Republicans Cling to Old Ways

Just as a vigorous, new president and his team begin to seek redress for the sins of both omission and commission in our recent past, relentless standard-bearers on the right stand ready to recommit the country to the  mindless agenda so many voted to end. As philosopher William James put it: "The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths" in the sense that people form stubborn attachments to long-held views whether or not they have borne intellectual fruit or good results.

On the financial front Republicans reaffirmed their rote positions at a recent economic conference - - that, for example, the only viable means of promoting a sound economy is to cut taxes and let "market forces" work. Mitt Romney read from prepared remarks apparently retrieved from his primary speeches - - not inspiring save for the party faithful and those who would ignore the downside of his record as a corporate phenom.

As a presidential candidate he said "jobs come and go" but that he would fight for every single job, a promise not evidenced in his pursuit of personal wealth. He amassed a huge fortune venturing capital, but his business model, whatever the ultimate success or failure of his decisions, always included massive layoffs and firings. And his answer to the country's current economic dilemma is to implement "cost-cutting and restructuring." To that end he submitted that state employment rolls, pensions and health-insurance-premium sharing "should be high on the hit list." Same old, same old. It is astonishing that making the case for more of the bad result we are currently experiencing makes sense to Romney and other conservatives.

Curiously, although we are in a deep recession and a stalemate on two fronts in the Middle East, claimants on the right insist, as Fred Barnes did recently on Fox News, that Iraq is a success and how could anyone say otherwise, adding that Bush inherited an earlier recession from Clinton. It isn't enough for Bush supporters to rewrite history a few years hence; they have begun rewriting it right now before our very eyes.

Let's be honest, invading Iraq can never be made right because we began a war of choice that left untold numbers of Iraqis dead, millions homeless, and over four thousand of our own forces killed, countless others maimed in body and mind. Unless we think it is our mission to run around the world spending treasure and human life establishing corrupt forms of what some like to call democracies, the past eight years simply do not represent foreign-policy triumphs.

In Congress Republican pols, proclaiming themselves proponents of the party's values, are holding up Attorney General Designee Holder's confirmation in an attempt to make him agree not to pursue possible illegalities in the Bush administration. Holder already ran up against Senator Kyl's hypothetical about whether torture would be acceptable if a terrorist had planted a nuclear device somewhere in New York City. Skirting established constitutional and international regulations has been the Republican way, and apparently Senators Cornyn, Kyl and others want to keep ‘that way' alive.

The media is likewise belaboring some of the issues being addressed by the Obama administration. On "Morning Joe" the numbingly obtuse Joe Scarborough and ‘analyst' Pat Buchanan discussed torture and the closing of Guantanamo. Buchanan has dug up figures indicating that freed detainees often appear on the battlefield again, although I wonder if most of our forces could easily identify repeaters. For his part, Joe, having watched, one imagines, far too many episodes of TV's "24", kept referring to a "rabid left" that doesn't understand the threat terrorists pose, most of whom, he apparently believes, have ready access to nuclear devices they carry with them at all times.

Radio's Rush Limbaugh proves once again how downright despicable he is saying about Obama, "I hope he fails." At a time when the country needs the best we all have to offer, it is sad that one so depraved has a syndicated outlet for his vitriol. On Thursday's "Washington Journal" a caller, who might well be one of his regulars, said she was ashamed of her country and that she believed President Obama to be the anti-Christ.

One can only wonder at the lunacy that animates many on the right and hope that a clear-eyed approach to our problems will crowd out the dithering and dangerous excesses that have beset our country for too long.