Saturday, February 28, 2009

The GOP: Now with 80% less clue

I haven’t been very compelled to write lately. While the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Senate and House forge ahead to try to clean up the catastrophic mess that the previous administration left in its slime-covered wake, the GOP has shown every sign that it not only has not learned anything at all from their prior mismanagement, it absolutely refuses to rethink any of its approaches, any of its platforms, and instead has taken to threatening and enacting obstruction and snipishness wherever it can. On top of that, its hypocrisy and continued inability to honestly assess itself has led it even further astray from its ostensible values.

This depresses me beyond easy explanation.

It seems the GOP has apparently bet its future on outright lies—something it had been dabbling with increasingly in the last few years, but now it seems their entire approach to government hinges on fabrication and deception.

Take Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal. Much has been made of his gee-kids-story-time approach in his response to Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress. The reaction is understandable—the cringeworthy delivery is especially baffling because Jindal normally doesn’t speak like that—but that’s not really the point. Delivery sometimes goes awry, and I’m not going to judge the man based on a particularly lame one. But the content of the speech had more problems than even a good delivery could have covered.

For one thing, there were falsehoods in the speech. The mythical train between Disneyland and Vegas, for example, which has been batted around the GOP punditry without any evidence whatsoever (though now Sean Hannity has claimed that it’s somehow magically “hidden” in the legislation—more evidence that Hannity is utterly out of his mind). Yes, establishing high-speed train routes on well-traveled corridors are given some funding in the plan (infrastructure combined with job creation, which was the primary impetus behind the bill), but no specific corridors were mentioned. Granted, LA to LV makes a certain amount of sense given the amount of travel between the two locations, but the GOP has to go one further and make a link between a kid-oriented theme park and Sin City. It’s a lie, and Jindal knows it, but he parrotted it anyway.

Obviously, though, he’s having some trouble getting his own state government to agree. The Louisiana Department of Transportation is planning on requesting federal dollars out of that eight billion dollar grant to put in a high-speed line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Ah, yes, what one hand refuseth, the other grabbeth like mad. I look forward to Jindal’s order to the state’s DOT not to ask for funding for the line—after all, the man obviously has his principles. Right?

Right?

One of the more jaw-dropping moments for me was when he complained about “$140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’” Is he kidding? He thinks that 0.02% of the stimulus bill is being wasted on trying to improve vigilance on potential national disasters? I spent most of my life in Washington State; I well remember the eruption of Mt. St. Helens (heck, I was trapped near Spokane for a few days afterwards, because the roads were six inches deep in ash). Perhaps Jindal is saying that he considers it a waste to monitor potential national disasters, and surely he won’t mind shutting down the weather satellites that monitor hurricanes in the Atlantic. I guarantee, that’s a lot more than $140 million.

But there was a portion of his speech that simply didn’t ring true from the start. It sounded like a tall tale at first hearing, and it now appears as though it was. Here’s the excerpt:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone—“Well, I’m the Sheriff, and if you don’t like it, you can come and arrest me!” I asked him, “Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?” He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go, when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. [shakes head sadly] And I told him, “Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.” Before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone, “Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!” Well, Harry just told the boaters, ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.

In the days since, the inestimably valuable site TPM has done some excellent investigation, and discovered that Jindal’s Katrina story was at best ridiculously embellished. Sure, bits and pieces are woven in that supply an element of truth, but the story never actually happened.

In short, Jindal’s first big nationwide exposure as the face of the GOP, and he lied.

It’s become the major theme of the GOP. Need more examples? Well, let’s take Joe Wurzelbacher. His first national exposure consisted of lying to then-Senator Obama about a business he was going to buy, except that he wasn’t, and what his income levels were, except that they weren’t, that put him in a position of whining that his taxes were going to go up—and if his deliberately contrived example had been at all true, they would have gone up by as much as 1%. This known liar was then virtually adopted by the McCain campaign and the GOP at large. Just eighteen days ago, he was brought in as the featured guest for the Conservative Working Group, which is an organization of GOP congressional staffers who get together on a weekly basis to chart GOP strategy.

The list goes on: Sarah Palin lies about Obama, about her own record, and plays fast and loose with her taxes and the money of her own state’s citizens. The deranged Michelle Bachmann (R–MN6) falsely claims that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is under federal indictment for voter fraud (not only is it not, but no voter fraud ever took place—some contracted registrars submitted false registrations, which costs ACORN money and resulted in no false votes whatsoever), but is receiving $5 billion in the stimulus bill (not only is it not receiving any funding whatsoever, it isn’t even mentioned in the bill at all)—all this repeated by David “John” Vitter (R–LA) not long afterward.

And then, of course, the self-appointed-and-yet-apparently-acknowledged leader of the GOP: Rush Limbaugh. Snipish, dishonest, never hesitant to go for the cheap shot, Limbaugh would have been a valued member of the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung in another time and place. To my astonishment, his speech at CPAC was broadcast in its entirety on C-SPAN, and among his duplicitous screeds was this one:

Did the Democrats want the war [in] Iraq to fail? They certainly did. And they not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail they proclaimed it a failure. [ . . . ] They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?

Isn’t that clever? First lie: that Democrats wanted the war to fail—utterly untrue, but it’s the canard the GOP keeps repeating. Everyone who bought into the idea that the Bush administration couldn’t possibly lie about something as important as WMD wanted the war to succeed, to be swift, to be effective, and to result in a stable Iraqi government. What we got instead was a mismanaged war, inadequate armor for our soldiers (something the Democrats were quite vocal about while the GOP largely stayed silent), cavalier and inhumane practices that would guarantee the fury of an entire generation of Iraqis, ineffective security that virtually guaranteed the involvement of al Qaeda as the power vacuum continued—and lo and behold, no WMDs at all, which the ostensible President actually joked about. Repeatedly.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the very definition of failure—diplomatic failure, failure to reduce terrorism, failure to find WMD, intelligence failure, failure to promote a stable government, failure to uphold international treaties regarding due process and torture, ethical failures, moral failures. About the only thing we effectively did in the end was topple a stable government and get Saddam Hussein executed, and the latter is the only thing we can possibly look back at with a sense of satisfaction: that we brought a man who ordered the torture and killing of Iraqi citizens and abused his constitutional power to justice—thanks to a man who ordered the torture and killing of Iraqi citizens and abused his constitutional power.

Not a winning scenario, frankly.

Nobody hoped George Bush failed. I think everyone was hoping he’d be a good President. He wasn’t, not even a little bit. Eventually, it got to the point where most people in this country rejected his rhetoric. Not enough for my tastes, but enough to ensure that the policies wouldn’t continue.

But then we get to the other big lie: the implication that the Obama administration wants to remove capitalism and liberty from the American equation. That’s not true, either—in fact, it is a huge pile of stinking poo, unsupported by anything at all, but thanks to Propagandist Limbaugh, it’s going to be trotted out as fact, and parrotted by his slavering followers. We’re going to be hearing this fraudulent remark for years to come, at high volume and low intelligence.

Much of the rest of Limbaugh’s speech was filled with hypocrisy and falsehood; I needn’t go into it here. With regards to liberty, Limbaugh is about as irrelevant as any other liar. And yet, the GOP, in its infinite weeniness, kowtows to the man. Take, for example, Representative Gingrey (R–GA11), who made a comment about Limbaugh just “throwing bricks” rather than doing what’s best for the Republican Party. This is a refreshing remark, honestly—a member of the GOP actually speaking out about the noise machine that represents the party so much of the time—and it would have earned him some respect if, within days, he hadn’t felt the need to go grovel to Limbaugh with an apology for his “stupid comments,” and the flatter the man by calling him a “conservative giant”—something he most certainly is not.

Limbaugh’s a lying hypocrite. It’s as simple as that. And the GOP has apparently elected him their king—or at least, adopted wholesale the strident, lying, hypocritical rhetoric.

Regarding Jindal’s widely panned address, Limbaugh had this to say:

But the people on our side are really making a mistake if they go after Bobby Jindal on the basis of style. Because, if you think people on our side—I’m talking to you, those of you who think Jindal was horrible—you think? In fact, I don’t want to hear from you ever again, if you think that Bobby Jindal was bad, and what he said was wrong, or not said well, fi—because, folks, style’s not gonna take our country back. Solid conservatism, articulate [sic] in a way that’s inspiring and understanding is what’s gonna take the country back.

Unfortunately, solid conservatism is not what Limbaugh stands for. In fact, he is undermining it. Frankly, I wish he’d take the advice he offered on his radio show to the losing party back in July, 2005:

I'm tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election. Somebody needs to stand up and say, “When you win the election, you pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don't come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, all over the court, but until then, shut up!” You are really irritating me.

Less than four years later, the tables have turned. I’m pretty sure we can find a hole large enough to accommodate Limbaugh, should he decide to take his own advice.

Rush, shut up and go away. Please. You are really irritating me.

Here’s the thing about conservatism, and I know it’s a hard truth that I’m about to utter here, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Conservatism isn’t always the appropriate response. Conservatism is an ideal. The idea that government should be small, that spending should be modest, that we build wealth and move the country forward in a free market is great. I’m all for it.

But there are times when it’s just not appropriate, due to either opportunity or crisis. Jefferson himself, certainly arguably one of the best constitutional conservative voices in our history, leapt at an opportunity that was presented to the country: The Louisiana Purchase. At no point was this power authorized by the Constitution. There wasn’t much in the way of debate, either—Jefferson moved quickly to purchase the land from France, and in so doing redefined the nation forever. That wasn’t a conservative move, but it’s hard to criticize it.

On the flipside, Hoover’s conservative tax-reduction program and lassez-faire attitude about a dysfunctional market crippled the nation’s economy to a breathtaking degree—by the end of his term, even he realized that only government spending could possibly correct what his administration had helped create.

Conservatism is not supposed to be a simple-minded approach to government. It is an ideal, a careful balance of regulation and freedom, of government and enterprise. It’s about maintaining a healthy equilibrium, thoughtfully applying the least amount of regulation necessary to maintain that equilibrium in a way that’s healthy for society at large, and making sure the government is financially responsible and sound. But a lot of things can disrupt it: war, market failure, natural catastrophe, international shifts. At times like that, conservatism is still thoughtful, trying to limit major interventions to one-time events, and getting back to that state of equilibrium as quickly as possible.

The GOP failed to be conservative, however. For most of the last thirty years, the GOP has cried “pork!” and “tax-and-spend!” and “liberal!” while indulging copiously in the swine, continuing to spend (but doing their level best not to pay for it), and abusing the Constitution and limiting freedom right and left. It’s still going on. I’ll give you just one example, focused on pork.

Take HR 1105 (the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009). It’s a $410 billion bill before the House that funds nine agencies that didn’t get funded in the previous fiscal year. It has upwards of 8,000 earmarks in it. Now, granted, those earmarks total around 1% of the funding in the bill, which is about average. But more tellingly, over 40% of the earmarks were requested by members of the GOP. I didn’t have time to read all the earmark requests, but just going through the first section (Agriculture), we have requests for things like the “Initiative to Improve Blueberry Production in Tifton, Georgia” (requested by Jack Kingston (R–GA1), who requested six earmarks in this section, and who then voted against the bill), and “the National Consortium for Rural Geospatial Innovations” (requested by John Boozman (R–AR3), who requested seven earmarks in this section, and who then voted against the bill), and expanding the Dairy Education Iowa project (requested by Tom Latham (R–IA4), who requested thirteen earmarks in this section, and who then voted against the bill).

Are you getting the picture? These and other members of the GOP are working to get earmarks added to bills that they can then vote against, knowing that they’ll pass. It’s the best of both worlds for them—pork for their constituents, and yet they can righteously claim that they voted against the bill due to all the pork. Republicans aren’t at all sad about being in the minority at the moment; it just gives them a chance to abuse the system while claiming that they’re not.

I’m not saying that earmarks are necessarily bad. Not all of them are. In fact, when you look through the request letters (all several thousand pages of them), most of them seem pretty reasonable. My only complaint is that the GOP is being hypocritical. If they really were worried about pork—if they really meant any of it—there wouldn’t be several thousand earmarks courtesy of the GOP. (And this is only one bill.)

So when you hear the GOP and the pseudo-conservatives decry the “porkulous” bill, it’s false outrage—it’s hypocritical, deceptive, and dishonest.

In any case, the GOP has long since ceased to be conservative. They’re just as porky as the “liburals” they rail against. Worse, they don’t think that the pork should actually be paid for. They want to gut revenue at the same time they want all that spending. That’s how we went from a less-than $2 trillion debt when Reagan took office to a debt in excess of $10 trillion by the time Bush was done. If you can’t trim spending (and the GOP most certainly didn’t), but you do cut taxes (which the GOP most certainly did), it’s financially irresponsible. It’s not conservatism. It’s just not bothering to pay the bills.

The price of failing to be conservative means that the equilibrium that grants you the luxury of being conservative is lost. The result is that unconservative measures are necessary in order to bring the system back into equilibrium. Denying this smacks of a mental disorder. Think of it this way: if you drive your car at 90 miles an hour, and skimp on oil, you can’t just expect to gas up your car normally and have it keep running just fine. At some point, something bad is going to happen, and it may be miles away from a garage, and the repairs are going to cost a lot of money. By not being conservative, something is going to happen that will require an unconservative correction.

It’s the necessary and inevitable downside of not doing the job right.

The GOP didn’t do the job right. As a result, it appears that a massive correction is going to have to be made to forestall the inertia that the banking crisis has wrought—a crisis virtually guaranteed by an incurious, apathetic, incompetent and corrupt administration. It joins countless other failures of the Bush administration—all happily and enthusiastically rubber-stamped by the same GOP that is now trying to thwart any attempts to fix it.

The conservative way to handle this crisis is to support the steps necessary, try to fix things as quickly as possible in order to reestablish the equilibrium that can support a conservative approach to government, and then work to get back to that approach once the necessary measures have had their effect.

Instead, the GOP is choosing to whine, at high volume, with outrage and lies. “Socialism!” they cry, even though they have no evidence of it. I haven’t noticed any particularly anticapitalist or anti-liberty sentiment coming from the Obama administration so far—and I’ve been paying attention—but you wouldn’t know that from the screaming coming from the pseudo-conservative pundits.

David Brooks is even frustrated with it. After Jindal’s response, he said “The—the country is in a panic now. They may not like the—the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but the idea that we’re just gonna—that government is gonna have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that—in a t—in a moment when only the federal government is big enough to actually do stuff, to just ignore all that, and just say ‘Government’s a problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending’—it’s just a form of nihilism.”

And he’s absolutely right.

The economist Paul Krugman also, regrettably, had it right when he said, “The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.” The GOP is apparently going to do everything it can to hamper attempts to fix the mess it is largely responsible for, and do so in an utterly slimy way. It’s nauseating to watch. Stupid statements, insulting remarks, deception, misdirection—all these are now the standard operating procedures of the GOP.

I want my party back.