Nobody in his right mind should pay any attention to Mike Enzi (R-WY), but something he just said during the Senate health care debate really pissed me off.

He referred to this piece of corporate propaganda on The Wall Street Journal’s “Review and Outlook” page as an “article”.  Earth to Enzi:  It’s a goddamn right-wing editorial!

I’m a C-SPAN junkie, and believe me, Republican Senators and Congressmen do this all the time.  (I don’t think it’s an accident.)  Editorials become articles.  Republicans have such little respect for honest journalism that they’ll brazenly misrepresent the source of their own bullshit.  The truth is what we say it is!

I doubt that the excellent reporters at The Wall Street Journal appreciate hacks like Enzi lumping them in with Paul Gigot and his right-wing puppet show.

You probably already knew that the Viagra-and-cholesterol-crazed right wing behemoth from Cape Girardeau was on board with a military coup against President Obama.  Well, today I heard him state approvingly that West Point cadets had to be ordered to behave themselves in front of their commander-in-chief last night.  (Of course, declared Limbaugh, back in the day they all worshiped at the feet of their hero, George W. Bush.) 

Disgusting.  How can this guy get away with putting American soldiers on the level of political hacks like Joe “You Lie” Wilson?

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain decended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.  And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain decended, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.  — Matthew 7.24-27

That’s (undoubtedly!) rhetorical overkill, but the irresistable King James prose happens to perfectly describe the foundational state of the Democratic Party vis-a-vis its Republican opposition.

Pundits love to bemoan the dearth of “new” Republican ideas, but – in truth — the GOP’s very “brain-deadness” is the source of its political strength.  Economic winds may be howling, and Republican approval ratings may be tanking, but fear not!  Republican champions stand ready to solve the nation’s problems with yet another round of tax cuts and calls for more “spending restraint”.  Their party offers simple-minded solutions (“tax relief)” tailor-made for its simple-minded politicians (Michele Bachmann) and perfectly suited to its even simpler-minded propagandists (Sean Hannity).   And while Republicans won’t win every election, voters will always know where they stand.  (The modern GOP never has to reinvent itself.  Its policy proposals can be concocted solely for short-term political expediency, since its ideology dictates that government can’t do a damn thing anyway.)

And what of Barack Obama’s party?  Although Congressional Democrats have helped the Administration achieve some legislative successes, the President hasn’t explained why voters shouldn’t turn them out next year.  I’m not saying Republicans are going to make huge gains in 2010.  I’m just saying that Obama’s focus on process and bipartisanship has been a political dud.  He passed a weak stimulus package, and still the Republicans and the media are going Chicken Little on the deficit.  His historically important health care initiative is at the mercy of the Snowe-Lieberman gang of political hacks.  And his progressive base is wondering what’s going on.  (Remember how excited we all were at Obama’s kick-ass health care address to Congress in September?  Well, that’s the last we saw of that guy.)

I like Barack Obama, and I have no desire to re-fight the Democratic nomination wars of 2008, but there’s a reason (aside from her manifest qualifications) that many of us supported Hillary Clinton.  There was no way she would have been able to conduct a “post-partisan” presidency.  And we didn’t want one!  Barack Obama is now right where Hillary would have been all along — a Democrat under fire — and he has nothing to show for it but an even fuzzier identity than he had during his campaign of hope.

The Republicans cannot be co-opted.  Ever.  Their “ideas” must be countered so the voters can hear it.  By a Democratic White House.  Every day.

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Why do so many “centrists” look so damned creepy?

Yikes!  What is up with this guy?

I guess when you’re constantly having to decide who gets to buy you, it takes a “Dorian Gray” – style toll on your outward human appearance.

Consider this a cautionary tale for all you budding politicians.

This is hilarious.  The teabaggers have made a movie (h/t MyDD):

I have nothing to add.  I’m still in a state of shock.

I’ve been watching a parade of Republican Senators speak out against the health care bill this morning, and I’ve boiled their objections down to a few bullet points:

1. The bill is too long.  It’s like 2000 pages or something.  Sheesh.  Give us a break!

2. The bill raises taxes.

3. It’s a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy.  Our freedom will be in danger if the insurance companies don’t get to hold our lives in their hands unencumbered by a bunch of pesky laws (see reason 1).

4. They’re going to cut Medicare. 

4a. They’re going to tamper with the subsidies insurance companies get for Medicare Advantage.

5. Did I mention that they’re going to raise taxes?  Well, they are!  They’re going to raise taxes to the tune of fifty gazillion dollars!

6. The bill increases the deficit.  (Left unspoken: Why don’t they do like us Republicans did with the prescription drug bill and not even try to pay for it?  Or why don’t they just put the whole damn thing off-budget like we did with Dubya’s wars?  The Democrat Party is so stupid sometimes!)

One thing the Republicans aren’t talking about is how to stop the abuses of the insurance industry and make quality health care available to more Americans.  That’s probably because their plan sucks in that regard, and everyone knows it.

After this bill gets passed, Democrats really need to make these jokers pay a political price for the nonsense they’re spouting today.

The Republican Party is about two inches from being lumped in with the Larouchites as a party of kooks.  Their teabagger shock troops are completely out of control, and statements like this are dropping like turds all across the country:

At press conference sponsored by World Net Daily earlier this week, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) suggested terrorism could actually a boon to Democrats desperate to create new jobs.

“Democrats have a jobs program,” he said. “First they’ll make jobs housing the terrorists here. And then they might create more jobs dealing with the havoc [the terrorists] create.”

It’s really up to progressive Democrats to highlight this rampant extremism and hang it around the necks of Boehner, McConnell and Steele.  (I kind of like the sound of that . . . Wynken, Blynken and Nod . . . Curly, Larry and Moe . . . Martin, Barton and Fish . . .)

Let Boehner, McConnell and Steele explain to moderate voters that the inmates aren’t actually running the Republican asylum.

In the Senate health care debate I’m watching Oklahoma’s number one medical extremist argue that what Americans really want is the freedom to choose the lowest bidder for their heart bypass.  As if patients are going to know how the fuck to shop for a competent surgeon in their price range!

What an asshole.

It’s disgusting, but clearly Coburn believes this “free market” shit.  And why not?  No skin off his sorry ass — it’s all just dorm-room libertarian claptrap for the teabaggers.  (The Senator himself, of course, is enjoying the benefits of government health care.)

Does this make Coburn worse than the garden variety insurance whore?  Probably not.  He’s just scarier.

UPDATE:  Oops.  I forgot to mention this Coburn atrocity:

Q: Sen. Coburn, we need help.  My husband has traumatic brain injury.  His health insurance will not cover him to eat and drink. And what I need to know is: Are you going to help him? Where he can eat and drink?  We left the nursing home, and they told us we are on our own.  He left with a feeding tube.  I have been working with him, but I’m not a speech pathologist, a professional that takes six years for a masters’, and I’m trying to get him to eat and drink again [inaud].

A: Well, I think—first of all, yeah.  We’ll help.  The first thing we will do is to see what we can do, individually, to help you, through our office.  But the other thing that is missing in this debate is us as neighbors, helping people that need our help. [Applause.]  You know we tend to … [Applause.]  The idea that the government is a solution to our problems is an inaccurate, a very inaccurate statement.

Pollack, his wife, and Philip Pizzo, dean of Stanford Medical School, found Coburn’s answer to be deeply disturbing.  I did, too, of course.  But what truly shocked and depressed me was not Coburn’s let-’em-eat-cake response but the fact that it wasn’t met in the room with a collective sharp intake of breath. Instead, Coburn received two quite robust bursts of applause.  I have no idea how Congress and the White House can possibly sell health care reform to people like that.

How does this guy sleep?   Is he simply a sociopath?

REPORTING FROM THE RETAIL TRENCHES:  Going Rogue has hit bookstore shelves packing the kind of right-wing mojo that I didn’t feel with Glenn Beck’s latest leaden screed, Arguing With Idiots.  Palin fans seem genuinely excited to buy this book.  Indeed, many of them appear to view their purchase of her somewhat fanciful memoir as a subversive act in itself.

Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton and never will be, but the buzz surrounding Going Rogue reminds me — a tiny bit! — of the reaction to Hillary’s 2003 autobiography Living History.  (Now that book was a genuine blockbuster.)

In a Republican presidential field where Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour are considered serious candidates, there’s certainly room for Palin to give the corporate bag men plenty of headaches as they try to muscle through an electable dude to put them back on the government gravy train.

Louie Gohmert (R-TX) has supplanted Steve King (R-IA) as my favorite Republican extremist.  And now I find that he has a Facebook page. 

Here’s an interesting comment from one of his groupies:

We must have radical conservative change to save this country.  How can we (thru our representatives in Washington) bring this about?  Tell us how this works.  How can we help you and how are you and others there in DC fighting the good fight to save our constitutional way of life?  We need more statesmanship and less just waiting to vote.  We must bring true debate and influence back to the House and Senate.  I was appalled on my last visit there to observe the process in the galleries.  I agree with Dwayne Horner on Senator Hutchinson. She has become only part of the system as is — a bureaucrat.

This teabagger wants action and she wants it now.  Actual voting, however, seems to be optional.  “True debate and influence” will get the job done.

That sounds a little scary (I think I smell a beer hall putsch), but I wish Congressional Democrats displayed such a sense of political urgency.  We could use it.