongside evolution. And when the crazy birthers threatened to require a candidate to present a copy of a birth certificate to get on the ballot, Governor Jindal said he would sign such a measure.

More stories of mysterious magickal makeovers and why Republican Botox can’t hide the wrinkles at the link.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the recommended retoolings for the Republicans:

Some of the early prescriptions offered by officials and operatives to rebuild after devastating elections: retool the party message to appeal to Latinos, women and working-class people . . . .

Shorter version: Become Democrats.

Ain’t gonna happen. At least no time soon.

Retooling the message means retooling the party; otherwise, you get something like “compassionate conservatism,” an empty phrase, a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, signifying nothing.

The party base is too deeply invested in the hatin’ and party poobahs are too deeply beholdin’ to wingnut welfare.

Thom puts the “fiscal cliff” into perspective: Yet another Republican con.

Just watch it.

(I tried to embed it, but it kept reverting to the “whole show.”)

Lee Atwater, in his own words:

Anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.

In case you haven’t noticed the secession kerfuffle, know that it’s at least partially because Republicans have intentionally kept race simmering away on the back burner for four decades.

Via Bob Cesca.

Via Bartcop.

Michael Smerconish is a conservative talker and columnist who dares to think for himself and deviate from the Fox Party line. I seldom agree with him, but I do applaud his attempts to be reasonable and fair-minded.

In today’s column, he looks over President Obama’s term and the disloyal opposition. A nugget (emphasis added).

This election has always been a referendum on Barack Obama. For some, not on matters of substance. They can’t have it both ways. It’s hypocritical to distribute a vicious, false narrative about him while fancying yourself a patriot and a great American. Vilify a sitting president of the United States with fiction and innuendo, and you are neither.

I objected when George W. Bush was the subject of undeserved hyperbolic criticism, but the baseless scorn heaped upon President Obama makes Bush’s detractors look diplomatic. The president, the office, and our nation deserve better.

It’s been unrelenting. The day after Obama took office, Rush Limbaugh told Sean Hannity he wanted him to “fail.” Later, Glenn Beck called the president a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” Donald Trump’s birtherism took hold while words like socialist were uttered with increased frequency. And a prairie fire of falsehoods spread through the Internet suggesting, among other things, that Obama is a Muslim or refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, paving the way for Dinesh D’Souza’s fictionalized “documentary” 2016, which characterized Obama as fulfilling the anticolonial agenda of his father – a man he literally knew for just one weekend!

Leonard Pitts, Jr., offers a parallel retrospective:

There are, after all, many words you could use to describe the period from 2008 to now. “Reconciliation” is not one of them. To the contrary, the nation has endured a four-year temper tantrum of shrillness and ferocity nearly unparalleled in history. You have to go back to the 1960s, or maybe even the 1850s, to find a time when America was this angry with itself.

Far from putting the ’60s to rest, we have seen a fresh assault on what had previously been considered the settled gains of that era. I mean, who could have predicted this election season would see debates on women’s reproductive health? Or, that we’d have to defend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Or that the state of Arizona would ban ethnic studies classes? Or that there would be a new attack on the right of public workers to unionize? And that’s not to mention the new onslaught of coded racial slurs. They still say Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.A. Just the other day, Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu, honest to God, called him “lazy.”

And we know what’s behind most, if not all, of the right-wing venom. Chauncey Devega explains:

Although many of us are unwilling to admit as much in public, the hate campaign by Mitt Romney and the Tea Party GOP against the country’s first black President is predicated on the Right’s deep disdain for African-Americans and our citizenship. More generally, for the White Right, people of color are not, have never been, and are incapable of being “real Americans.”

I’m a Southern boy. I can decode the damned coded.

Devega is correct. Racism in America’s Original Sin and its stain persists deep into the polity.

Follow the link to listen to a portion of Devega’s appearance in the third hour of yesterday’s Ring of Fire show. It’s worth it.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., considers Republicans’ reverence for life.

Just read it.

Via Contradict Me.

Kelly Fordon, daughter of long-time Republican Congressman John William Stanton of Ohio, muses on the content of Mitt the Flip’s character(s) (emphasis added):

Even though I consider myself a Democrat, I learned something from my father I consider more important than my political affiliation. “Character is everything,” he used to say. Also, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” I was willing to concede to my husband (a fiscal conservative) that Mitt Romney had some good ideas. A successful businessman could bring much-needed financial acumen to the highest office. But all of that changed when a surreptitiously recorded video surfaced of Romney dining with top donors at a Florida fundraiser.

(snip Romney’s remarks about “the 47%”)

That moment sparked the feeling I’ve had on the few occasions I’ve had the misfortune of running into racists who believe that because I’m white I’m “in the club” and willing to listen to their prejudiced diatribes. Simply put, I was horrified. Mitt Romney believed that he was preaching to the choir. He felt comfortable enough to show his true colors. Later he said he was speaking off the cuff, which any politician will tell you is code for “speaking from the heart.”

Click to read the rest.

And he considers himself a Republican, to boot.

Via Raw Story.

Ed Kilgore points out that, when Republicans talk policy, the deviltry is in the details.

This sort of Catch-22 is everywhere in the GOP agenda. Romney and Ryan (most recently in this latest speech) constantly tout work-based welfare reform while proposing to demolish virtually every program and policy that “makes work pay” for people coming off public assistance. States are given “flexibility” to “innovate” in Medicaid along with vast cuts in funding for federal-state programs (including Medicaid itself) that make anything other than wholesale reductions in benefits and eligibility all but impossible. GOPers make all sorts of magical claims about their ability–somehow, some way, some time–to boost private-sector employment, even as they guarantee the elimination of actual, existing public-sector jobs (which are somehow less “real” than the hypothetical jobs of the future). And all the cluck-clucking and crocodile tears over the plight of economically stressed families is accompanied by relentless efforts to ensure that workers have lower pay, fewer benefits, and less leverage than ever before.

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Stu Bykofsky, hardly a pillar of lefty-ness, realizes that there’s no there, there:

ON MONDAYS, Wednesdays and Fridays, I like Mitt Romney’s policies. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, not so much, because he reverses what he said the day before. Sundays he refuses to give any specifics about his policies.

Half the time, I like Barack Obama’s policies. When I don’t, at least I know what they are.

Read the rest. It’s worth the two minutes.

And in line with the previous post . . . .

Excerpt:

Do you know how hard it is to make volunteering at a homeless shelter look like a negative thing?

Video via TPM. Picture via ABLC.

This is the only debate you need to see:

Via Romney the Liar.