News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
Bullshit, Congressman (R-Oklahoma)
by Barry Friedman
Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) is to the truth what a tornado is to a mobile home park.
Democrats "wanted the shutdown," the first-term Republican told the Tulsa Regional Chamber. "It's working in their political favor ... They didn't want to talk about Obamacare."
Wanted the shutdown because of the political points that might develop from wringing $24-billion out of the country's economy?
The mind, it boggles.
And of course they didn't want to talk about Obamacare, Kreskin. It passed the House, it passed the Senate, it was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. What is it with you? Obama was not going to capitulate because you spoke code in front of business leaders in Tulsa and/or called him names on the House floor? Did you really expect him to compromise on his signature achievement just because you stomped your feet and predicted that free pre-natal check-ups would be the end of the Republic?
Apparently so.
I truly believe that Obamacare is the most significant domestic policy issue of our time, and stopping it is one of my top priorities in Congress.
Right, because there are
no other problems facing this country and nothing else you could be doing.
The congressman, apparently, also has a problem with that whole majority rules business, especially if the GOP is not in the majority.
Bridenstine complained bitterly about the Democratic-controlled Senate's refusal to take up House budget bills, saying it is part of a Democratic strategy to leave government in the hands of the administrative branch.
And we all know how much the GOP screamed when President George Bush was
ramming things through congress and was still getting the debt ceiling raised year after year.
So, remember that scene in ANNIE HALL where Woody is in line at the movie theatre-- standing behind the guy who's spouting off about Marshall McLuhan and McLuhan's place in modern society--and pulls McLuhan into frame who then utterly repudiates (or refudiates, as Sarah Palin might say) the man's thesis?
So, let's return to Bridenstine's original contention that it was the Democrats who wanted the shutdown.
I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here.
Actually, it's FOX Commentator Jonah Goldberg
Republicans Can Be Blamed For Starting The Shutdown." In an October 4 column, Fox contributor and National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg asserted that the GOP is to blame for starting the shutdown ...
It's
Wall Street Journal Editorial Page,
Kimberly Strassel
Well, look, the leadership never wanted to be in this situation of shutdown. It was sort of foisted on them by those who pushed forward with this defund strategy ... They have no end game, Paul. They've never had an end game, and, you know, I think what they're hoping is that Democrats are simply going to crack at some point under the pressure, but I haven't seen any sign of that.
It's
Rep. Peter King (R-New York)
“We are the ones who did shut the government down,” he insisted. “You don’t take the dramatic step of shutting down the government unless you have a real strategy.”
It's
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Indiana)
"We’re not going to be disrespected," the Indiana Republican said of his party's negotiating strategy. "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
It's
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota)
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was on the “government shutdowns are great” bandwagon before the shutdown was officially even on, telling reporters:
“We’re very excited. It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”
And it's
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona)
“I said it couldn’t succeed from the start and it didn't,” he said. “It was a miserable failure and we must never do it again.”
And then there was this
guy...
[The congressman] confidently predicted that Americans — Republican and Democrat alike — will treat GOP members of Congress as “heroes” if they shut down the government over Obamacare funding
Who said that?
“We would be heroes,” Bridenstine said while speaking with Family Research Council head Tony Perkins.
Jim "freaking" Bridenstine!
Duplicity, line one.
He uses the word WE; he brags about the government shutdown; he anticipates the glory and he has the testosterone level to blame Democrats for wanting the shutdown?
Carumba!
During the early days of the shut-down and the GOP efforts to tie it to defunding Obamacare, which Republicans have now voted on precisely 1,369,987 times to do, Bridenstine still thought the GOP was sitting pretty.
Bridenstine said he had expected President Barack Obama to accept the proposal "in a heartbeat."
Double carumba!
From what planet would you have to reside to think a sitting president, from any party, would respond to such blatant, cynical blackmail from sore losers who think government is merely a punchline to be used at town hall meetings between the pledge and the closing prayer.
And then there's this ...
By a 22-point margin (53-31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
Bridenstine, however, still believes the standards by which you should judge him are not whether you agree with him, not whether he dissembles, fabricates, and otherwise takes the truth out back and hits it over the head with the dumpster lid, but rather if he owns his part in that dissembling, fabricated mauling.
"Not everybody agrees with me, and I know that," he concluded. "But you'll always know where I stand. I'm not going to lie to you about what I'm thinking."
Honesty is so overrated sometimes.