The Republican Party: A marvel of missteps

Who ever would have guessed that Senate Republicans would choose this year -- this abominable sinkhole of economus horribilis -- to unveil their party's spiffy new image of rugged antiAmericanism.

It's appalling, and I mean that strictly from a political point of view -- certainly not from an economic policy standpoint, since these days so very few take Republicans seriously enough on economic matters to be appalled on that score.

Besides, for the GOP it's all just politics anyway, no matter what the economic circumstances. The founding concept of promoting the general welfare can be a real nuisance to what they regard as the superior concept of partisan politics, so Republicans just ignore it.

Here we are: the Dow has flatlined and is yet still exceedingly nervous, credit markets are nearly as chilly as ever, grim deflationary pressures abound and about a half-million Americans are losing their jobs monthly.

So, suggest Senate Republicans, this sounds like a splendid time to throw perhaps another 3 million Americans out of work. If that's what it takes to bust a union, well, so be it. But our base will love it; not to mention a whole lot of antiunion, corporate-cash dispensing ATMs.

Still, I can't quite figure the politics of this thing, since the potential political upside for Republicans is just too narrow. For heaven's sake, even the Bush administration is calling them "irresponsible."

"Under normal economic conditions," said the White House's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, "we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms. However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary -- including use of TARP -- to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers. A precipitous collapse of this industry would have a severe impact on our economy, and it would be irresponsible to further weaken and destabilize our economy at this time."

One can search many a transcript from many a White House press conference from many a year, and throughout count on one hand the number of times an administration called its own party "irresponsible." It just isn't done, except of course when that party is acting so wretchedly irresponsibly there's no longer any point in publicly denying it.

This time, however, the White House went even one step farther. It didn't merely not deny it: it offered it.

Having participated in showering the banking industry with hundreds of billions of "relief" dollars and no questions asked -- and with hundreds of billions more to come -- Senate Republicans have decided that it is against American workers that they should take a principled stand.

"It sounds like the U.A.W. blew it up," said Louisiana's David Vitter, who, besides Idaho's Larry Craig, is the Senate's leading Republican authority on all things being blown. And naturally the unctuous Richard Shelby, the 'Suthern' gentleman from Toyota, chimed in, saying "We’re hoping that the Democrats will continue to negotiate but I think we have reached a point that labor has got to give. If they want a bill they can get one."

You bet. All Democrats have to do is sell out American workers, and of course the workers' union would have to agree to sell them out as well.

But for Dick Shelby that's no problem. Because life is good on Dick's boat: a nice government salary and a nice government healthcare package and a nice government retirement program and nice guaranteed raises and a nice big sycophantic staff -- all courtesy the American taxpayer, who, in Dick's opinion, just isn't ruggedly individualistic enough.

And then, finally, there was the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who sternly intoned of the Big Three automakers and the actual makers of those autos: "None of us want to see them go down, but very few of us had anything to do with the dilemma that they have created for themselves."

Now that's about as Freudian as an observation can get. I can almost see the little wheel spinning in the back of Mitch's head, churning out the thought: Hey, I'm not responsible for this miserable state of the Republican Party, and I'll be damned if I can find any other Republican willing to accept responsibility, either. But good God what a nasty dilemma we have created for ourselves -- to promote the general welfare or go purely partisan.

At least we now know what to expect.