Now that House Minority Leader John Boehner has conveniently developed McCainesia concerning the Republican offensive (pun intended)that pushed back financial market regulations and put us in the situation we ALL face now, it offfers a stark contrast to President Obama personally taking responsibility yesterday for the faux AIG outrage.
Follow me below the fold for details:
Yesterday, President Obama spoke at a Town Hall Meeting in Orange County. This is how he demonstrated what actual leadership looks like after eight years of infantile dodging:
"I know Washington's all in a tizzy, and everybody's pointing fingers at each other and saying, 'It's their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault.' Listen, I'll take responsibility. I'm the president."
In the same breath, he said, "We didn't draft these contracts." But he added, "It is appropriate when you're in charge to make sure that stuff doesn't happen like this."
On the other hand, the very tan John Boehner (I didn't know Ohio was suddenly in the tropics) continued to not only worm out of taking ownership for a mess that he helped create, but also attempted to perform an Orwellian rewrite of history.
Boehner told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that, "there was no deregulation of anything in the financial services industries. As a matter of fact, there was an increase in regulation."
As DK FP Jed Lewison pointed out, Boehner did in fact the opposite, voting for the Gramm-Leach-Bliney Act of 1999.
In other words, John Boehner voted to usher in the era of financial services deregulation, helping pave the way to our present crisis. Now, instead of owning up to the devastating consequences of the policies he supported, he's simply pretending they were never implemented.
It's idiotic, but you already knew that. The amazing thing here is that House Republicans don't think they've got anyone better to represent them than John Boehner.
What a joke.
Let's quickly review.
President Obama owns up to something that has become the outrage de jour when it had been covered by the same TradMedia two months earlier, but was being presented again as "new news."
House Minority Leader Boehner lies about both the Republican effort and his own vote on Gramm-Leach-Bliney. Moreover, he lies again when he suggests that instead of Deregulating the industry, that the act actually increased regulation.
What makes this latest GOPocisy particularly rank IMO is that Republicans love to say the phrase, Personal Responsibility. In fact they like to refer to themselves as the "party of personal resposibility" except when they have to own up for fucking up this country — perhaps beyond all recognition.
In GOP parlance, personal responsibility is what happens to people who took out sub prime mortgages on homes they couldn't afford in the first place or when a single woman gets impregnated and is told to have the baby despite the fact that Roe V. Wade is still the law of the land.
Boehner, Eric Cantor and the rest of these babies, including true infantilism fetishist Diaper Dave Vitter, remind me of a child that broke something and is caught red-handed...and blames it on the (undocumented) maid.
Update I : I wish to give a shout out to fellow DK diarist DaveInchi for his similar diary which I just noticed. I think he has something to add to the conversation about the type of "leadership" in the Republican Party:
Boehner is a RepubliCon par excellence . . . a PERFECT representation of what the GOP has become. This is the guy who's popularity is at like 14%. He's the true and a righteous face of the RepubliCon Party. May he reign in stunning arrogance and abysmal poll ratings for ever.
Boehner's recent comments PROVE that he is perfectly suited to the mantle of leadership within the Republican Party. This face is perfect for the GOP, and I look forward to seeing it on TV and in the media again and again and again!