Republican Hypocrisy category archive

Dick Polman analyzes Republican principles. A nugget:

But I’m less interested in the prospects for passage (of a national right to carry concealed weapons law that would override state regulations) than what the measure says about Republican hypocrisy . . . . Isn’t the GOP supposed to be the party that condemns federal overreach and defends states’ rights?

Actually, the party is quite flexible about its limited-government philosophy. I seem to recall that it championed federal overreach quite vigorously just four years ago, when the Republican Congress decided to control the fate of Terry Schiavo, taking the case away from a local Florida judge (a southern Baptist and Republican) who had already ruled that Schiavo should be allowed to die in accordance with state law and previous state rulings, not to mention the wishes of Terry’s husband. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted that Washington knew what was best for Terry, regardless of state law; as DeLay famously put it, “I don’t care what her husband says.”

(snip)

The Republicans may be philosophically fraudulent, but I’ll give them points for political gamesmanship. Who cares about principles when there’s a big chance to score fresh points in the culture war?

Read the whole thing. The examples are whelming, if not overwhelming.

The Republican bigotry fatigues one, but it seems to be all they know.

He’s already failed the credit check:

(Texas Gov.–ed.) Perry was one of several Republican (natch) governors who refused some federal stimulus funds from President Obama’s economic recovery package on the grounds that there were too many strings attached to the money.

Now that the Lone Star State is in dire financial straits, Perry is singing another tune and has asked the feds for a loan to cover the very expenses the stimulus money he rejected would have paid for.

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard! Get your scorecard here!

Bob the Builder may build it, but Pat the Destroyer will tear it down.

Ya know, they keep saying stuff like this, then they say, “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.”

But they did.

Or they wouldn’t have said it in the first place.

Via the Booman.

Dick Polman, (emphasis added):

And Sotomayor, of course, has extra incentive to play it safe. She’s facing seven Republican white men who are looking for something, anything, to help them paint her as a reverse-racist Puerto Rican woman enslaved by her emotions. (Bill Maher has mimicked the Republican strategy thusly: “For too long, Puerto Rican women have had their boot on the neck of white men in America, and this has to stop!”) . . . .

The odious Republican “Southern Strategy” has run its course, been bypassed by time, but it’s all they know.

You can dress a smear campaign up in a tux and give it a cane and a tophat, but it’s still a smear campaign.

Via TPM.

Addendum, Later that Night:

Rude Pundit has the play-by-play (Warning: Rude Language. Very Rude Language. Very Very Rude Language)

Brendan goes ghostbusting:

In light of the latest unemployment figures, there are more persistent questions coming at the administration. Did Obama and his team get it right last winter when they put together their $787 billion stimulus package, or did they undershoot? If they made a mistake, what should they do now?

The guys at the Post must be too busy selling access to lobbyiststo do their homework, because that statement is not even close to accurate. As the AP reported in February, it was the Senate that insisted on a $787 billion stimulus. Obama asked for more than a BILLIONS more. And guess who was the driving force behind the cuts?

Scaling back the bill to levels lower than either the $838 billion Senate measure or the original $820 billion House-passed measure caused grumbles among liberal Democrats, who described the cutbacks as a concession to the moderates, particularly Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who are under pressure from conservative Republicans to hold down spending.

Actually, Arlen is really neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

He’s an Arlenicanocrat.

Reading an article about the opposition of plutocrats and Republicans to the proposal for a department of financial consumer protection, I came upon this gem of a quote:

U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R., Ala.), who opposes the bill, said that it “appears to be premised on the idea that Washington is better at making financial decisions for all Americans than leaving that choice up” to individuals.

And over the past decade, since the repeal of Glass-Steagall was sneaked through the Congress in the middle of the night, individuals have demonstrated just how much competence at making financial decisions under the influence of fast-talking three-piece-suited banksters?

These folks are more interested in protecting the Greenwich, Conn., McMansions of their corporate masters than they are in protecting consumers from predatory Masters of the Universe.

Gag me with a spoon.

In the case of Senator Ensign the porker, who hoists his ensign in the wrong places while attacking others who do the same (and do it with a lot less expenditure), it was a lot.

Steve elucidates (be sure to read the first comment).

Via Delaware Liberal.

CC discusses karma.

Steve makes book.

It’s not a good idea to go threatening persons’ lives and safety.

One of the things that puzzles and appalls me about the far right is how quickly and casually they employ the rhetoric of death and violence, as if killing those with whom they disagree would somehow be a good thing.

And then, when someone acts on that rhetoric, they all look around blankly, like little Jeffie in the Family Circus cartoon, and say in chorus, “Not me.”

Shorter Grover Norquist: Adultery is good.

Aside:

Q. What’s the difference between Republican politicians and Hugh Hefner?

A. Hugh Hefner lives his values.

Republican Family Values.

Another one bites the dust.

Has any political party ever done more to discredit themselves and to demonstrate that their talking points are, well, nothing more than talking points?

I trained as a historian. My tentative answer to that question is, “Not in a gazillion years!”

Furrfu.

Josh Marshal on the Republican Party’s losing support among Hispanic voters (and remember that voters are by definition citizens):

The only problem is that the modern Republican party’s panic switch, or at least one of them, is rancid jingoism and more or less open anti-Hispanic (though often specifically targeted at Mexicans) prejudice. Or, to put it more bluntly, as with African-Americans, it’s tough to be the party of the blacks and the racists at the same time. (Not that the Dems didn’t try it for a few decades in the middle of the 20th century — but it didn’t end up panning out.)

(snip)

In other words, it’s not a mistake or incompetence or any lack of planning that has Republicans in such a bad position with Hispanics, America’s fastest growing ethnic group. It’s just that people who are hostile to Hispanic immigration and just Hispanics in general are one of the GOP’s key constituencies. That puts some real obstacles in the way of becoming the party of Hispanics. To put it mildly …