But Here's The Funny Part

President Barack Obama addresses the US economy at the White House July 31, 2009. (Photo: Reuters)

But Here's The Funny Part
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Saturday 01 August 2009

So the debate over health care reform has all but stalled out for the summer. Rep. Henry Waxman tried to keep the "public option" component of the package together, but wound up getting sold down the river by a bunch of Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Dog Democrats who could give lessons to the GOP minority on how to thwart a presidential agenda. Obama's poll numbers took a pretty sizable hit in the last couple of weeks, at least according to Rasmussen, though there is a fairly compelling argument to be made that Rasmussen's numbers are only meaningful to Rasmussen. The president also wound up having a beer with a Harvard professor and a Cambridge cop to try to quell a story that has stepped all over the health care debate for the last week.

On balance, therefore, it would be difficult to argue that this was anything other than a rough week for Democrats in general and the White House in particular. Politics being what it is, one would expect the GOP to do their level best to make some hay out of these stumbles and miscues, and for sure they have tried. Once again, however, the Republican Party gave America a clinic on how to look foolish, deranged, out of touch and downright amusing.

For those in need of their daily recommended allowance of shrieking bat-poop insanity, look no further than the so-called "Birther" conspiracy currently roiling the ranks of the GOP. A holdover from the 2008 presidential campaign, the "Birther" controversy is centered around the far-Right argument that Obama was not born in America, has no birth certificate, is not an American citizen, and is not therefore a legitimate president. The actual birth certificate was produced ages ago, Hawaii proudly proclaimed itself the birthplace of the president, and the issue has been entirely settled in the minds of all but a few, who at their core simply cannot accept that a black man with an Arabic name sleeps in the White House.

The rank absurdity of the Birthers' contentions hasn't kept a whole array of high-ranking Republicans from jumping into the fray to endorse the validity of this farce. "Indeed," reported Talking Points Memo on Wednesday, "prominent Congressional Republicans were openly entertaining this stuff. A bill to require birth certificates from presidential candidates has picked up 11 total co-sponsors; Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) declared that the Birthers 'have a point,' and that he doesn't discourage it. Even House GOP Vice Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington), a member of the leadership, was saying she wanted to see the documents."

But here's the funny part. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, right-wing bombthrower Ann Coulter and GOP Chairman Michael Steele - three people who have repeatedly set the standard for Deranged Things Actually Said In Public - have been working overtime to kill the Birther debate because they think it's stupid. They think it's stupid. Memo to the Far Right: when you've lost the support of people like O'Reilly, Coulter and Steele, you have to step back and wonder just how far from the pack you've strayed.

Elsewhere on the goofball spectrum, a couple of prominent right-wingers accused President Obama and the Democrats of being racists. Yes, they actually did. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck called Obama a racist for coming down on the side of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. during the recent flap over his arrest. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) blasted Senate Democrats for - get this - using Sonya Sotomayor's race to divide the American people. Democrats, according to Cornyn, have been "giving cover to groups and individuals to nurture racial grievances for political advantage."

Yeah, let's move on. There are just no words.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) went out on a limb the other day to argue that the GOP's political woes of late are largely the fault of the party's far-Right Southern core. Voinovich's accusation drew a stern rebuke from fellow Republican Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), who said, "I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values. There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections." Not content to leave it at that, Vitter went on to label Voinovich a "wishy-washy" moderate.

But here's the funny part. Senator Vitter's heartfelt defense of core GOP values left out the part about how he is a known, publicly confirmed consorter with prostitutes, and admitted in 2007 to committing a "serious sin," the nature of which, one must assume, had nothing to do with failing to keep holy the Sabbath. The last word on this one belongs to Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman Kevin Franck, who replied to inquiries by Talking Points Memo with the following email message: "Last time I checked, you don't find core Southern values in the places David Vitter has been found. If David Vitter can lead his party back to their conservative values, maybe Larry Craig can give them tips on bathroom etiquette and Mark Sanford can recommend a really good restaurant in Buenos Aires."

Ouch.

http://www.truthout.org/080109A

This should be no "vacation" for us. That the Repugs are imploding doesn't diminish the power that the "Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Dogs" (very nice) wield. There are surely people in their districts that are literally dying for a little help.

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

You absolutely must watch this clip of pure economic stupidity on the part of The Glenn Beck Show.

Holy Cow!!!

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2369

at a local mechanic's shop. As I'm going inside to pay my bill, one of the mechanics and some guy who just came in are chatting as I'm reading the headlines of today's paper while waiting for the mechanic to take my money. The parts of their conversation that caught my ear just briefly were "we know he's not an American" and "no, he wasn't born in America", and then, "never mind, he's not even listening"--referring to me. I thought they might have been talking about some guy they know who's an undocumented alien.

At the time it didn't even register to me (I was engrossed in reading a news blip) that they were talking about President Obama. It was only after I walked out and saw my "Veterans for Obama" sticker that I realized these two imbeciles were trying to get a rise out of me.

Yes, there are some dumbasses out there who actually believe that "birther" crap.

Aaaaarrrggghhhh!!!

Will..great writng as usual.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Palin, etc. Let's stop calling them FAR right or Far RW. Let's start right now, to call them MAIN STREAM REPUBLICANS! When we call them far right it makes it look like they are "out there" and regular rethugs are normal good guys and gals that only want the best for you and me. I call bullshit any Republican is as a whole bad for the country. Oh sure, Lindsey Graham will vote for a Latina for Supreme Court Justice but as a whole he is a bigot and hate monger, in other words a MAIN STREAM REPUBLICAN. So from now on I will stop using "far right" to describe anyone and will only use "MAIN STREAM REPUBLICAN".

:kick:

I have a gorgeous nephew, he is one year old and has blond hair and blue eyes just like my brother. Yesterday he and my sister in law had the baby out for a walk and some stranger came up to them and said:

"What a beautiful blond blue eyed baby, this country needs more of them born!"

Last night we got a call from the NRA with a guy "who would ONLY talk to my husband" telling him that they needed money because there was a move in this country to take their second amendment rights away. Dave (a recovering Republican) got off the phone pretty quickly but it was a freaky call.

I guess there have always been these people out there by they are more vocal and frenzied than they used to be which is in one way good I suppose because it is less likely people will mistake them for reasonable people.

All I can say is if the Democrats were behaving like the Republicans are right now, we would have had marshal law declared a long time ago!