"Obama's Rule" -- Another GOP Lie

For the past few years, I've been noticing a disturbing political trend. It's not just the political rancor and the huge divide in what constitutes in this country as "The Right" and "The Left." It's that we've been so divided that it's no longer a matter of disagreement on our interpretations of reality. We are now actually disagreeing on the facts that constitute said reality.

In my limited contact with some of those on the Right and self-proclaimed Tea Party members, I've sometimes wondered, Where the hell did you come up with that? Despite what some who know me may think, I readily admit that I don't know everything. However, I am a mild political junkie. Yet, sometimes someone on the Right will say or post something or share an article that leaves me absolutely baffled. I have no clue what they're talking about and oftentimes can't even find out where what they're saying is actually coming from.

This happened a couple of weeks ago when a Tea Partier I'm following on Twitter posted an article about "Obama's Rule," which, according to the article (which, unfortunately, I can't find a link to now), is currently strangling the Congo. Now, there was actually a new regulation placed on the electronics industry in the Dodd-Frank Bill, forcing them to provide proof that their gold, coltan, tungsten, and tin ore have neither come from conflict regions within the Democratic Republic of Congo or has been provided by the "warlords" in that country. While intended just for certain regions of the Congo, the article I read (and many self-interested business leaders and Republican politicians) asserted that this new regulation is strangling the entire country.

What Would FDR Do?

"What would FDR do?"


It was a question former Clintonian Robert Reich asked on Twitter last week regarding to the Supreme Court's looking primed to shoot down "Obamacare." It was yet another unfavorable comparison to former Democratic presidents Obama's received pretty much since the Tea Party emerged in the summer of '09. Why can't Obama be more like FDR? LBJ? Carter? Clinton?

I often answer, especially with the last two, with a "Thank God, he ain't." Here we have a president who's accomplished a bunch of historic shit, who, as Rachel Maddow pointed out a few weeks ago, has come through on 85% of his campaign promises, and, with stiff opposition put universal health care on the books (Yes, I know it's neither perfect nor what everybody clamored for, but, to paraphrase LBJ, "I know it's messed up, but put it on the books. We'll fix it later." That's pretty much how our system works. They put something in place and modify it as time goes by. The Medicare and Social Security that you so prize today ain't what they were when first enacted.). Yet, I constantly hear how Obama's done absolutely nothing, how he's weak (in the face of the Tea Party who goes armed to public meetings talking about revolution and 300 death threats a month), and why can't he be more like the aforementioned presidents.

I blame a lot of it on the economy, of course. Unemployment's high. Insecurity's even higher. Everything else pales in comparison. I can blame the media, the Right Wing propaganda machine, Liberals penchant to whine about everything and their superhuman wobbly-kneed ability to make even their historic successes look like monumental failures. Nostalgia, romanticism. I can blame a whole host of things. But I mainly blame history.

Where Credit Is Due

In our incessant 25/8 news cycle, nothing happens without an ensuing controversy. In what should be a self-satisfied victory lap for the Obama administration for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, controversies abound for said assassination. Was bin Laden armed or not? Did he use a woman as a human shield? How much did Pakistan know? And, most annoyingly, who deserves the credit for putting the World's #1 Bad Guy down.

While many are surprised that the last controversy has begun to swell, we really shouldn't be. There are many out there who absolutely despise Obama and everything that he's done. Many of them will simply refuse to give him any credit for anything. It's much like when my boy Bart in Blazing Saddles disposes of the behemoth bad guy, Mongo, with an exploding candy gram. His white sidekick, Jim, congratulates Bart on his ingenious invention, and Bart says something along the lines of "Yeah, but they'll never give me credit for it."

So many of them want to give Bush as much credit as is humanly possible. Many because, as I said, they simply don't want to credit Obama for anything--even when he does something they like. Others because they want to justify the use of torture--sorry, "enhanced interrogation." One can't blame them, of course. There is an ongoing federal investigation in the Justice Department of many of the proponents of torture and what they did or did not do during their time in the Bush administration.

Why, Some of My Best Friends Are Monkeys Black

I'm sure you probably heard by now, but a California Republican (and reportedly Tea Party activist), Marilyn Davenport is being slammed for emailing this photo of Obama to fellow travelers with the heading, "Now you know why no birth certificate."

Members of her own party in her own state found this image so offensive, they've been calling on Davenport to resign from her state party's central committee.

"It's just highly inappropriate, it's a despicable message, it drips with racism and I think she should step down from the committee," [chairman of the Orange County (Calif.) Republican Party, Scott] Baugh said. "It undermines everything we are doing to reach out to ethnic communities."


Now, this is exactly the kind of drivel that will cause all kinds of shock and blah all over the blogosphere. Before it properly kicks off, I, for one, want to state for the record that I am not shocked in the least bit by any of it.

Obama Will Want the Anal Probe: The Latest Teapublican Logic

The other day I had the distinct pleasure of listening to the Left's favorite "moderate" Republican, David Frum, on the radio. The question was: Who will you be voting for on Tuesday? Coming as a complete surprise, Frum waxed profound about why he was going to vote a straight Republican ticket.

His primary reasoning was that the country is in collapse and absolutely nothing that Obama has done has worked. In fact, if it hadn't been for Bush's TARP, this country would totally be in the shitter. (Funny how the Teapublicans have been hanging TARP around Obama's neck for the last two years, but, now that it seems to have been somewhat effective, at least Frum wants to take credit for it.) Basically, The Big Brother is utterly incompetent, and Frum claimed that the reason behind this buffoonery is because Obama has refused to lead. He has basically let the Democrats ride him like a brokeback bronco, and Obama has simply been presiding instead of being Presidential. Frum believes, if his party takes over one or both houses of Congress tomorrow, Obama will be forced to compromise, be forced to become a leader, and that he should actually embrace such an opportunity.

Now, since Obama's presidential election victory and the Republicans got booted out of power, I have heard from certain GOP quarters a queer sort of nostalgia for the days of Clinton and Newt. They speculate that this is perhaps the best way that the American government should be run--a Dem in the White House and Cons running the legislature. They speak fondly of the balanced budget, the projected budget surpluses, and all that economic prosperity of the late 1990s.

The Impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama

DATELINE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

"If you look long and hard enough for something, you will ultimately find it. Even if what you were looking for never really existed in the first place."

Those were the cryptic words Hunter Cullen White left me with earlier this evening at a Capitol Hill bar. It was a ruggedly cold afternoon, with a bitterly fierce wind slicing through DC, a perfect metaphor for the atmosphere here in Washington. The second week of Pres. Obama's impeachment had just come to a calamitous end--with several key Democrats storming out of the proceedings--and the architect behind said impeachment wanted to talk.

Many outside of Washington have never heard of Hunter White, but those inside the Beltway either exalt his prodigious mind or tremble in fear of his power.

This graduate of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and University of Virginia's Law School first arrived in Washington in 1995 with the "Republican Revolution." He immediately landed a communications position with Tom DeLay's Congressional office. Some unofficially credit him for first finding Paula Jones and then Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky. Many think White the driving force behind Bill Clinton's own impeachment trial.

"We learned a lot of things with the Clinton debacle," White declared, behind a Grey Goose spritzer and piercing blue eyes. "We learned that we acted too late."

"What do you mean?" I asked, behind a Red Stripe.