The Best Defense

To paraphrase a friend of mine, if you go to all of the effort to shut down the government because you don’t get your way on the Affordable Health Care Act (the MOST vetted law ever probably, having survived 41 votes by Congressional Republicans to weaken it or repeal it), then you don’t get to decide which parts of the government get to stay open. 

At this very moment, the US is suffering from the efforts of the “right wing of the right wing” to escape reality.  These people are so out of touch that even fellow Republicans are becoming worn out by their fantasies.  While driving home the other day I heard conservative pundit David Brooks on NPR’s "All Things Considered", call Senator Ted Cruz “stupid”.  Twice.  It’s hard to disagree. 

These folks are like the bad-sport-playground-bullies I remember from my childhood.  If they don’t get to make the rules, they’ll take the ball and go home.  They blocked the routine resolution to fund the government if they don’t get their way in defunding Obamacare.  And they are blaming the President for not negotiating?!  As Maureen Dowd put it, “They have done the impossible. They have made Americans look back at the Bush II era, the most reckless wrecking ball in American history, with relative nostalgia.”  

Republicans are bearing the brunt of the responsibility for the crisis: A new Associated Press-GfK survey released Wednesday shows that 62 percent of adults surveyed online mainly blame Republicans for the current shutdown. About half said Mr. Obama or congressional Democrats bear the responsibility. These numbers echo a Washington Post/ABC poll released Tuesday which showed 70 percent of Americans disapproving of how the GOP is handling the budget negotiations, compared to 61 percent for Democrats and 51 percent for Mr. Obama.  

So, while Republicans are tanking in the polls, there is this faction that is beating their chests and chanting WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS!  They are betting on the United States forgetting their petulant little tantrum and shift the blame to our duly elected President and the Democrats who passed his legislation fair and square. 

So, check out their new strategy for keeping America dumb.  They are becoming outraged in a really public way about the government shutdown.  Unbelievable as it seems, there was a protest in Washington D. C. yesterday featuring Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Sarah Palin (former governor of Alaska and currently… I’m not sure).  Yep, they were protestors at the WWII Memorial on the National Mall. 

These are the same folks who refused to keep the government operating unless Mr. Obama defunded his healthcare plan. 

Mr. Cruz had the gall to ask, "Why is the federal government spending money to erect barricades to keep veterans out of this memorial?"

"Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, so we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game," Palin told the crowd.

One speaker at the WWII Memorial “protest” urged revolution.  “I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up,” said Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group.

How about the Confederate flag being flown at the “protest”?  In the background was a sign that read, “RESPECT OuR VEtS” [sic].  The confederate flag seems like a pretty bizarre way to respect our vets.

 I can only think that they believe the best defense is a good offense.  And you know what? It will work for a pretty big chunk of Americans with Obama Dementia.  The same ones who think Obama is not a citizen, that taxes and the national debt are skyrocketing, that he is a Socialist/Muslim, that under Obama voter fraud is a serious threat or that he wants to take everyone’s guns.

But I’m guessing that most Americans will see that their best defense is just offensive.