You couldn’t make this stuff up…
This remarkable article from Talking Points Memo and its follow up from underlines the embarassing position the GOP still finds itself in.
Brian Merchant summarises at Treehugger:
Case in point: the GOP is publicly claiming that climate change legislation would cost each American family more than $3,100 a year, citing research done by MIT. Thing is, the very researcher who conducted the study personally contacted the GOP, alerting them to the fact that his findings clearly state that the cost to families would only be $340 a year. So what did the GOP do?
Ignored him.
After 8 years of Bush’s meddling with science by falsifying or watering down documents to suit his ideology and denying Climate Change because of the implications for big-oil sponsors. Some of us thought the GOP might be chastened into acknowledging such over-arching global phenomena like Climate change and work to finding free-market solutions but apparently not.
What concerns me most is that the GOP will be able to get away with this, there is still a real issue particularly in the US that still doesn’t believe Climate Change is linked to man-kind, and the GOP remarkable stance, seen recently by Michael Steele is not only embarassing but breathtakingly irresponsible.
How long before they face up to reality? Because they can slow the debate down with their misinformation but they will ultimately lose it and then miss out on the opportunity to shape the legislation itself, but then again winning doesn’t seem to be high on the the Republican radar.*
* In no way am I trying to jinx NY-20, where they may actually win, but fingers crossed they don’t.
UPDATE
Think Progress covers some dissent over the issue within Republican ranks, from Republicans for Environmental Protection.
As far as intriguing American politicians go, Jon Huntsman is one to watch. Huntsman is the Republican governor of Utah and in the running for his party’s presidential nomination in 2012. Given that he governs a state where only 34% of the populace voted for Obama and which is generally considered to be the most blood-red Republican state in the union, you might expect the rhetoric of his initial forays into presidential contention to be positively prehistoric. But you’d be wrong. Last month he made national news by coming out in support of civil unions, even though he ran for governor in 2004 on a platform of opposing them. He also criticised Republican leaders for attacking the economic stimulus package after its passage, and other Republican governors for refusing to take parts of the stimulus money. He has said Republicans need to move to the centre on the environment and he’s making noises about delaying the passage of a hard-line immigration bill he signed last year. What is Jon Huntsman up to?
In a recent Huntsman interview, Politico’s Jonathan Martin noted that his thinking resembles a “Republican brand of Clintonism: practical solutions, softened rhetorical edges aimed to appeal to the center and an overall modernization of a party badly in need of a new image.” If you think this sounds like the tactics of a certain Eton-attending, bicycle-loving British opposition leader, you’d be right:
“I would liken it a bit to the transformation of the Tory Party in the U.K.,” Huntsman explained. “The defeat in ’97, John Major to Tony Blair, after years of strong, conservative rule with Margaret Thatcher setting the mark. They went two or three election cycles without recognizing the issues that the younger citizens in the U.K. really felt strongly about. They were a very narrow party of angry people. And they started branching out through, maybe, taking a second look at the issues of the day, much like we’re going to have to do for the Republican Party, to reconnect with the youth, to reconnect with people of color, to reconnect with different geographies that we have lost. You cannot succeed being a party of the South and a couple of Western states. It just – it isn’t long-term sustainable.”
Okay, so Huntsman is trying to do a David Cameron – get his party to embrace (or appear to embrace) a more moderate, compassionate platform in order to win over the demographics necessary to get into power. It seems to be working for Cameron - so will it work for the Republican party?
For those who read Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight, you might be familiar with this tactic from the Obama administration (Silver’s analysis). Rahm is putting the GOP in a tough spot. Limbaugh has received a lot of air time in the US, yet he’s a vulnerable target for the centre ground given his shock jockey tactics and vocal hope that Obama fails.
On the one hand the GOP have no obvious leader, although if it’s anyone it should probably be either Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or Michael Steele. Having Limbaugh take centre stage is a problem for a party attempting to reform at least its image, yet they can’t denounce him given his popularity with the GOP base. I suspect Limbaughism will define the GOP until at least the mid-terms. All of which is very good news for the Dems!
![Stormtroopers With Attitude - Classic Albums Covers Realised (badly) in LEGO [N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3286/2710682683_e8341df00b_m.jpg)
From the Huffpost:
According to CNN, Steele was then praised by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
As Steele concluded his remarks, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann — the event’s moderator — told Steele he was “da man.”
“Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man,” she said.
So awkward! Just think, we’ve got until the mid-terms for Republican Hip-Hop re-styling to gain full swing, Bachmann’s office-style moment is only the start.
Bernard: Well the party had an opinion poll done and it seemed all the voters are in favour of bringing back National Service.
Sir Humphrey:Well have another opinion poll done showing the voters are against bringing back National Service.
We all use polling but recently two issues stood out where we ought to be more careful in their use. The first is a false interpretation of what the data shows, the second is the flaws of using polling data on a complex issue to support your argument.
As a quick follow-up to my last post on Obama’s State of the Union address, I want to briefly talk about the Republican response to the President’s speech. I say briefly, because I couldn’t watch more than thirty seconds of it since it was clear that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to give it in a bizarre rapid-fire, sing-song delivery was a cripplingly embarrassing one. However the transcript of his speech shows that the content was just as embarrassing – inherently flawed and politically deaf criticism of the stimulus package combined with a complete lack of alternative solutions. How very Republican… Excitable journalists like to talk up the thrilling prospect of a Obama v Jindal showdown (no doubt thinking about the endless “Black President vs Indian candidate: how historic!” articles they could reel off). Hopefully, then, his pathetic response to Obama’s stunning address will dampen the media frenzy around him. And if you believe that, then you’ll believe me when I say I’m off to sit in my solid gold chair and smoke some hundred pound notes. Being a billionaire is fun!
What was perhaps most shocking about Jindal’s response was the brazen insanity of it: in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with Republican stock still at an all-time low, their response is to stubbornly stick to the tired old mantra of “government is bad, tax cuts are good”. The craziness of such a strategy was perhaps best summed up by conservative commentator David Brooks, who eviscerated it in shockingly extreme language (for a Republican), calling it a “disaster”, “insane” and “a form of nihilism” . Watch it for yourself, it’s really quite damning:
As a change from my normally more po-faced analysis of US politics, I thought I’d take a look at some of the more crazy comments Republicans have been coming out with over the last week or so. I had been a little concerned that all the “serious” debates about the economic stimulus package had slowed to a trickle the hilarious, weird stuff they tend to come out on a regular basis – but I needn’t have worried. In recent days they’ve been once again feeding at the crazy trough and then some. So, in no discernible order:
- Last week, at a public event in Alabama, the state’s Republican Senator Richard Shelby answered a question from a constituent in a way that suggests he may harbour, uh, some doubts as to whether Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. No, seriously:
Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.
- Speaking of Obama’s citizenship, long-time crazy Republican Alan Keyes (who lost the Illinois Senate race to Obama back in 2004) has not only been recently fuelling doubts about his natural-born status but also warning the public about the threat he poses to America:
Obama is a radical communist, and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it’s true… He is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.
You can check out the hilarious video here
In her latest Op-Ed in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd covers Will Ferrell’s “W” on Broadway. The gist of Dowd’s article is the sense of sympathy extended to President Bush, in Will Ferrell’s play, here is an excerpt from Dowd’s article in which she quotes Adam McKay:
“He’s so clearly a neglected 13-year-old that there’s something really kind of heartbreaking about him,” McKay said, calling him “a good-time Charlie” who was “just used his whole life to front questionable business endeavors, and in a way that’s what his presidency was.
“He doesn’t have Cheney’s cartoonish need for power and greed that’s so off the charts you don’t even understand how Cheney got that way. W. may have some awareness, deep down inside, sort of like a petulant teenager who just flunked the trig quiz and knows he screwed up. I think Cheney not only knows but is delighted with everything he did, as is Rumsfeld.”
It’s true that there may be some exoneration of President Bush by the media and public, certainly as Bush’s Presidency ran down the clock there appeared sympathy, from the press. Why might this be the case and what impact, if any it will have on Bush’s legacy?
I’m not going to post every article I think is good, but this article by Steven Pearlstein, Business Columnist for the WashingtonPost is a king among among articles. Read it here.
