Republican Hypocrisy category archive

The Guardian highlights the internal contradiction in the arguments against reforming health care in the United States (emphasis added):

But perhaps the boldest deceit is perpetrated by opponents of big government. For generations they have argued that when governments take on tasks better performed by markets, they are bound to fail, because bureaucrats are by nature inefficient. Whenever they step in between consumer and provider, it ends in grief, the argument goes.

(snip side trip)

But when it comes to the creation of a government-run alternative to private insurance schemes, the fear is not that big government would be too inefficient but that it would be only too effective at undercutting the market. Which is it?

Which it is is simple: The antis are willing to whatever they think sounds good. Facts are irrelevant.

Those who think sound bites, rather than facts, cannot help but contradict themselves, not to mention contradict reality.

They disregard the words of the late Senator Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” and create not-facts that sound like facts on the fly.

But no one is really to the facts, just to the bites. And that bites.

One note samba:

The fact is that the Republican Party told teabaggers’ grandmas (of “death panel” fame) that Social Security was going to be the end of America. And today you can’t swing a euthanized cat without hitting a Republican at a microphone insisting he’s Social Security’s greatest champion.

Republicans likewise told teabaggers’ dads that Medicare would be the end of America. And today you can’t swing a… oh yeah, you’ve heard that one.

Today, of course, Republicans will spend the entire day telling teabaggers themselves that the health insurance reform bill will be the end of America.

That’s why I agree with Markos Moulitsas when he calls the conservatives a bunch of cowards. They want to fight the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here. Why be afraid to fight terrorists wherever they might arise? After putting New Yorkers at increased risk of retribution by attacking and occupying a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, the conservatives feign concern for the safety of New Yorkers when they try to put the real culprits on trial. It is beyond insulting.

Read the whole thing.

Another installment of the Republican serial, Business Can Do No Wrong:

Oh, yeah, about those family values thingees? They are for the rest of us.

Via Delaware Liberal.

The three legs of the stool: Richard Kim and Betsy Reed in the Nation (emphasis added):

But what of the (Palin–ed.) poison’s other effects? Her nonsensical statements may inadvertently provide comic relief, but it’s no laughing matter when serious debate is distorted by the wild misinformation she feeds to her increasingly paranoid base. Sometimes the lunacy is contained on the fringes. At a recent Wisconsin Right to Life fundraiser, she somberly raised the decision to move the “In God We Trust” motto to the edge of the presidential dollar coin. “Who calls a shot like that?” she said, insinuatingly. Actually, George W. Bush did. It was an embarrassing gaffe that also neatly captures the key elements of Palinism: fact-free conspiracy, hollow patriotism and public religiosity–the very coins of Republican populist rage.

In a similar example of conscience-less, perhaps even unconscious, and mystifyingly self-unaware, hypocrisy, I woke up this morning to read this. Andy Borowitz–er–expands.

Words fail me.

Fox: “The subtle altering of reality to sell a preconceived narrative.”

Via Raw Story.

For Republican.

One more time: This would just be another nutcase, except for that whole “family values” shtick.

If you go to pat yourself on the back for being holier than thou, be careful not to break your arm.

More here.

The truth doesn’t have enough truthiness.

Without sufficient truthiness, Republicans cut and run:

Listen all the way through to Ed’s comment at the end.

Via James Wolcott.

Regarding the House vote on the health care bill (plenty of details elsewhere–I’m not even going to bother):

What he said (emphasis added):

Republicans condemned the vote and said they would oppose the measure as it proceeds on its legislative route. “This government takeover has got a long way to go before it gets to the president’s desk, and I’ll continue to fight it tooth and nail at every turn,” said Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas. “Health care is too important to get it wrong.”

What he meant:

Health care is too lucrative to make it affordable.

The irrational hate on the right.

RIchard Blair explains.

More news from the Sanfordized state:

Corning, who is a former state legislator, left his job with the (South Carolina) attorney general’s office after he was pulled over Monday on suspicion of illegal activity. When he was pulled over, Corning identified himself as an employee with the attorney general’s office and was not charged with a crime.

He had an 18 year-old-girlwoman, one of those drugs you keep getting spam about, and at least one BOB.*

He did not reportedly have any hiking shoes or a compass for his Appalachian Trail.

Aside: This wouldn’t be news except for all the Republican “family values” hypocrisy.

Via Mithras.

______________

*Battery Operated Boyfriend.

Dick Polman:

Here’s Phil Gingrey, a House Republican, flashing his chops and triumphantly brandishing the stimulus bucks that he won for his local town…but isn’t this the same Phil Gingrey who voted against the stimulus package – along with every single other House Republican?

Indeed it is. Yet now he turns around and milks it for the folks back home, and garners political kudos in the bargain. The dictionary definition of hypocrisy need not be consulted here, because we’re seeing it in action.

There’s more.

Will Bunch explains what the fuss is all about (he goes on to explain what he considers to be legitimate gripes about ACORN, mainly that it’s not run very well):

The real reason they are after ACORN is that they don’t like its core mission — siding with beleaguered homeowners over banks, and trying to register inner-city residents to vote at the same rates as the suburbanites who’ve dominated American politics since the 1980s. Taking down the group’s mission of urban empowerment won’t strengthen America, just the Republican Party. And you don’t need a Ph.D. in social work or journalism to figure this out . . . .

ACORN helps poor people. We can’t have that, now, can we?

Andrew Sullivan on Mitt Romney:

There’s something quite refreshing about his open refusal to have any principles, or even to worry about the slightest consistency between one statement and the next.

Ouch.

Brad Friedman at the Guardian:

It’s funny how when the American government itself – at its absolute highest-levels – was discovered to have tortured and abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, resulting in actual death, the very same wingnut apologists write it off as the act of a few low-level “bad apples”. No accountability for those who actually instituted the policies.

But when a few actual low-level bad apples – who happen to be African-American, and working for a group fighting for the American Dream for all Americans – commit petty stupidity, the entire organisation must be brought down in order to save the country.

ACORN helps poor people. We can’t have that, now, can we?

Those who protest the cost of government while demanding better government services.

They have no self-awareness.

Not a jot. Not a tittle.

All they have is blind ideolog–oh, never mind.

Words fail me.

Dr. Cole discusses the ironies of Wilsons:

This is the story of two Joe Wilsons, and two Americas. Both challenged a president, the most powerful man in the free world. One is a liar and the other is a courageous truth-teller. One enjoys impunity for his falsehood and epochal rudeness, bespeaking an America ruled with civility and tolerance. The other was subjected to a ruthless campaign of smears, and the career of his wife was ruined, bespeaking an America controlled by heartless men bent on achieving their nefarious ends by running roughshod over others.

I should be able to work Joe the Not a Plumber in there somewhere, but haven’t figured out how yet.

Via Noz

“R” for “Republican”:

There’s a transcript of much of it here.

Here’s the point:

Lots (I pointedly do not say nor mean “all”) of these “family values” Republicans spout “family values,” not because they have any, but because they think it will get votes.

And it is curious how “family values” in their parlance refers always to sexual behavior, not to business practices, not to treating persons with courtesy in publc discourse, not to lying the nation into war, not to giving away the store to “contractors” who cost more and provide less than full-time government employees, not to threats against the lives of elected officials.

Sexual behavior, so long as there is no hurt nor victimization, really is not the government’s business. Prattling on about “family values” to get votes is a misdirection tactic to distract voters from stuff that is the government’s business, such as, say, just for example, don’t know why I would think of these, fraudulent and reckless banking practices, e. coli in the food supply, and the broken health care system.

It is a deeply cynical manipulation of those who believe their rhetoric.

Video via Brendan.