The walkout farce by the Republicans even had
the WSJ in dismay
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main
task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would
not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have
handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up
re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in
earnest.
Senator John McCain
tweets
WSJ is right on the mark here
Robert Reich
offers the observation that the turmoil within the Republicans is more than just a power tussle between the conservatives and the Tea Party
The underlying conflict lies deep into the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.
By "very old" he means pre civil war very old
It’s no mere coincidence that the states responsible for putting the
most Tea Party representatives in the House are all former members of
the Confederacy.
Of course it could all be just coincidence
This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, Southern or rural
Republicans – only that these characteristics define the epicenter of
Tea Party Land.
The defining characteristics of Tea Partiers being
the latest incarnation of an angry white minority – predominantly
Southern, and mainly rural – that has repeatedly attacked American
democracy in order to get its way.
By some accounts the Confederacy lost the war, by others the war isnt finished
America has had a long history of white Southern radicals who will stop
at nothing to get their way – seceding from the Union in 1861, refusing
to obey Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, shutting the government
in 1995, and risking the full faith and credit of the United States in
2010.
Abraham Lincoln led the Republicans in a war over equality. Over time the Republicans have lost that moral authority and are now a party of opportunists who want more than their fair share.
