Return of the Blame Game: GOP Decried It During Katrina, Now Fingerpointing...

[babylonsister]

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/20/return-of-the-blame-game/

Return of the Blame Game: GOP Decried It During Katrina, Now Fingerpointing Over Bonus Caps Is All They’ve Got
Jon Ponder | Mar. 20, 2009

snip//

There are striking similarities between then and now. The failures of Katrina were caused, in part, by Republican anti-government policies that systematically hobbled FEMA. In the current crisis, the Bush recession was brought on by GOP anti-government policies launched in the Reagan era that systematically defanged regulations on the financial industry.

But today, it’s the Republicans who are playing the blame game, and they are doing it with a vengance. They are kicking up as much dust as they can — demanding to know who removed the codicil in the TARP bill that would have restricted bonuses for executives at companies on the taxypayer’s dole, suggesting that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner be fired.

Off the top, it’s a wonder anyone is paying attention to them. It’s not like they are offering an alternative plan, and they’re only real option is come out, as party boss Rush Limbaugh has, strongly in favor of using taxpayer money to pay millions in bonuses to reward finance executives for creating a historic economic failure.

And yet 113 of the 198 Republicans in the House voted yesterday against taxing these same bonuses at a rate of 90 percent. That may well turn out to be a very stupid move — just ask the 85 Republicans who risked the wrath of anti-government types like Grover Norquist and voted to raise the fatcat’s taxes.

As silly as all this seems, Democrats should take the Republicans’ antics seriously. It was blamestorming tactics like these that they deployed in the first two years of the Clinton administration — with Travelgate, Filegate. etc. etc. — that successfully agitated sufficient voter outrage to help them win the House in 1994.

What makes it doubly worrisome is that playing the blame game now, albeit in reverse, is working just as well now as did during the Katrina crisis three and a half years ago.

[NavyDavy]

1. I don't think americans are as gullible as they were during the

Clinton Presidency....we the American people are on to the repukes tricks/lies/smears and hate mongering....of course there is the 20 percenters who believe whatever the Repukes/Flush/Shamity put out..

[babylonsister]

2. I hope you're right, but reminders are always good.

We're not buying what they're shoveling, but we're paying attention.