The 109th Congress didn’t end well for the
Republicans. It began with Republican majorities in both houses to complement
the George W. Bush White House. Though Bush had been reelected in 2004, faith
in his leadership had immediately begun to erode after the election with such
catastrophes as the attempt to privatize social security, Hurricane Katrina,
the Iraq War, Republican discord on immigration, etc. In Congress, House
Republicans and staffers were getting nabbed and sentenced for their
involvement with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Former House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay had stepped down in 2005 following an investigation into money
laundering for which he was later convicted. And then it was revealed that Mark
Foley, a Republican House member from Florida had been flirting inappropriately
with underage male House pages.
The latter scandal was the clincher. It was gritty stuff
people could sink their teeth into. All the other impropriety was the highbrow
stuff for the Charlie Rose crowd to understand. It’s not that people did not
know that Jack Abramoff existed. They had heard the name. They knew he was at the center of a
Republican scandal, but that saga was defined by so many ins and outs involving
laws and governance and… BOOOOOORING! The general public was obediently angry
because of this series of political wrongdoing, but in the taste of Americans,
it was far from intrigue. On the other hand Mark Foley was People Magazine
material. Mark Foley made it concrete for flat-headed, bolt-necked Americans –
Republican Congress, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
I want to take this moment to point out that this is not
needless disparaging of the average voter. I genuinely believe that if you were to specifically
survey angry Americans over what disgusted them about Congress, your ledger would
be ink starved. The most common reason given for dissatisfaction would be
ripped from the latest poll citing “a majority of Americans don’t think
Congress understands their problems” or “a majority of Americans think Congress
is corrupt.” Only a small minority of people can address why they are ever fed
up with Congress or politics with any specificity whatsoever. As a result,
Congress, specifically Republican led Congresses get to underperform in an
environment of great permissiveness. Americans don’t understand the boring day
to day dysfunction of Congress so they grouse and bear it until something
really juicy like Mark Foley comes along. It’s not until that juicy item emerges
that people understand the importance of letting go of the party in charge.
Before Mark Foleygate, it was discussed that a Democratic
takeover of the House was possible, but
after all the recounts in the 2006 election, it was both houses that went
to the Democrats. Democrats were given a go of it in the House from then until
2011 when the House flipped back to Republican leadership. The Democratic
tenure was scandal free. The House, Senate, and White House worked together to
pass landmark stimulative legislation including that which saved the American
auto industry and that which created jobs in every Congressional district, even
those represented by members who were adamantly opposed to the legislation. Nancy Pelosi was regarded by many as one
of the most effective Speakers of the House in history. Not only did bills
pass, but those bills were aimed at the interest of the American middle class. After
all that, Dems in the House were swept out. Clearly, it does not take the same
momentum to oust Democrats as it does to oust Republicans.
And here we are two years later with Congress getting its
lowest approval ratings ever. The 112th Congress has been defined by
a recalcitrant and uncooperative Republican majority that fears any compromise
with a Democratic president would be a victory for him and therefore lead to
his reelection. The 112th Congress has passed one viable jobs bill
since 2010 and spent the rest of its time passing bills it knows has no chance
of passing in the Democratic senate. They have held multiple votes to repeal
Obamacare including one following the Supreme Court decision finding
Obamacare’s individual mandate constitutional. for the first time in history,
the House was prepared to vote down an increase in the national debt limit with
the nefarious noncredible goal of portraying the Democratic president as the
most profligate spender to ever sit in the Oval Office. Republican Toadies such
as Paul Ryan who had rubber-stamped ill-advised fiscal policy under George W.
Bush including tax cuts and deficit spending had all of a sudden become
outraged with federal spending to the point where they would risk everything
including the nation’s credit rating before working with the president. Speaker
of the House John Boehner, a born dealmaker has found himself at odds with his Majority
Leader, who is led by the most extreme Republican House members. For the House
of Representatives, the 112th Congress has been an abject failure.
Yet, amid all of this affrontery to our traditions of
governing, no one has been forecasting another flip in House Leadership except
for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who may have been just be making overtures of
optimism as a party leader. And then on one Sunday, we got the People Magazine
double whammy scandals for the masses. An anti-choice Republican in Missouri
running to unseat Claire McCaskill in the senate declared in a taped interview
that a woman’s body has ways of shutting down a pregnancy in cases of
“legitimate rape.” Then it was reported that a week after Republicans in
Congress tried to tank the credit rating of the U.S., a group of them went on a
fact-finding mission to Israel which involved one night of revelry in which a
member of the delegation ended up wasted skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee
in the company of other members’ families.
As for indiscretion number one, I find it hard to believe
that someone capable of making a statement so stupid has gotten as far as he
had in his political career. The candidate, Todd Akin has been in Congress
since 2001. He’s also a proponent of overturning the Voting Rights Act of 1965
which people in his district apparently don’t care about. To me, that’s way
over the line as well, but I get it. I’m a little on the liberal side. Where
there is consensus between me and the establishment Republicans is that you
can’t 1) use the term “legitimate rape” in an electoral forum and 2) you can’t
follow up your use of the term “legitimate rape” with a made up explanation of
how women secrete natural spermacides in the case of said “legitimate rape” or
whatever. This guy may still be popular in his own district at this point, but
statewide, bets are on that he is toast. For the more moderate parts of
Missouri (don’t laugh) Akin has failed the test of wisdom. There may be those
Missourians who believe the Voting Rights Act should be repealed, but that
Missouri also needs representation that won’t make them look like 100%
ignoramuses.
The Republican party has dumped Akin like a Taco Bell crap.
Akin is no help to a party that is trying skulk away from the notion that it is
conducting a war on women. They aren’t just afraid of what will happen in
Missouri, but how his presence will begin to effect the election in general. It
is a particularly bad sign seeing as how Akin’s views on abortion are acutely
similar to those of Paul Ryan. This does not hit a ten on the Mark Foley scale
because it does not involve salacious behavior, but this item is not hard to comprehend for the flat-headed zombie mainstream. The media flood
resulting from this boob’s “legitimate rape” flap is enough to make any swing congressional
voter say “Republicans, baaaaaaaaaaaad.”
As for the Holy land hullabaloo, it lives as a head shaker.
There is no overall outrage and it probably rates a three to four on the Foley
scale, but the timing of the revelation has the same effect as another punch in a boxers
combo. Having this being reported at the same time as the Akin offense fatigues
the Republican brand all the more. In 2006 it took an aggregation of
uncoordinated idiocy to get people fed up with the Republican brand. It is an
idiocy to which Republicans are particularly prone. It’s not that Democrats
don’t err. It’s that Republicans, by their criticisms of their opponents, set
the bar so high for themselves and then fall further and harder when they
stumble. Let’s take the BS hurled at Barack Obama regarding Mid-East policy. He
has been considered an easy target for perhaps being a tougher negotiator than
Israeli PM Netanyahu bargained for. He is described by some Republicans as
being insulting and disrespectful to our closest ally in the Middle East. Then
a Republican in Israel on official business gets drunk and goes skinny dipping.
Was that insulting and disrespectful? Well, there was a reason why members of
the delegation were dressed down by their majority leader upon their return.
It was Joe Scarborough, a Republican himself who referred to
the Republicans as the stupid party earlier this week. I think that gives me
some wiggle room to generalize so here we go. Republicans are kitchen-sink
throwers. They fight dirty and are willing to say anything to try to control
the national debate and mood. They talk as if anything they say to bolster
their peevish opposition will fly. To say that they hold themselves to a lower
standard would imply that they have standards at all. When Nancy Pelosi said
she believed Democrats would retake the house this year, maybe she was counting
on a certain Republican pattern that we can start setting our watches to. That
pattern is a recipe of many unsexy missteps like fiscal hawk Paul Ryan (soon)
falling on the sword with which he fought for higher deficits in supporting the
budgets of George W. Bush. Add to that a gaffe such as a guy in
Missouri coining the term “legitimate rape” and a party’s credibility crumbles.
And with 70 days left to go, Pelosi is rubbing her hands and licking her lips
for the next inevitable sexy ooops from Party Right. People are worrying that
Akin could be the straw that broke the elephant’s back, but a little insurance
would be great. What else could possibly happen between now and then?
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