Someday soon, a smoking gun of a document will surface. Possibly penned by Frank Luntz, Eye of Newt Gingrich, or some other Rethuglican ‘thinker’.
The document will confirm what should already be obvious. At every level of government, the Rethug strategy is to delay and seek to stop anything of value from moving forward.
They will then seek to regain lost political power by claiming that the Democrats haven’t done anything.
Memo to All Elected Rethugs: Deliberately abdicating responsibility and deliberately refusing to do your jobs is not a long-term winner.
Just last week, after the entire Rethug membership of the Senate committee considering climate change had boycotted hearings and refused to participate, Sen. Barbara Boxer moved the bill forward w/o Rethug participation. Batshit-crazy James Imhofe screamed bloody murder about how such a move was unpredecented. Get it–if Rethugs simply choose to not do their jobs, Dems should shrug their shoulders and not act on climate change, or anything else, for that matter, due to precedent. To which I ask one of Oklahoma’s two flat-earth senators–since when does an entire elected political caucus choose en masse not to do their jobs and expect to earn the public’s approval for such obstructionism?
Here is the 2010 Rethuglican Meme: Exclude/Remove YourSELF from the process, then claim that you are BEING excluded from the process, making everything the Dems’ fault. Use the gullible press to do your dirty work.
Which brings me to Delaware’s Rethuglican House Caucus and the Shape of Politics-To-Come. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yestermonths, June of 2009, to be exact.
You will recall that the House Rethugs, led by Delaware State University’s politically-connected bagman Dick Cathcart, did as little as they could get away with to enable Delaware’s revenue measures to pass while seeking to maximize political gain. In other words, providing only one or, at the most two, votes (one of whom, Bill Oberle, is hardly a Republican) for any revenue measure while giving the party and caucus bloviators free reign to scream about wasteful spending and tax increases.
In 2010, the Delaware Rethugs will seek to regain control of the House by using the same gameplan.
It’s already started. In today’s Ginger Gibson article inexplicably featured on the front page above the fold of the News-Journal’s dead trees edition, the same Dick Cathcart who cried in June that he hadn’t had time to read the budget and cried that the Governor dissed his Caucus even though his Caucus wouldn’t meet with the Guv, now cries that the Democrats are holding secret meetings about the upcoming budget. Quel horreur!!
And, lest there be any doubting of Cathcart’s veracity, Charles Bouvier de Flanders Copeland, after having just been wrapped in a fresh towel and handed a flute of Charles Krug Grand Cuvee Champagne NV (95 points, according to Wine Spectator) from Cabana Boy Garrett Wozniak, adds his two gold doubloons to the mix while waiting for his scented oils to arrive:
“I think that an increase of 2.5 percent in your government’s revenues is absolutely enough to run a government and still meet the increased demands that government is seeing,” Copeland said.
Also quoted are Charlie’s Crazy Uncle Pierre and Sussex County’s newly-minted obstructionist Senator Joe Booth.
And, this razor-sharp analysis from Master of the Obvious pundit Samuel Hoff (are he and Joe Pika the same person?):
Election platforms might have played a role in the fight over tax increases last year, Hoff said. He said moves like defeating tax increases could be something that Republicans run on in 2010.
Hoff said that as next November gets closer, it will be more common to see parties considering how legislation will make them look on Election Day.
“That’s always in the back of some folks’ minds,” Hoff said.
Ya think? It’s nice to know that revered Prof. Jim Soles has not one, but two, Pablum-spouting Conventional Wisdom Quote Machines to succeed him.
Finally, we get to what should have been the lead to the Journal story, not what was buried at the end. The Governor has met with the D’s and not the R’s because the D’s asked and the R’s didn’t. The numbers are soo-o-o-o secret that Bob Venables blabbed the operating deficit number to the reporter–$337 million. And Bob Gilligan issued a classic non-denial denial:
“Sounds like you were in the room.”
There are two stories here. One: the blatant attempt by Cathcart’s Mindless Minions to gin up controversy where there is none. They send an ‘open letter’ (do they ever send closed letters to the Governor?) to the Governor alleging skulduggery, and it becomes front page news.
Which brings me to Story #2. The News-Journal seriously mishandled this story. Since when is such an easily-disproven allegation of sinister dealings given top-of-the-front-page status?
And, to Ginger Gibson, whose reporting I generally like, why do we have to go to the jump page to find out that (a) the current working number is readily available, and (b) that the D’s asked for a meeting while the Rethugs sent an open letter instead of requesting a meeting?
Is this going to be the standard of out-of-context reportage and editing that the Journal intends to carry forward throughout 2010? One can only hope not.
Finally, two almost-on-topic sidebars:
1. Ginger Gibson published an excellent story on legislative travel awhile back. We have yet to see the followup on legislative staff travel despite reportorial assurances that the Journal is working on it. Memo to whomever is editing the paper this week: If the Journal is thwarted in its attempt to obtain such information by the General Assembly and/or its obfuscators in Legislative Council or the Controller General’s office, my Spidey Sense tells me that that is news. Publish that.
2. Finally I owe an apology to my favorite inbred purebred duPont heir: 95 Wine Spectator score and $150 price tag notwithstanding, no way that Chateau Charlie is drinking a non-vintage bubbly. He’ll simply have to pour it into his cabana boy/lapdog’s bowl for grateful slurping. It’s vintage-only for the Idle Rich.