"the Party of No has become the Party of Lies"

babylonsister

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Fri Feb-12-10 08:25 AM
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"the Party of No has become the Party of Lies"

Edited on Fri Feb-12-10 08:29 AM by babylonsister

http://www.theweek.com/bullpen/column/106276/Will_Republican_tactics_succeed

Will Republican tactics succeed?
From Wasilla to Washington, the Party of No has become the Party of Lies. Racing the clock, Republicans are hoping to win before economic recovery exposes them.
THE BULLPEN
Bob Shrum
�
Thursday, February 11, 2010

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With her �oh gosh� peddling of hate, Palin has hit a new low not only in her rhetoric but in The Washington Post/ABC poll. Seventy percent of Americans now view her as unqualified to be President. Still, I strongly favor her nomination; she�s a sure loser. (I know, some Democrats once said that about Ronald Reagan. But to compare her with him is to validate Marx�s observation that history repeats itself as farce.)

Although Palin is the nominee Republican strategists fear most � they, too, are convinced she would sink the party -- I believe that in at least once sense she�s eminently qualified to be the Republican standard bearer. Bathed in the klieg lights of a media that cannot resist her performance art, she perfectly expresses the low standards to which the Republicans have now repaired: When �no� isn�t enough, just lie and smear the other side. Palin was snarky, snide and in a perverse way entertaining in her Tea Party keynote last Saturday. But she just kicked off the week. The Republican march of deception and personal destruction plowed right through the paralyzing snowdrifts in Washington.

snip//

The lie machine churns on�and not just in the area of national security, where Republicans calculate that they have a precast advantage. In reaction to the President�s call for a bipartisan discussion on health care, Republican Congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner said they were all for reform -- just junk the bill that�s already written and start over again. It�s the insurance industry�s dream�and a transparent deception. What the Republicans offer is a series of minor measures, including their favorite hobbyhorse, a crackdown on malpractice lawsuits. In sum, they might be willing to cover an additional three or four million people while costs and premiums continue to soar out of control.

In the face of persistent Republican obstruction, now surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, impatient progressives complain that the President is naively clinging to bipartisanship. In the process, however, he�s also making it increasingly plain that the other side refuses to put country ahead of party. And in the end, the test is not how Obama tries, but whether he succeeds in passing health reform.

Then, as the economy improves and Americans see real job creation, the next lie will surface -- that this President had nothing to do with the turnaround; it was bound to happen anyway. But in the long term, the party that lied us into the Iraq War won�t be able to lie its way to victory. Democrats are in a race against the economic clock in 2010, but it�s a near-certainty that the march of prosperity will outpace the march of deception by 2012.

David Frum is right that at some point, the GOP will have to rethink itself and imagine something bigger than the nihilistic tactics of the moment. Obama�s right to be calm and hold his course. It�s how he got to the White House�and it�s how he will find a path, for himself and America, through this season of discontent. Palin, too, may yet be proved right � at least on one count. On election night 2008, she had intended to salute the new President�s �greatness.� It was a graceful note. But it was never delivered.