So, this is how the post-Obama GOP operates. Bereft of any ideas of their own, any electoral strategy worth a fig, here's what they've come up with to save their hides:
- Manufacture dissent via astroturf groups with oodles of corporate seed money behind them.
- Recruit and/or encourage the craziest of the crazies to show up at town hall meetings to scream, yell, threaten and cajole our lawmakers.
- Use the crazies as an excuse to delay or derail real reform.
From today's Washington Post:
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, a key Republican negotiator in the quest for bipartisan health-care reform, said Wednesday that the outpouring of anger at town hall meetings this month has fundamentally altered the nature of the debate and convinced him that lawmakers should consider drastically scaling back the scope of the effort.
After being besieged by protesters at meetings across his home state of Iowa, Grassley said he has concluded that the public has rejected the far-reaching proposals Democrats have put on the table, viewing them as overly expensive precursors to "a government takeover of health care."
Ah, yes. Makes perfect sense. A sliver of the population with the loudest voices gets to set the health care agenda in this country. The ones that yell "Have you read the bill?" when they themselves haven't done so. The ones that scream "NO GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE!" while saying "Keep your grubby hands off my Medicare!" Of course, THEY should dictate the debate. Not the millions of voters from 2008.
Nice try, Sen. Grassley. I'm pretty sure most Americans aren't going to fall for that garbage. Particularly when you try to use these "protests" as some sort of pretext for bipartisan reform:
"It's not about getting a lot of Republicans. It's about getting a lot of Democrats and Republicans," Grassley said. "We ought to be focusing on getting 80 votes."
Uh, Sen. Grassley? Perhaps you should listen to those crazies at the town halls a little closer. I realize it's tough to discern any rational message from them, but the one thing that is pretty clear is that they don't want any type of health care reform whatsoever. Not one with 51 votes, not one with 80 votes. And besides, bipartisanship is pretty much a joke when you've got your minions out there hanging Democrats in effigy and the like.
I hope the Democratic leadership is Washington is taking notes and sees what is going on.
Don't let the GOP punk you.
Manufactured outrage isn't outrage at all. The real outrage will be failure to act, and soon.