A wise man once said, "You can't kill your parents then ask for sympathy because you're an orphan." G.O.P. lawmakers, as in Grumpy Old Pouters are now acting like petulant children because the bi-partisanship that they painstakingly murdered is now dead. They gambled on a strategy of trying to bring down a President rather than being responsible grownups and doing what we pay them to do, and they crapped out. In keeping with their inclination to take defeat in the manner of a spoiled brat, Senator John McCain has proclaimed that Republicans will not cooperate for the rest of the year. We know that Senator McCain can't possibly hold his breath that long, but it's not clear whether or not he actually stuck out his tongue or stamped his feet as his announced his intention not to play nicely with the other boys and girls.
With that, the cat is officially out of the cellophane bag. The wide eyed idealists who believed that Republicans in the Senate had at least a scintilla of good faith and were not solely concerned with obstructing those who sought to solve our problems, must now abandon the last shred of hope that such integrity existed. This is not to say that Republican lawmakers are inherently worse than Democrats, or that Democrats wouldn't have done the same thing if the roles were reversed; we have no way of knowing. However, in this case, it happens to be the Republicans and they deserve to be called out.
Unfortunately, this debacle persists as Republicans pursue some Machiavellian gains by using parliamentary gambits designed to both drag this out and to politically embarrass Democrats. Republican senators are working feverishly to find some excuse to change the bill's text so that it would have to go back to the House for yet another vote. The most regrettable aspect of the whole sordid affair is the transparent demagoguery and sleaze. Republicans are proposing poison pill amendments designed to both alter the bill and provide fodder for deliberately dishonorable and false advertising. For instance, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), introduced an amendment to bar coverage for erectile dysfunction medication for convicted sex offenders. Republicans intend use votes against this thinly veiled charade in ads specifically designed to deceive voters by mischaracterizing the votes as a desire on the part of Democratic lawmakers to use taxpayer money to give Viagra to monsters who rape children. Such deliberately misleading advertising for a product would cause significant FTC fines.
I want to make it clear that this only happens to be Republicans in this case. The sleazy demagoguery and win at any cost gutter politics cut across all party lines and political ideologies. That said, people need to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. I'm bothered because these are our leaders and we should to be able see them as something other than contemptible. Politicians acting without a sense of honor or decency corrode our democracy and further harm the already maligned though noble calling of public service. I know politics can be a bare knuckle street fight that sometimes gets pretty ugly, but we need to recognize what's beyond the pale and when to say stop it! You're disgracing your office and your country.
