Be afraid: Republican vampires to stalk the airwaves in even greater swarms

I caught two of the network gabfests yesterday morning and both seemed more like a wake than a solemn gathering of sober analysis; the possibly premature mourning of, or in some cases -- Praise Jesus! -- celebration of bipartisanship's short but sensational life ruled the a.m. airwaves.

First came NBC's "Meet the Press," whose roundtable discussion kicked off with columnist Ron Brownstein's observation that since President Obama had "incredible Democratic support" for his stimulus package, plus incredible Republican hostility, he is now prepared for a "more confrontational" path. Friends, let's hear another Praise Jesus. And there was Roger Simon, further observing that merely opposing Obama's agenda "isn't a big enough hand" for Republicans, but, in effect, what else were, are, idea-less obstructionists to do?

For 20 or 25 minutes so it went, it seemed to me, a general curtain-drawing on bipartisanship. And then, as if to advertise the concept's pathology, came ABC's "This Week." What, as they say, a hoot that was.

As guests Chuck Schumer and Maxine Waters sat and rattled off a depressing roll call of all the Republican demands met in the Democratic stimulus bill, there sat the supremely infantile Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carowhina, on the verge of a rehearsed emotional breakdown, whimpering and moaning and fretting about bullying Democratic intransigence.

His sidekick was Rep. Peter King, who went through the verbal motions of agreement with Lindsey, but, as always, Lindsey was the center of woe-is-me, I-want-everything-and-I-want-it-now, hurt-feelings attention. I kept waiting for Rep. Waters, like a frustrated K-Mart mom, to reach over and pop him one upside the head, but alas, civility and mature tolerance reigned.

But back to "MTP," in which another columnist, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, noted almost in passing the clever-as-it-can-get Republican strategy on all things economically stimulating: The Big Plan -- if the $787 billion package works some magic by 2010, they'll say their participation (forgetting Lindsey Graham's whining) vastly improved the bill, so more Republicans in Congress would vastly improve other bills, too; and if the package falls flat, they'll say We told you so, and we of course had nothing to do with it.

You know the routine, although Republicans hardly have exclusive rights to it.

So how will it all play out for Republicans? Hell, I don't know. But one thing -- two things, actually -- did haunt as I watched the Sunday morning wakes for bipartisanship, which in general conveyed a sense of extreme Republican difficulties at hand.

First, I had just read the NY Times' Adam Nagourney's profile of that modern Newt Gingrich, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who, noted Nagourney, "is as responsible as anyone for the tough line the party has taken in this first legislative standoff with Mr. Obama," and who the nominal House minority leader "routinely defers to ... at news conferences." Mr. Cantor "has rushed in to fill the leadership vacuum with a daily diet of news conferences, interviews, speeches on the House floor and television appearances."

The American electorate can count on a lot more of those interviews and appearances, since the American media believe that every reasonably sound, practical idea proposed by Barack Obama must be counterbalanced in at least equal coverage of every unsound, crackpot criticism bellowed by Republicans.

It takes its toll. Case in point, I had also just read Frank Rich's latest, which noted that "G.O.P. members of Congress wildly outnumbered Democrats as guests on all cable news networks, not just Fox News, in the three days of intense debate about the House stimulus bill. They started pounding in their slogans relentlessly. The bill was not a stimulus package but an orgy of pork spending. The ensuing deficit would amount to 'generational theft.' F.D.R.'s New Deal had been an abject failure.

"This barrage," Rich continued, and rather gleefully, "did shave a few points off the stimulus's popularity in polls, but its approval rating still remained above 50 percent in all (Gallup, CNN, Pew, CBS) but one of them (Rasmussen, the sole poll the G.O.P. cites)."

My glee came up short of Rich's. After all we've been through, after all we're going through and after everything we still expect in those gloomiest of economic forecasts, for such Republican propaganda to have shaved any points at that stage is, to me, a horrifying omen.

We've nearly two years to go of their pounding and relentlessness and bamboozling and disingenuity -- all of which will be aired and printed by the American media on the false premise of something akin to two-party parity, rather than one party and the marginalized, philosophically bankrupt, lingering shambles of another.

Obama's best counteroffense? Here, I'm in accord with Rich: "The biggest mistake he can make now is to be too timid.... Far from depleting Obama’s clout, the stimulus battle instead reaffirmed that he has the political capital to pursue the agenda of change he campaigned on....

"Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill."

Praise Jesus again and Amen to that, Brother -- the vampiric Republican heart requires yet a few more stakes, and with a clangoringly greater pounding to drown out its siren song.