Excuse me, Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine, but the Tea Party GOP are not "The Party of No."
They're "The Party of A Two-Inch Doorknob Drill Bit At Ordinary Americans' Cracks Of Doom (By Which I Mean Rectal Orifices)." If you prefer acronyms, that would be The Party of ATIDDBAOACOD(BWIMRO). If you want to say that aloud, try ah-TID-bow-COD-BWIM-roh. The "bow" rhymes with "now." All together: one, two, three....
If you just said that aloud and someone nearby said "Huh?" ... that pretty much captures any sensible person's response to the actions of the Tea Party GOP lately. And we Democrats can't be squeamish about saying so.
More below the fold....
A Rant on Wall Street and White Sheets
I don't usually rant in Morning Feature. Call this an exception. On Monday I said we'd spend the week discussing group polarization. Call this an example.
To hear the mainstream media tell it, come November the Tea Party Republicans will retake the U.S. House, and maybe the U.S. Senate, and a few state legislatures and governorships as well. To hear some depressed Democrats tell it, come November the Tea Party Republicans will retake the U.S. House, and maybe the U.S. Senate, and a few state legislatures and governorships as well, and also change the settings on Democrats' garage door openers. To hear Scott Rasmussen tell it, come November the Tea Party Republicans will retake the U.S. House, and maybe the U.S. Senate, and a few state legislatures and governorships as well, change the settings on Democrats' garage door openers, and a grateful America will erect statues of Reagan Buddha on every lawn.
Puh-leeze.
Okay, so President Obama and congressional Democrats haven't yet brought unemployment under 6%, ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, passed EFCA and ENDA, repealed DADT and DOMA, enacted a comprehensive energy and climate change policy that creates millions of new jobs and saves us from global warming, and fostered such a progressive national dialogue that Dick and Liz Cheney can't even get featured on a new History Channel series titled Fossils Of Failure.
But President Obama and congressional Democrats have had some successes. They passed a stimulus bill that economists agree prevented hundreds of thousands more lost jobs. They cut taxes for 98% of American families. They enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Act, giving working women a better shot at equal pay. They extended SCHIP, providing health care for hundreds of thousands of American kids. They seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. They made it easier for college students to get and pay back student loans. They increased funding for veterans' benefits. They negotiated the first nuclear weapons treaty in a quarter-century. They will have combat troops out of Iraq by August. Oh, and if you missed it, they also passed the 2010 Health Care Act, laying the foundation for a civilized health care system while reducing the federal budget deficit.
What have the Tea Party GOP done over the same period? If your answer is "They said 'NO!'" you're both right and wrong. Yes, they said "NO!" But they didn't stop there.
The Tea Party GOP tried to break the public schools in Florida, and they're trying to do the same thing in New Jersey. In Texas, the Tea Party GOP tried to rewrite history, replacing Thomas Jefferson with Thomas Aquinas (hey, they're both named Thomas), Susan B. Anthony with Phyllis Schlafly (hey, they both have breasts), and giving white male Republicans credit for the Civil Rights Act (I guess because they didn't start another civil war over it).
Not to be outdone, the Tea Party GOP in Arizona (motto: "But it's a dry bigotry!") just required presidential candidates to present an original birth certificate - presumably in a form approved by Lou Dobbs - to get on the state's ballots. But why stop at presidential candidates? Why not require all brown-skinned people to carry their birth certificates with them at all times? And let white-skinned people sue the police if they think the cops haven't harassed enough brown-skinned people! Because nothing says Liberty and Justice for All like a cop pulling over someone who 'looks like' an immigrant and saying "Ihr Papieren, bitte!"
And that's just what the Tea Party GOP have done or attempted AS OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLICY! (Ooh, boldface plus ALLCAPS plus exclamation points! Rant building in intensity, kinda like Ravel's Bolero, which probably needs its papers checked in Arizona.)
I haven't yet mentioned the bat guano that passes for right-wing news and commentary. I'm not saying the CIA use tapes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin, and the rest of the Verbal Feces Brigade to coerce confessions from captured Al Qaeda operatives. I'm just saying I can't prove they don't. Which is what Glenn Beck said about President Obama building FEMA concentration camps. He got that from Michelle Bachman, Minnesota's Mistress of Mendacity (until Mendacity dumped her after that rabies scare). If there were a cliff at the right edge of American politics, lemmings and demon-possessed pigs would have to WAIT IN LINE for their turn to fall over it! (Checking blood pressure ... okay, not quite yet ready for a guest slot on Jeff Lieber's Miami Medical, on CBS Friday nights at 9pm ET.)
And then there's the "grass roots" folks who show up at Tea Party Republican rallies. To judge by their signs, President Obama is Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, the Joker, a Tribal Shaman, AND ALSO a secret Al Qaeda operative. I'm not saying they rooted so deep in that grass that they inhaled some of the pathogens on the money the Koch family and other right-wing groups pumped into that "movement." I'm just asking the question ... LIKE THE KOCH FAMILY SCION, A CO-FOUNDER OF THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, MIGHT ASK IT!! (Hold on ... gotta count the veins in my forehead.)
So c'mon, Chairman Kaine! Stop pretending they're only "The Party of No." And while you're at it, stop pretending there's a gnat's belch worth of difference between the Tea Party, the Republican Party, Wall Street, and the Aryan Nation. Their plan for the economic crisis was to give taxpayer dollars to rich people. Their idea of a financial stimulus bill was more tax cuts for rich people. Their health care plan is rich people get to see doctors and poor people can bring a chicken. Their proposed federal budget was to cut taxes for rich people, raise taxes for working people, and cut services for poor people. Their judges think corporations should be able to sponsor political candidates. Their state legislators want to eliminate public schools, drive brown-skinned people out of the country, and rule women's wombs.
The Tea Pary GOP is The Party of Wall Street and White Sheets!!! They think America should work for rich white males and the rest of us should be grateful they permit our kids to go die overseas to make them richer. UNLESS OUR KIDS ARE GAY OR LESBIAN!!!!
That's who we're up against, Chairman Kaine, and we shouldn't hesitate to make them own every bit of that. They're not just "The Party Of No."
They're "The Party of A Two-Inch Doorknob Drill Bit At Ordinary Americans' Cracks Of Doom (By Which I Mean Rectal Orifices)." The Party of ATIDDBAOACOD(BWIMRO)!!!!! (Ahh ... my head just exploded.)
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Thanks to Hoghead99, and also apparently to the writers of Saturday Night Live, for "But it's a dry bigotry!"
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Happy Thursday!