The current crop of Republican officeholders seems to assume that most of us are dull-witted clods who are even dopier than they are. The blessed relief at not having to listen to former vice president Cheney's false claims and phony arguments to justify failed policies was short-lived. His reemergence in a series of unpatriotic and duplicitous interviews is like opening an old wound.
Listening to people like Karl Rove, given a platform by Fox News to deliver the propaganda perfected as part of the Bush political apparatus is another reminder of our abused sensibilities. Rove suggests that prosecution or condemnation of torture approved by the Bush White House is like banana-republic thugs seeking revenge on former government officials for disagreement over policies. Is anybody buying the rationale that the torture issue is just about policy differences?
And another voice from the past, former congressman Dick Armey, has taken on the role of tea-bag cheerleader and irascible critic of President Obama. Calling the release of torture memos irresponsible he joins the chorus of right-wing critics who seem to spend most of their time trying to find the right moment to deliver open-ended attacks on the administration. But except for the change of names in his invective, Armey basically spouts the same tired rhetoric that informed his positions years ago. Apparently that's what passes for a new approach in conservative circles.
It is the standard formula employed by the opposition, their incoherent response to every program the president proposes. When George Stephanopoulos tried to pin minority leader Boehner down about what Republicans had in mind with respect to the economy, the environment or health care, his response was a lame, "we have a plan" to be revealed eventually. He has also ridiculed concerns regarding climate change and CO2 as "comical", mistakenly positing that cow droppings are a source of CO2 - - a notion that seems to fit Republican efforts to downplay the importance of carbon emissions.
In that mode Republicans have taken to calling a "cap-and-trade" program the "cap-and-tax" program, much as they continually call the estate tax, a death tax. In adoring interplay during evening floor speeches in the House, Indiana's Mike Pence and Minnesota's Michele Bachmann cast doubt on claims that climate change is influenced by human behavior saying it is rather a naturally-occurring phenomenon and CO2 is but a tiny part of the environmental pie. Bachmann said we have lots of coal, natural gas and oil and should make the most of those resources - - green schemes, not so much.
Most scientific opinion, however, is not dismissive about carbon emissions. In a 2002 article Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts wrote, "increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap more of the earth's heat, causing temperatures to rise"- - ‘melting ice, raising sea levels, creating more destructive storms.' http://www.earthpolicy.org/. And in a May 2008 article the following: "... widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely it is not due to natural causes alone." http://www.eia.doe.gov/.
The premise that we are all dumb as posts seems to animate a right-wing opposition that seeks to avoid being implicated in obvious failures with respect to the environment, the economy and foreign policy. They ask us to believe that releasing CIA memos endangers us and that invading Iraq was a good idea as they try desperately to refurbish their tarnished record. CNBC's Larry Kudlow wrote in a June 2002, NationalReview.com article that "The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points...The world will be righted in this life-and-death struggle to preserve our values and our civilization. But to do all this we must act." What a guy.
But the most serious indictment of our government these past eight years is the disclosure that interrogators were told to use extreme methods in the hope of getting detainees to suggest a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. To justify invading Iraq the Bush White House was willing to go to extraordinary lengths, disrespecting and deceiving the American people in the process. Whatever steps are taken going forward, there must be an honest assessment of what was done in our name, and we the people must stand up and say "never again." We're a lot smarter now.
Only about one third of the country!
Secession! and then----Foreign Aid!
Another Vision
The Republican Party Looks Like a Cast of Fools
another voice for clods
As it Ever Was
We're dumb as posts, we've always been dumb as posts, and we will likely always be dumb as posts.
One would think that after eight years of Stoopid and EEvil running the nation and ruining the economy that We the People would have become smarter. Yet we still exhibit for the same simpletonistic cranial activity that passes for thought as demonstrated by those who either attended tea bagging parties, or wished they could have but didn't because they feared losing that minimum-wage, part-time job they finally found to replace the one from which they used to live comfortably - and THAT is Obama's fault!
Because these people won't change, those who seek to take advantage of them won't change either. To do so would mean surrendering control over these cretins who keep them in power - or return them to it as soon as that can be engineered. That can't be allowed, and in our own way, we deserve this effort to succeed. We can then be just like their enemies in the Taliban and suffer the same sort of arbitrary and vicious "discipline" should we ever again stray from the Trooth!
Er, but....
Yeppers
Ann Davidow