File under “Just When You Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Nuttier”: Some Republican state party leaders are putting pressure on the Republican National Committee to officially label the Democrats a “socialist party.”
What’s more, they want the Democrats to apply the label to themselves.
“Republican state party leaders are rebelling against new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele for failing to dub President Obama and the Democrats as ‘socialists,” the conservative Washington Times reports. “Even though Mr. Steele has called his Democratic adversaries ‘collectivists,’ at least 16 state leaders say the term lacks the pejorative punch needed to sway public opinion and want all 168 members of the Republican National Committee to debate and vote on it.”
The Times goes on to report that Indiana RNC member James Bopp Jr. (where DO they get these names?) sent a e-mail his fellow RNC members stating: “The threat to our country from the Obama administration cannot be underestimated. They are proceeding pell-mell to nationalize major industries, to exponentially increase the size, power and intrusiveness of the federal government, to undermine free enterprise and free markets, to raise taxes to a confiscatory level.”
Offhand we can’t think of any major (or even minor) industries that Obama has nationalized yet, and a top marginal tax rate of 38.6% hardly seems “confiscatory.” (It was 92% in 1952 under that notorious socialist, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and 50% under that other notorious socialist, President Ronald Reagan.) But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?
“Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism,” Bopp continued in his e-mail.
Uh, the United States has been opposed to communism since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918. But why let trivial historical details get in the way of a good rant either?
Bopp has drafted a resolution calling on the Democrats “to be truthful and honest with the American people by acknowledging that they have evolved from a party of tax and spend to a party of tax and nationalize and, therefore, should agree to rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party.”
Jeff Kent of Washington state is named as chief sponsor of the resolution, and two Oregonians – Solomon Yue of Josephine County and Donna Cain – are among the co-sponsors.
What this move clearly shows is that the right-wingers’ tired old “tax-and-spend liberal” line has lost its punch and they’re desperately seeking something fresh.
But the “socialist” smear – which the Republicans have been throwing at Obama ever since their 2008 national convention – doesn’t seem to be sticking either; a poll taken just two days ago showed Obama with a 62% job approval rating.
And incidentally, that was a Fox News poll.
But that’s classic Republican strategic thinking: If what you’re doing isn’t working, just do it twice as hard and you’re sure to succeed.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.
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These republican dopes are so bankrupt they are desperate to try anything. Speaking of socialists, you can’t find bigger “socialists” than the hypocritical as usual republicans. Let me review all the socialistic practices and benefits that “free enterprize” republicans partake in:
o Farm subsidies. Without these there would be no millionaires in Nebraska, Indiana…..
o Tobacco subsidies. No rich fat cats in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tenn…..
o Defense contracts and military bases. Texas, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina…
Republicans will go to the federal treasury well any time and every time they can get away with it. Their motto is “Never pay for anything if you can get the little guy taxpayer to pay for it for you”. Look how Bush jr. (aka Village Idiot) got Paulson and Bernake to bail out their friends on Wall Street. What the hell do you call this if it isn’t Socialism or better yet Communism.
Oh yes, all these high minded republicans can throw labels around but brother while they are in the process of hating “socialism”, you sure as hell better never screw up and not send them their social security check and mess up their medicare benefits that those lousy socialistic democrats put in place for the people.
Sounds like another distraction from what’s really happening. If we didn’t spend time and money on foolish things like this we could focus on the problems that we can change. Like who’s in office!
This just in: Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announces he is leaving the Republican Party and joining the Democrats. This, once Al Franken is seated, will give the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate majority (even without Lieberman’s vote).
Speculation is rife that Sens. Olympia Snowe and Lindsay Graham will follow suit.
The Republicans, as a national party, are dying before our eyes. They are turning into a Southern/religious fundamentalist regional party.
When all the current policies in force and yet to come ultimately fail, who will the dems blame?
That’s all the Party of No has left, isn’t it — hoping for Obama to fail.
As (self-described) “patriots,” shouldn’t you be hoping for Obama to succeed? You know, “putting country first”?
Here’s a question for you: If the policies SUCCEED, will you all be so good as to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt in after yourselves?
Just saying, HBM, that with Specter and Franken the dems will have a super majority. Obama has spent more money in 100 days than all presidents combined before him. The stimulous bill was voted in without reading it. The European’s, of all people, told him to stop spending so much money. The Chinese are starting to become concerned. They hold the deed to this country as it is. What if they decide to stop lending? Still on the agenda are govt health care, cap and trade, social security needs to be dealt with.
I’m trying to be positive and would love to see us get out of this mess once and for all but I dont think spending like we are is going to do it. For instance, meals on wheels in Spokane County is
getting stimulous money – a great program that deserves funding – but stimulous money? How is meals on wheels going to stimulate the economy?
Never ending spending is not going to get us out of this mess. I wish Obama well. I hope I’m wrong and that is plan works but with a super majority they will bear all responsibility if things continue to get worse.
1. Voted on but not read: Just whose fault is that and am I to believe that those who voted against it read it? The Republican claims fabricated out of whole cloth, i.e. the train from Disneyland to Las Vegas indicates they didn’t either before voting no.
2. Obama spent more than any other president in the last 100 days: the point of the stimulus is to spend, it’s a bigger mess than any other president has faced, and it’s a larger economy than at any time in the past.
3. Stimulus funds are going to meals on wheels: some of the funds do go to feed people who need food. Wow! That’s a waste! Malnutrition is a great incentive to get out there and find a job. (Notice local unemployment figures today in Bend-seasonally adjusted 17%)
4. The Europeans and Chinese are critical: And rightly so–but they are spending to stimulate their economies and they know that if the US economy tanks further, the impact on them will be even more catastrophic than it has been. And since when has a conservative given a crap about what the rest of the world thinks anyway?
5. I wish Obama well and hope he succeeds: Somehow that sounds as sincere as Cindy Sheehan’s support of the troops.
6. The Repubs have the luxury of not having to do anything. They know that action will be taken in spite of their opposition and posturing. They don’t have to demonstrate any courage and can all pretend that opposition is action and that no is a plan. The ‘Good Riddance’ attitude to those that want to cross the line and support anything that the Dems propose will isolate and shrink the GOP even further.
This reminds me about the fable of the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion begs the fearful frog for a ride across the stream. He reassures the frog that he won’t sting and gets his ride. Just before reaching the opposite shore he stings the frog. Doomed to drown and die, the frog asks, “Why? Why?” The scorpion responds, “It’s my nature. I can’t help it.”
Conservatives, by definition and nature, don’t want things to change–they want things to stay the way they are. We have a president who doesn’t look like other presidents, his name doesn’t sound like the names of other presidents, and he says and does things that other presidents have not said or done. He must be opposed.
“Conservatives, by definition and nature, don’t want things to change–they want things to stay the way they are.”
Exactly. “Any change, at any time, for any reason is to be deplored.” — Edmund Burke
But we need both conservatives and liberals (progressives) to make the political system work — liberals to push for progress, conservatives to prevent the liberals from going overboard. That’s why it’s so unfortunate that American conservatism has been taken over by loonies and lost its credibility. Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley Jr. and even Ronald Reagan would be horrified to see that Rush Limbaugh has become the de facto head of the Republican Party.