You know that when Republicans start talking about class warfare, it’s because they plan on waging it even more than before.

You know that Republicans in D.C. have lost their moral compass, that happened quite a while back. You know they they will lie and obfuscate to ridiculous extremes, depending on the the media to back them up, enough to sound credible and get it presented raw to the American people and be believed by many.

But this is pretty amazing. I mean, there is lying, and there is lying. I know I keep on acting surprised at the lengths they go to, but they keep on getting more and more outrageous. Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican Budget Committee member, said this when presenting the Republican budget that actually had some numbers, however ridiculous, in it:

“You’re gonna hear a lot of echoes of class warfare. You’re gonna hear allegations of draconian spending cuts. You’re gonna be told that there is no viable choice for America other than to embrace the president’s radical fiscal agenda. Let me respond to that right now.

”Using class-warfare to take advantage of peoples’ legitimate anger and anxiety, it may make good policy but it’s not leadership. Preying on people’s emotions of fear and envy, it doesn’t create jobs. It demoralizes the small businesspeople who are trying to become successful, and it demonizes the small businesses that are successful that create most of our jobs.“

Some things he got right: using class warfare is wrong and it’s not leadership. The error: he ignores the fact that class warfare is a two-sided battle, and conservatives have been waging that warfare more vociferously and have been winning it outright for quite some time now. Think not? Then when rich and poor both needed bailouts, who got no-strings-attached billions and who got short-changed? Who got handsome bonuses and who got told to take a wage cut?

Republicans have been playing at class warfare for a long time now, and what Ryan said is, in a way, nothing new–when Republicans want to open up a whole new front in the class warfare battle, they always start by accusing the other side of it first. But who’s waging war here? Obama, who wants to take the best tax environment for the wealthy in a long time and scale it back just a smidge in the direction it had been for decades?

Or is it the GOP, which launches massive tax cut after massive tax cut for the wealthy, then turns around for some more union busting, followed by slashing of services and benefits for the middle and lower class? Almost their whole agenda is class warfare. When the poor needed cheaper drugs and the taxpayer needed a break with Medicare spending, who instead gave all the power, leverage, and profit to big pharma? When the people in dire straits were pitted against the loan industry, who pushed through legislation to put all the advantages in the hands of the big banks? And in this latest crisis, when regular people overstepped their means but banks lured them to do so for predatory reasons, who got the bailout and who got their homes taken away?

The Republicans want to dish out more of the same all over again–even more tax cuts for the rich. Because the economy will collapse if Paris Hilton doesn’t get all the billions her daddy’s gonna leave her. Because the wealthy need their inheritances more than the people need their homes. Because if we don’t give millionaires and billionaires those Bush tax cuts permanently, who’ll have enough money to save us all?

Note, of course, that Ryan dragged out the perpetual poster boy for the right wing and their rich patrons: the small businessperson. Obama’s budget, Ryan claims, both demoralizes and demonizes the small businessman. Um… how? When? What small businessman–the CEOs of the big banks? Those small businessmen?

Oh no, Ryan must be talking about people like Joe the Plumber. Small businessmen like him who own… um, who want to own, uh… well… who brazenly lied about being a small businessman so he could score a political ”gotcha.“ That’s pretty much all they have–because the small businesspeople they are talking about don’t exist, at least not in any form that will get wiped out by Obama’s plans. Despite Obama’s goal of raising the tax bracket on income over $250,000 a year, that’s not gonna take down a single small businessperson. You’d have to make well over that before you started paying significantly more in taxes, and let’s face it, that ain’t being poor, nor is it going to ruin any business. It might sting a little, but then taxes sting people making less than that a lot more.

I mean, really, is someone gonna say, ”I’m only making $300,000 a year in profit off my small business, but the new few thousand bucks in taxes I gotta pay makes it all totally not worth it–I’m shutting my shop down and going back to being a shop clerk at some other sucker’s store!“ Yeah, that happens all the time, I betcha.

The Republicans, on the other hand, want to make permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and even add some more, and they they want to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. They want to stop the stimulus cold, choking civilian job growth, and then heavily expand military spending, benefitting defense firms but also forcing poorer Americans to instead sign up for military service because there would be no other jobs out there. That’s not class warfare, right?

But the real whopper comes with their projections. Though tax cuts and more tax cuts for the rich have drowned us in deficits and a stagnant economy, despite the fact that Democrats have historically achieved better job growth and lower deficits, this is what the Republicans are claiming will happen if we follow Democratic or Republican budgets:

This is so out of proportion, so ridiculously, ludicrously fictional, it’s actually hilarious. And this economy is a tough room. Republicans might as well say that Democrats will lead us all to the gates of hell while Republicans will have rainbows and magic ponies for all! Just give up the rest of your social programs and translate it into a few more billions in tax cuts for billionaires, and we’ll be there!

And we can trust the Republicans when they tell us this, right? Because they have been so trustworthy and effective in regards to economics up until now, right?

It has been pointed out in local commentary as well as many of the lefty blogs that Norm Coleman is getting a rather notoriously inexplicable free pass in the press, along with Republicans backing him up. True, this is not exactly the same stakes as Bush v. Gore, but it is not just an ordinary Senate election, either–this seat is the tipping point for a significant amount of vital legislation that is being blocked by the GOP with their continued extravagant abuse of the filibuster.

While Al Gore was commonly called out in the national media for being a “sore loser” because he challenged the highly questionable outcome in Florida, Norm Coleman and his GOP backers are being left alone despite rather blatant evidence that they are doing this for no other reason than to block Franken from being seated–not because the election was unfair or the vote count was wrong, but simply because they have political reasons for keeping the Democrats from getting a 59th seat in the Senate.

Even in the Minnesota press, we see signs of the false equivalency caused by a weak-kneed press fearful of being labeled as “liberal,” so it looks for fault on both sides even when it clearly belongs only on the conservative side:

To be sure, the danger of seeming to be a sore loser has dogged both candidates in the topsy-turvy race: first Franken, when he pressed for a recount of Coleman’s narrow election-night lead; and then Coleman, when he challenged the recount that left him 225 votes behind.

Franken didn’t “press” for anything–the recount was legally mandated, and Franken couldn’t have stopped it even if he had wanted to. Saying that Franken had a “sore loser” stigma because he somehow pushed for a recount is a clear indication of either a right-wing tinge or the mindless acceptance of right-wing talking points. The snippet above not only creates a false fault in Franken, it ignores the greater fault from Coleman–not that he challenged the outcome, but that he clearly intends to challenge it to the most absurd levels possible.

The media has been, to put it lightly, a tad reluctant to call out the GOP for lots of stuff which it would have a filed day with had it come from the left–like the GOP openly rallying for unprecedented partisan rancor while the media still gives them equal credit for “bipartisanship.”

But that’s just what we get for having such a Liberal Media™. We can only blame ourselves.

Wow. Republicans seem pretty intent on preventing the people of Minnesota from getting full representation in the Senate.

Can you say, “sore losers”?

Bobby Jindal:

Jindal described the premise of the question — “Do you want the president to fail?” — as the “latest gotcha game” being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.

“Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, ‘Why no sir, I don’t want the president to fail,’ is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism,” Jindal said at a political fundraiser attended by 1,200 people. “This is political correctness run amok.”

Yeah. Because under the Bush administration, no such show of support for the president would ever have been deman… um… oh.

Difficult to see how Republicans could be more startlingly hypocritical. During the Bush administration, a Democrat who dared criticize the president while troops were on the ground was called a traitor. Now, with a Democrat in the White House, Republicans are unabashedly not only criticizing the president while troops are on the ground, but they are openly stating that they hope he will fail–and then railing at anyone who dares criticize them for it.

Stunning.

Obama and Democrats in the Senate propose stimulus spending to spur job growth and economic revitalization. The public approves of it strongly. The bill passes Congress. The states await the funding.

A few opportunistic Republican state governors make noise about refusing token bits of the spending, but one governor–Mark Sanford of South Carolina wants to take that state’s $700 million cut of the money, and instead of spending it on what it was intended for, use it to pay down the state’s debt. Remember the young girl asking for funds to make her school livable again from Obama’s address to Congress? South Carolina. Sanford would be pulling the carpet out from that school, as one small example of those who would suffer from it.

So, why does he want to do that?

What we’ve said is it’s not a good idea to spend money that you don’t have, whether in your personal life, in the world of business, or for that matter, in the world of politics. At the end of the day, all this stimulus money’s about spending money we don’t have. We don’t think that’s a good idea, but that debate was lost.

Ah. After eight years of non-stop Republican borrow and spend, where right-wingers couldn’t spend “money they didn’t have” fast enough, after decades of smearing of the Democrats as “tax and spend” (which would be using money you DO have), after thirty years of Republicans running up ten trillion dollars in debt, we now have Republicans lecturing Obama and the rest of us on “spending money we don’t have,” a practice the Republicans have owned for the past three decades. And their timing could not be worse–we now actually need spending like we never have before.

And Obama’s spending is not the earmarks Republicans have dominated, nor the no-bid contracts to cronies and contributors, or the billions in giveaways to oil companies already flush with profits or billions more for wealthy people flush with profits from the Clinton years. Instead, the spending is mostly for stuff that I guess Republicans see as wasteful–schools, roads, bridges, communications, and other infrastructure stuff.

Remember Al Gore and the lockbox, using some of the money the Clinton surplus would have given us for paying down the debt? Remember how Republicans scoffed at it and instead insisted that it was “your” (the taxpayer’s) money, so you (and by “you,” we mean wealthy people) could get tax cuts? Remember how those tax cuts, along with Bush letting 9/11 happen, and his debacle of a war in Iraq, gutted any chance of surpluses helping, even if Republicans had any intention of paying down any debt?

Yep, the Republican Party is now officially the Party of Dangerously Irresponsible Economics. Not that they weren’t for the past 30 years when they gave in to “Voodoo Economics” so they could win elections. But now they have removed any and all doubt.

Think Progress asked Mark Levin and Rick Santorum, a popular conservative radio talk show host and a former Republican Senator, respectively, about Limbaugh’s “I hope Obama fails” theme:

TP: What do you think about what Rush said about, I mean, do you hope, should we hope that President Obama fails?

LEVIN: Yes.

TP: Yes?

SANTORUM: If … absolutely we hope that his policies fail…. I believe his policies will fail, I don’t know, but I hope they fail.

They join a growing list of Republican stars who are coming out and openly hoping for the President of the United States of America to fail in his attempts to bring economic recovery and peacefully end the war in Iraq, among other policies.

Although Limbaugh initially gave the caveat that he thought Obama’s policies would bring bad things and he opposed those bad things and hoped they’d fail, he has since dropped the pretense and simply hopes for Obama to fail, period. These two prominent conservatives quoted above also leave any pretense behind.

Remember back when Republicans furiously castigated Democrats for even criticizing the president while soldiers were on the ground in a wartime situation? How that was akin to treason? And here they are, not only criticizing Obama (that’s a daily occurrence), they are actively calling for the president and therefore the country to fail. Had Democrats actually suggested this when Bush was president, they Republicans would have gone nuclear. Hoping the nation fails? With soldiers in the field? Are you kidding me?

But hey, it’s okay, because these guys are all about “country first.”

In case you had forgotten, a host of high-ranking Republicans including Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert, and Donald Rumsfeld claimed that simply opposing the president in a time of war gave “confort and aid” to our enemies, demoralized our troops on the ground, and generally proved to be unpatriotic and anti-American; this sentiment was echoed by all-but-in-name Republican Joe Lieberman, as well as just about every right-wing pundit and TV/radio host in the country.

And now a growing list of Republican high-rollers not only oppose the president–fully their right, but remember, they said that was wrong–but they wish failure to befall the country as it stands on the brink of collapse, just so they can capitalize on it and win the next election.

Democrats never did this. They criticized Bush and his policies and said that they believed Bush would fail, but never that they hoped Bush would fail. Republicans constantly accused Democrats of wanting America to fail and to lose the war–McCain repeatedly accused Obama of exactly that, many times, openly, during the campaign. Once again, we have right-wing projection: accuse the Democrats of something they never did, and then turn around and do it in spades themselves.

When he thought he had won the Minnesota election by a few hundred votes, Norm Coleman urged Al Franken to forego a recount. He cited both the cost–$86,000–and the partisanship that would result, saying, “I just think the need for the healing process is so important.”

Problem was, a recount was not Franken’s choice–it was mandated by law. And so there was a recount, and after it was over, Franken led by more votes than Coleman originally had.

So, did Coleman, after the actual counting as required by law was over, still believe in keeping down costs and beginning the healing process?

Hell, no.

He started a lawsuit which has cost the state far more money than the recount cost, and has created a partisan divide a mile and a half wide. Not to mention that he has prevented Minnesotans from being represented fully in the Senate for a few months now, halving their influence at a critical time, and possibly losing a great deal of money for the state in that respect.

His hypocrisy is not even thinly veiled; for example, he said that the election was questionable because Franken won by “thousandths of a percent,” apparently forgetting that he himself had earlier insisted that a lesser margin in his favor was not only enough decisive enough to win the election, but so powerful as to shut down a legally mandated recount.

And now that his chances of winning the court battle are looking dim, Coleman is beginning to hint at a do-over. You can expect that hint to develop into a demand, probably even a campaign.

“Shameless” does not even come close to describing this ass.

When you think about it, the now-infamous editorial cartoon from Murdoch’s New York Post is pretty stunning in its brazenly racist content. Only part of it is that the writer of the stimulus bill, commonly identified as Obama, is portrayed as a chimp. To at least some degree, it’s not hard to understand that chimpanzees are often used in pop culture to refer to someone stupid; but not to see the racism inherent in using the chimp to portray Obama, that’s pretty mind-boggling. After all, throughout the campaign, many people of clearly racist intent used “Curious George” with Obama’s name or likeness to make an outright racist point. Some conservatives have even tried to make the point that Bush was often portrayed as a chimp, so there should be no offense taken when Obama is similarly portrayed. That, of course, completely misses the point of racist stereotypes: if someone like Bush is portrayed in cartoon form with buck teeth, that will not register the same way as if, say, Daniel Inouye were portrayed in the same manner.

However, the inappropriateness of the cartoon goes way beyond portraying Obama as a chimp; it portrays him as a chimp just shot dead by the police. In a cartoon published in New York City. One has to ask, why? Is the idea that the chimp wrote the stimulus bill and then went on a violent rampage? That makes little sense unless you associate the stimulus bill with violence, and virtually no one does that. Even if you could get away with the Obama-as-chimp thing, the police shooting the chimp dead goes beyond any sensical analogy, comic or otherwise. Now, if the cartoonist had set up the scene with a chimp sitting at a typewriter, holding an empty gin bottle and passed out drunk as one of two onlookers say the exact same caption, that would get the message across even more clearly and with greater humor–again, aside from the racist content of the chimp in this context. Change it from a chimp into some dumb-looking guy, add elements to paint him as stupid and/or crazy (tinfoil hat, messy hair, dressed like a child, passed out drunk, etc.), and again you’d get the message across without any racist content at all.

But the chimp and the police shooting, that goes beyond being tone-deaf. I find it impossible to believe that anyone could have missed this. Add the element of the humor and meaning being expressed better with non-racist elements, and it suggests that racism was the clear intent of this cartoon.

Republicans suddenly find that White House email records preservation is an important issue:

A California Republican congressman has called on President Obama to put in place a system that ensures all White House emails be preserved even if official business was done through private e- mail accounts. …

“As you know, any e-mail sent or received by White House officials may be subject to retention under the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” [Darrell] Issa wrote [White House Counsel Greg] Craig in the letter.

“The use of personal e-mail accounts, such as Gmail to conduct official business raises the prospect that presidential records will not be captured by the White House e-mail archiving system. Consequently Gmail users on the President’s staff run the risk of incorrectly classifying their e-mails as non-records under the [Presidential Records] Act.” …

Issa also asked that the White House respond to a series of questions about the administration’s email archiving by March 4.

I fully agree with Steve Benen’s take: this is utter hypocrisy. For years we have seen the Bush White House make a complete and utter mockery of the Presidential Records Act, brazenly destroying email records (oh, I’m sorry, it was accidental–they accidentally erased years of email messages, then accidentally erased the backups, and then accidentally destroyed the hard drives they had been stored on–all accidentally and coincidentally) and having strongly utilized communication lines outside official email accounts, whose records were also destroyed. And all during that time, not a peep from Republicans about how it was inappropriate or how to fix it.

And now, when some White House staffers use GMail accounts because their official accounts are not yet active or when the White House servers are down, suddenly Republicans are coming in with microscopes and legal challenges. Benen points out that when Democrat Henry Waxman brought up Bush email abuses, Issa dismissed the charges as software glitches and accused Democrats of going on a fishing expedition for partisan purposes.

Pure, utter hypocrisy.

The thing is, this is just one example of a standard Republican pattern of behavior: abuse the crap out of something, and then suddenly become zealots for reform when Democrats take power. During the Bush years, Republicans went hog wild with spending and pork; after Democrats take control, they suddenly become fiscal hawks complaining about deficits and spending reform. During the Bush years, they often squawked about how the opposition should never criticize the president when soldiers are in battle somewhere in the world, but they have no trouble launching searing attacks against Obama, even where his military policies are concerned–something they used to claim was bordering on treasonous, giving aid and comfort to the terrorists and other enemies.

The reverse is also true: Republicans whine endlessly when Democrats use minority-party techniques, like the filibuster. You know all about how they went insane with rage and indignation that Democrats dared to even think about using the filibuster when Bush tried to ram through his extremist judges multiple times–but the second they became the minority party, it was filibuster, filibuster, filibuster.

So the recent focus on White House emails is not in the least surprising, when you think about it.

Late note: This is not to say, of course, that the Obama administration should be exempt from overview on matters such as this, nor that they should be excused from meticulous record-keeping as tit-for-tat after the Bush administration’s horrendous abuses. Instead, it is to say that Republicans have absolutely no credibility whatsoever to be throw about accusations or insinuations on the matter–least of all Issa.

That’s pretty much the new rebranding of the Republican Party: “GOP = Pushing for Failure.” Their unofficial but clearly dominant alpha-male leader, Rush Limbaugh, made that clear: “I hope Obama fails.” Recently, he reiterated that desire even more clearly, stating a positive desire for not only Obama but his attempts to help the economy to fail as well.

And that’s what Republicans are working to get: failure, disaster, bad news. They put their full weight into denying Obama as many votes as possible, after doing all they could to de-stimulus the stimulus bill. They know that infrastructure spending is the most effective form of stimulus, along with food stamps and other ways of conveying money to the lower and middle class, who are most likely to spend and spend domestically. They know infrastructure will create jobs. They know that tax breaks do a poor job–they’ve tried it, after all–and they must be aware that stuff like cutting the estate tax and giving tax cuts to the oil companies will have a negative effect, not a positive one.

It’s almost as if they’re not even trying very hard to disguise it. I mean, really, GOP chairman Steele tried to claim that if taxpayer dollars fund jobs, then they’re not “jobs,” they are “work,” which is worse because “work” ends after a while, whereas “jobs” are, uh, well, they’re ending by the millions too but that’s beside the point, right? Meanwhile, Boehner stands up before the press and tries to claim that infrastructure spending is not “really” stimulus–instead, let’s cut all kinds of taxes for rich people, that’ll work!

The GOP might as well just give up the pretense and sell it straight: we will obstruct and sabotage the nation’s business as much as possible so Obama and the Democrats look bad and so more of us get elected in the future.

Because if they can recapture power in Washington, then we’ll get back to the glory years of the Bush administration, and wasn’t that a time of prosperity? Well, if you were a banker or oilman, maybe. Some kind of rich person. That’s the GOP constituency–the wealthy. Not enough to get many votes, but they can fool enough of the rest of the country who have dreams of wealth, those who are willing to sacrifice what they have for the vain hope of someday getting that winning lottery ticket so they can leave behind the desolation the Republicans have created.

Among the Republican calls for tax cuts (PDF file of the GOP proposal):

Repeal the alternative minimum tax so that wealthy people can avoid paying even that much.

Keep the capital gains and dividends tax rate at 15%, so that wealthy people who make most of their income that way can use it to maintain low tax rates.

Lower corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, because Exxon and the other oil corporations need to keep as much of their massive eleven-digit profits as they can in order to keep their Cayman Island accounts healthy.

Lower the highest tax rates on regular income for the the wealthy from 35% to 25%.

And here’s the topper: Repeal the estate tax under $5 million, and cut it to 15% for estates above $5 million. Currently, estate taxes apply to estates worth $3.5 million and higher, and are taxed at 45% above that amount. Republicans have been shooting for the $5 million/15% for some time now, meaning it’s not “stimulus,” it’s simply one of their desired goodies.

Fact is, tax cuts to the rich is not stimulus; it didn’t pump up the economy when Bush tried it before, and it won’t work now. These tax cuts are simply yet another giveaway–this time a $3 trillion giveaway over the next 10 years–mostly to people who don’t need them. Just pile it on top of the $700 billion we just fed the super-wealthy, and all the other cuts they’ve gorged on, which only helped feed their greed which led to this crisis in the first place.

That won’t stop Republicans from pressing for even more tax cuts for the rich, on top of all the recent huge tax cuts for the rich, at a time when revenues will be plummeting and the middle class, more and more, will not be helped by tax cuts on income they aren’t making.

Here’s a prediction: if the Republicans got these tax cuts and they didn’t work, what would they would ask for next? Just a wild guess here, but I’d say they’d call for more tax cuts for the rich.

In the days when Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats occasionally resorted to the filibuster, Republicans called it everything short of treasonous, screaming bloody murder whenever it was even hinted at. Undemocratic, they called it–denying a straight up-or-down vote. So hideously wrong even if used rarely, it required the threat of the “nuclear option,” in which they would do away with the procedure once and for all.

Now? The Republican use of the filibuster is such standard practice that they actually brag about anything needing 60 votes to get through Congress, as if the filibuster were an automatic stage for every bill passing through. Republicans not only like the filibuster now, they see it as indispensable and a vital tool for Democracy, and have used it more than any other Congress in history.

How much do you want to bet that if Republicans regained full control of Congress tomorrow, they would instantly turn around and again attack the procedure as something vile and traitorous, as if they had been against it all along? It would not be surprising at all–that’s just the way Republicans roll: attack something inconvenient and then embrace it when they find use; skewer an opponent for doing something and then turn around and do it themselves in spades. And then unashamedly claim the moral high ground and label the other side as flip-floppers.

When I saw the news story that Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher was going to Israel as a war correspondent to report on the conflict in Gaza, I was a bit taken aback until I saw that it was for Pajamas Media, a right-wing blogging group. That would make sense, as a right-wing celebrity he would appeal to that audience.

However, just a few days ago, I saw a headline reporting that Joe would be addressing the Republicans in Congress, that he had been asked to advise them on political matters, including the stimulus bill. When I saw that one, I first presumed that I had stumbled upon a satire site’s story, like The Onion’s–those sometimes make their way in to Google News’ lineup. But no, this was for real: the GOP had honestly asked Joe the Plumber to address and advise them.

This is what amazes me about conservatives: not just that people like Wurzelbacher and Sarah Palin could become so popular during the election–that I can kind of see because of their sudden popular appeal despite their massive failings (common with right-wing stars)–but that they can persist in their popularity even after having failed so badly. Building a reputation upon fraud after fraud, misstep after misstep, gaffe after gaffe, and then losing the battle to boot should be enough to shunt one aside into to shadows of obscurity. But apparently, both Joe and Sarah continue to “send little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America,” entrancing those of the conservative persuasion.

But the Republicans in Congress? Asking for professional political advice? Are they truly that shallow, that stupid?

Let’s not forget how Joe shot to stardom: he lied. When Obama happened to walk down his street, campaigning one day, “Joe” saw an opportunity to score points for his favored candidate. He approached Obama and began with a lie: “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes about 250, 270, 80 thousand dollars a year. Your new tax plan’s going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Truth is, the company’s income was not in that range, Joe started with “$250,000” only because he knew that was the point at which Obama’s tax plan would start taxing people more; Joe immediately adjusted the number to $280,000, probably realizing that at $250,000, there would no additional taxes–if you watch the video and realize that he’s making these numbers up, you can pretty much see how transparently he is fictionalizing here. He was also lying about “getting ready to buy” the business, based upon the fact that he did not have the financial means to do so. In short, he saw an opportunity to confront Obama with a guy who would pay more taxes under Obama’s proposed tax plan, and lied to make it happen. He had probably seen McCain’s gaffes represented as “gotcha” moments and wanted to score one of his own on the opponent.

After that, all kinds of interesting information came out about the man. He was not really a plumber, not officially, and wound up losing his plumbing gig when the state discovered that he was working illegally. He owed back taxes which he had never paid. And it turns out that in real life, Joe would have benefitted a lot more from Obama’s tax plan than he would have from McCain’s.

But never mind reality, the right wing suddenly had an fictional ideological archetype, which is much better. Joe was suddenly the everyman downtrodden by oppressively high tax rates, the struggling worker being beaten down by socialist liberals trying to “spread the wealth.” John McCain realized this instantly, and suddenly it was “Joe the Plumber” this, and “Joe the Plumber” that.

Never mind that Joe’s statements were painfully grating and sometimes even borderline racist; never mind that Joe’s opinions on various matters were outlier extremist, often hypocritical, and pathetically easy to shoot down; never mind that Joe was capricious, sometimes criticizing McCain; never mind that Joe was visibly an opportunist, hiring an agent and vying for book deals and Country & Western contracts; never mind even that Joe was ultimately ridiculed and dismissed by most people, and contributed to McCain’s loss. No, Joe was an icon, and that excused a lot. Kind of like a big TV star–someone you don’t mind so much is on drugs or being let go so easily after an arrest, you just like the fantasy they represent and so you’re willing to overlook the personal foibles.

I’d expect that from fans and loyalists. But professionals? Representatives and Senators? When the GOP asked Joe to address them, they were not asking him to do PR–they were asking him to lecture and advise them. Seriously. As if they truly felt that the man had a wisdom that he could impart their way, that he could give them sound counsel on how to approach serious political matters. They were not using him to appeal to others, they genuinely believed that he was someone with better knowledge and sense than they already possessed. They bought into the imagery that much. It’s as if the Democrats asked the Obama Girl to address the DNC on foreign policy. Astonishing.

But that’s where the Republicans are right now: grasping at starbursts and sly winks, believing in failed icons like a terminal cancer patient putting their hopes into faith healers and psychics, because that’s all they have left.

Oh, this is rich. For years, Republicans in many states (though Florida seems to be the champ here) try their damnedest to purge Democrats from the voter rolls by creating inflated “felon” lists, taking in anyone who has a name similar to convicted felons, an act which targets a large number of minority voters who are non-felons. When Democrats protest, Republicans deride them for courting“the felon vote” or “the criminal vote.”

Well, guess what? Norm Coleman, in Minnesota, is pushing and pushing hard for the vote of a prisoner’s absentee ballot to be counted. While it’s true that the man was not a convicted felon at the time and he was given the wrong type of absentee ballot in jail, the smear against Democrats is applied for courting the votes of people who never even committed a crime. And here’s a Republican wanting the jailhouse vote, even when technically the vote was invalid. Key point: were Al Franken to court this voter, Republicans would explode in a fit of ridicule and scorn at those criminal-loving Democrats.

Coleman: I won the election by a few hundred votes! That’s a solid enough victory that Al Franken should just give up and not ask for a recount!

Greek Choir: By law, with this margin, a recount is mandatory.

Coleman: Okay, then let’s make sure it’s honest; here are the parameters by which the recount should be carried out. We fully agree to these provisions.

Greek Choir: The recount is finished, and Franken has won, by a slightly larger margin than you had before.

Coleman: What?!? Hey! Franken stole this election! The recount parameters were unfair! In fact, if someone wins an election by such a small number, that’s within the margin of error and so the whole thing should be scrapped and a new election should be held!

Greek Choir: And then you’ll agree not to sue everyone?

Coleman: Only if I win.

Postscript: Some say that Coleman is stringing this out only to keep Franken out of the Senate for as long as possible. If so, how petty can you get? Not to mention, at the cost of the people of his state–one less Senator, especially when a large spending bill is on its way, could cost Minnesota dearly.

Obama and the Democrats could have rammed the stimulus bill through the House loaded with everything they wanted and squat for Republicans, and then played hardball in the Senate, laying out a public campaign attacking Republicans if they tried to filibuster an up-or-down vote–and it probably would have worked. That is, without any doubt whatsoever, exactly what the Republicans would have done were the situation reversed. We know they would because they did do exactly that, repeatedly, in the past.

Instead, Obama went way out of his way to include Republicans; he even left pride behind and showed up at the Republicans’ doorstep, gave them large amounts of face time and more than a little respect; he quickly eliminated programs from his stimulus that Republicans complained about, like family planning provisions, and gave Republicans several key elements they demanded, like increased tax cuts, despite their limited effectiveness in situations such as this. In short, Obama did exactly what Republicans have steadfastly refused to do: he was bipartisan and more than fair, considering that he won the election and has powerful majorities in both houses. More than fair considering that Republicans, with less power, did little more than spit on Democrats under similar circumstances just a few short years ago.

So, how did Republicans respond?

They took the considerable leverage and media exposure that Obama handed them in good faith and used it to grab everything they could and then bash Obama with smears and petty whining. In the House, they demanded and got more than they reasonably could have hoped for, and then ganged together and refused even a single vote for the bill. They then demanded more, some even dictating that Obama’s bill be scrapped and their own be put in its place, called the Democrats names, and accused them of all kinds of nasty political maneuverings–and then somehow, in the midst of all this, claimed the “bipartisan” mantle for themselves. For Republicans, “bipartisan” apparently means “give us everything we want and then let us eviscerate you.”

Sorry, but these people are beyond obnoxious. Obama extends them a hand, and they punch him square in the face.

You ask me, the Republicans just set the tone. They deserve no respect, zero. Take back everything offered to them, pass the bills America needs by appealing directly to the American people–taking a hard stance and forcing the GOP to play out each and every filibuster to show up their selfish obstructionism and political game-playing–and treat them with exactly the respect they have earned.

Until they are ready to act like adults and not like snot-nosed little brats, they can sit at the card table and whine all they want.

Unfortunately, Obama is unlikely to do that until the Republicans abuse him a whole lot more for a whole lot longer. He will probably continue to treat them with far more respect than they deserve–and the danger is that the American people will come to disrespect Obama for that. Let’s hope that Obama is smarter than that, and knows when to play hardball when it is required.

Over the past decade, Republicans have shown that they do stick tight to one principle above all others: do anything and everything to grab more power. To win an election, get it any which way, from smears to pandering; disenfranchise voters from the other party, trick them into not voting, try to get them disqualified by any means. In blue states, demand justice by dividing the districts and electoral votes “objectively” and “fairly,” but by all means claim that this is not needed in red states.

If you lose an election, do everything you can to tie it up or reclaim it. In Minnesota, Coleman knows he’s lost, but is tying up the seat in court for as long as he can–if a Republican can’t have the seat, then simply remove his people’s right to have a Senator for as long as possible. Recalls, recounts, whatever works. If you win by even a single vote, claim victory and say that a recount is not needed and is somehow robbing the people; if you lose by a small margin, call for recounts and court battles till the cows come home.

By this principle, we now witness Republicans, roundly slapped back by angry voters stung by GOP mismanagement, desperate to get seats back. Recognizing that this is hard to do by honest means, Republicans are looking eagerly forward to an alternate means: gerrymandering. Already they see the 2010 census as favoring them, with blue states losing population and red states gaining–and when the time comes for redistricting after the census, the GOP wants to be in place for controlling how that works. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that even non-census gerrymandering is A-OK, they are ready to be as shameless as they can be is shaping those districts.

That, at least, is how Republicans are approaching this. I just watched John McCain making a statement about the stimulus bill.

Now, first consider the fact that for the six years they had more or less complete control, Republicans ran up literally trillions of dollars in debt, with at the very least tens of billions of that literally disappearing, unaccounted for. Consider that one of the last acts of the Republican administration was to fork over $700 billion, a figure they literally pulled out of their asses, with no accounting nor accountability, no strings attached, to wasteful, untrustworthy money merchants.

Here comes a Democratic Congress and president with a plan rich with middle-class tax cuts and infrastructure building, not to mention strict accountability, a plan far superior by any measure to the “let’s fork money into the pockets of rich people” plans the Republicans steamrolled through Congress several times during their tenure as a supposed means of “stimulating” economic growth.

Keep in mind that Republicans, during their time in full power, had no problems shoving their plans through Congress with coercive tactics, abused their power to keep votes open until they could twist arms, and screamed bloody murder when Democrats even hinted at a filibuster. Forget that Obama has bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans, adding their proposals to his plan, inviting them in and consulting them at every turn, showing them every ounce of respect that Bush and the Republicans utterly refused to show to Democrats when the roles were reversed. Obama went to the Capitol, and spent two hours in closed session with Republicans, answering their questions in person. Can you even imagine Bush having done that? Republicans’ heads would have exploded at the very idea of such a gesture.

So here we have Republicans calling the current plan “wasteful,” and objecting otherwise purely because, according to McCain:

Well, the plan was written by the majority in — a Democrat majority in the House, primarily. And so, yeah, I think there has to be major rewrites if we want to stimulate the economy.

Now, consider this: McCain is claiming here that he’s trying to be bipartisan. And yet, one of his major beefs here is not what is in the bill, but rather who wrote the bill. As if there was nothing wrong with Republicans writing every bill when they had power and cramming it down the Democrats’ throats, but now the Democrats, how dare they, now that they’re in power, even think about writing legislation themselves! What bastards!

But here’s the real telling point in McCain’s speech: note his use of the term, “Democrat majority.” That’s a term which he knows full well is a slick, sly political epithet. And yet, here he is, claiming to be the voice of bipartisanship, and he can’t even use the non-insulting term to describe the other party.

That one expression speaks volumes: this is not about responsible legislation, this is not about wasteful spending, and this is certainly not about Republicans trying to be bipartisan. This is about one thing, and one thing only: the beginning of a 4- to 8-year campaign on the part of Republicans to damn every advance to help the American people in the name of playing a smear game that will lead to Republicans reclaiming power.

Pure and simple.

Someone over at Forbes decided to define liberalism with the rather inaccurate brush of current events, which led me to ask myself if I could do a better job defining liberalism. So here goes.

Liberalism is the philosophy and practice of adhering to principles of freedom, fairness, kindness, and liberty over gut instincts.

I think that says it all, pretty accurately. Bill O’Reilly kinda nailed that one when he said, “I didn’t like the line in the speech about we don’t have to compromise our values to protect ourself [sic]. I think sometimes we do.” That, to me, speaks of the heart of conservatism–the deference to base instincts such as selfishness, fear, and vengeance when it contradicts values that the same people claim to hold in such high reverence. For example, liberals actually believe in turning the other cheek; conservatives say they value that philosophy, but quickly turn to “an eye for an eye” the instant a real-world application presents itself.

Former Bush speechwriter Mark Thiessen wrote:

Less than 48 hours after taking office, Obama has begun dismantling those institutions without time for any such review. The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf [sic], and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots. It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office. [emphasis mine]

Previously in the article, the only CIA program listed was its overseas prisons; placing them overseas effectively allowed the CIA to ignore all laws regarding the handling of prisoners. But, hey, this is what I asked for earlier: examples of specific terror attacks that Bush’s policies stopped. So let’s review all the horrific terror plots that Bush’s secret CIA prisons were “singularly” responsible for stopping:

Library Tower in Los Angeles: supposedly, Al Qaeda planned to use Asian men to use shoe bombs to breach an airplane’s cockpit door and then fly the plane into the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles. However, officials later characterized this as a plot that “had not gone much past the conceptual stage.” Another official reported, “There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the thought stage.” In short, when you get past all the chest-puffing on the part of Bush, it was nothing more than terrorist wanna-bes cooking up schemes that never amounted to anything, but Bush, wanting to seem like he was being effective, grabbed the paper-napkin “plot” and claimed it was some kind of imminent threat thwarted by his own heroic efforts.

Heathrow Airport: The infamous water-bottle plot, which is responsible for your having to surrender water bottles, toothpaste, shampoo, and other exotic explosive devices before boarding airplanes. The advanced stages of the plot? “None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not have passports. It could be pretty difficult to convince a jury that these individuals were about to go through with suicide bombings, whatever they bragged about on the net. What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for more than a year….” At best, this was another bunch of terrorist wanna-bes dreaming up an improbable plan, one which explosives experts doubt would ever have worked. And before real connections could actually be made with terror groups so that authorities could maybe flush out people who actually posed some potential threat, the Bush administration pressured the Brits to arrest these guys so that Bush could flaunt yet another “foiled” terror plot. But again, we have another paper-napkin plot that never advanced beyond the “aspirational” phase.

London’s Canary Wharf: It’s kind of hard to track this one down, but again seems to be a would-be plot. Despite claims of a “real” threat, the claims of wanting to fly airplanes into skyscrapers at Canary Wharf were soon called out as “bogus.” This one was probably just another paper-napkin idea listed in the sketchbook of yet another terrorist wanna-be, trotted out by officials desperate to show how “effective” they were at protecting the people.

Blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago: Here, Thiessen appears to be referring to the “plot” to detonate hand grenades in a Chicago shopping mall around Christmastime. In fact, it was some young punk in Illinois whom an FBI agent goaded into trying to trade stereo speakers for hand grenades. Or maybe Thiessen was thinking of the infamous Miami “plot” to attack Sears Tower in Chicago, hatched by seven doofuses who needed the help of their FBI mole to buy boots. I don’t know, there are so many “terror plots” by disaffected losers who never had a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything, it’s hard to sort them all out. As with most of the above terror “plots,” it’s difficult to track down exactly how these apocalyptic threats were somehow thwarted by secret prisons.

In short, the horrific terror plots that our heroic former president saved us all from amount to pretty much squat–just a collection of pathetic someday-maybe crackpot schemes that never would have worked.

But hey, if all you’ve got is bupkis, then I guess you gotta make the most of it, eh?

But the real question is: how can you argue with Thiessen’s central thesis that Obama is “the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office” because he shut down Bush’s secret CIA prison network? The answer: you don’t have to argue with it, as it’s complete BS.