GOP Rep. On ‘Plan B’ Failure: ‘It’s The Continuing Dumbing-Down Of The Republican Party’

[TomCADem]

Source: Talking Points Memo

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) on Thursday levied sharp criticism toward House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for the failure of the GOP leadership's fiscal cliff proposal, the so-called "Plan B," to garner enough votes to pass the chamber.

“It weakens the entire Republican Party, the Republican majority," LaTourette said, as quoted by Roll Call. "It’s the continuing dumbing-down of the Republican Party and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can’t even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we’re putting forward."


Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gop-rep-on-plan-b-failure-its-continuing

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Why the sudden burst of honesty? Because LaTourette is retiring after 18 years. It is amazing that once a Republican is no longer dependant on Norquist and corporate dollars for re-election, they suddenly are willing to call their party crazy.

[Iliyah]

1. With much more than a billion plus

they still lost. Supreme Court of the United States of American, well @ least five of them allowed American to be bought not only by the rich Americans but rich people from all over world.

[roguevalley]

14. They nursed a viper to their bosom and gloated when the nuts came to disrupt

the healthcare forums around the country, strutted with their guns and acted like idiots. These are there creations and I hope they choke on it.

[reteachinwi]

2. Fools

''Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you.''

—Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina)

[cbrer]

3. Off with his head!

Honesty and forthrightness be damned!

Boehner is on his way out. Don't let the door hit you in the ass Johnny boy!

[MannyGoldstein]

4. He called tea party congressmen "chuckleheads"

He's on a tear.

[NYtoBush-Drop Dead]

5. And we refuse to be dumbed down

with the GOP low information Bastards.

[xfundy]

6. He's got a point.

There must be some limit to dumbness. If it depends on evolution, they're all going to willingly become amoeba again. If they ever passed that point to begin with, though many of them do have arms.

[ballaratocker]

7. This is the Republican version of the Democratic late '60's.

It's when the party fragments 3 or 4 ways and the coalition that keeps them together disintegrates. I would suggest you will see an even kookier 2016 RNC, some what akin to the '72 Democratic one. All the old hands with actual organizational skills and who know how politics really work (David Frum, Steve Schmitt etc.) are distancing themselves from the party and are leaving the admin stuff to, as Bill Maher might say, 'anyone. They could be housewives, recovering witches or any old street corner loon so long as they hold the same political beliefs as Steve Forbes.'

[Jim Lane]

17. I wouldn't call the Democratic Party of 1972 a "kookier" version

During the 1972 campaign, McGovern made some harsh comment about corruption in the Nixon Administration. I read and agreed with a commentary that chastised McGovern for making accusations that "only 17 Yippies and the New York Review of Books would take seriously." Well, it turned out that the commentator and I were wrong and McGovern was right.

McGovern was the first presidential candidate I ever voted for, and I did so only to vote against Nixon. With the passage of time, though, McGovern looks much less kooky.

[DallasNE]

8. "Dumbing-Down" Is Not Completely Accurate

Tea Party members are a wealthy lot so they are not dumb in the traditional sense of the word. What they are is uncompromising. They see government as the enemy so they are there to destroy the government and their tactics are to tie it up in every way possible expecting people to get fed up with a broken government and coming over to their side. Their miscalculation is that the American people are smarter than they gave them credit so they are now feeling payback and don't know how to deal with that. And apparently, neither do the Koch Brothers. LaTourette is simply not happy with the rebranding that has taken place and being left out in the cold is causing him to lash out but by missing the point he sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

[pscot]

9. They have a feral intelligence

It makes them effective survivors, but it doesn't make them fully human.

[jsmithutes]

12. Not all rich

The tea party is not only Koch types. The Koch's are just the money behind those that used to meet in forest hidey holes, stockpiling weapons and training militarily to overthrow the federal government. Did you ever wonder why they are no longer in the news?
Now, instead of blowing up federal bldgs. the Koch types are financing their campaigns, continuing the planning of the overthrow of the government. Is the party dumbing down, or eviling up? However you may see it, one has to agree that they are still frightening. Jim

[BuelahWitch]

13. Welcome to DU!

[salin]

18. their policy stands are simplistic and unfeasible

yes, it is dumbed-down.

The idea that the government can maintain the level of defense spending, lower taxes on the wealthy and decrease the budget through *other* spending cuts (and never discussing any program to be cut that represents even a fraction of what they propose in terms of NEW deficit gaps due to the lowering of taxes (again!) on the wealthy), is faulty. To actually believe it can be done accordingly, is dumb.

[Kolesar]

10. Latourette's second wife is a hugely paid lobbyist

He is set for life.
Latourette did nothing to change the culture in Washington and now he is whining and leaving.

[aquart]

11. "Republican majority"?

[MADem]

15. Isn't "PLAN B" a "morning after" pill?

http://www.planbonestep.com/

I mean, really...what was Bonehead thinking when he came up with that not-so-clever (FAILURE) term? The tasteless jokes just write themselves...

[duwizrd]

16. What's the REAL problem with these legislative hammerheads . . Can anything be done about it?