How Many Republicans Would Rather See America Fail Than Obama Succeed?

And I'm not just talking about the die-hard extremist obstructionists like Jim DeMint (R-SC), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and David Diapers Vitter (R-LA) in the Senate and Eric Cantor (R-VA), Adam Howdy Doody Putnam (R-FL), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), and Jerry Lewis (R-CA), in the House.

Going back over President Obama's inaugural address, I found a couple of warnings he made to the enemies of our country that I want to remind you of. First one was aimed clearly at the GOP and their venal propaganda whores like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity, the editorial page of the neo-fascist Wall Street Journal, Fox "News"...

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

It's more of a stretch-- but no less fitting-- to interpret the second statement as a warning to right wing Republican partisans:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Do you think Rupert Murdock or Mitch McConnell took umbrage when they heard that one? What about the collection of kooks and loons running to head up the RNC?

Yesterday we talked about how the Republican Party, as clueless today as they were when they embarked upon their grand program to destroy post-Great Depression middle class America, has come to the foolish conclusion-- and trumpeted it on one of their official websites -- that "Thanks to Republican economic policies, the U.S. economy is robust and job creation is strong." After an outcry, they removed that page from the NRCC website (although you can see the screenshot at the link above). Their cluelessness is underscored by the biggest surge in Democratic Party self-identification among voters since 1983 or, worse for the Republicans, the fact that only 5% of Americans reported they had confidence in the economy as Bush prepared to leave behind the fruits of Republican fiscal policies.

Sadder still is that the actual Republican base, long thought to be nothing but brainwashed religionist fanatics from backward parts of the South, are adamantly against the obstructionism being pushed as GOP official policy by Republican neo-Confederate political leaders like Jim DeMint, David Vitter and Eric Cantor. And severe fractures within the party are showing up in the six-ring circus that is trying to figure out who will be the new chair of the Republican National Committee. They have no Howard Dean to turn to in their time of need-- only ideological pygmies looking for personal career advancement.

Rank-and-file Republicans are telling their leaders they want more ethnic, gender and age diversity in a party that is dominated by white males. They also want party leaders to cooperate with President Barack Obama, according to surveys.

After losing the White House and 28 seats in Congress last year, some party leaders still aren’t hearing the message from voters who are urging them to claw their way back to power by promoting minorities and striking a less partisan tone, said Rich Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman.

“We need a great deal more tolerance for the other guy’s point of view,” Bond said. “Not everybody comes from the same constituency as a majority-white homogenous district in the South where all people care about is keeping their guns and taxes.”

The 168 members of the RNC will vote for a new chairman as early as Jan. 29. Four of the candidates are white males. The two others are black, including Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state. He is favored by the party’s social conservatives, who value ideological purity over compromise.

...[J]udging from a recent public debate about the party chairman’s job, much of the discussion among RNC leaders remains centered on ideology.

During the Jan. 5 panel in Washington, the candidates had little to say about diversity or how to retool the party. Instead, they discussed their values, including opposition to abortion, higher taxes and how many guns they owned.

If you haven't seen it, please watch one of the top candidates, South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson, explaining his vision for the "Republican Party's mission for the next four years":



If Obama reveres President Abraham Lincoln and looks to him as a role model and an inspiration, I'm afraid Mr. Dawson, as well as more than a few other Republicans from the former slaveholding states, see themselves as ready to fire on Fort Sumter. The conservatives' battle to preserve slavery is now a battle against working families. Nothing enrages right wing obstructionists more than the idea of working men and women banding together to negotiate collectively with Big Business. NOTHING; every thing on the Republican plate is negotiable but that. That's why on Thursday you saw 36 hard core right-wing loons in the Senate vote against equality for women in the workplace-- including even purported "mainstream Republicans" like John McCain (AZ), Richard Lugar (IN), Chuck Grassley (IA), and Judd Gregg (NH). And it's why, on the same day, you saw 31 of them support an amendment by Jim DeMint and David Diapers Vitter to undermine the viability of the American labor movement. And that wasn't just the radicals and extremists from the Deep South and Mormon West but, again, supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCain, Thune, and Lugar.

And now that the radicals have been defeated in their bid to sabotage the confirmation of Eric Holder as President Obama's Attorney General, they have focused their vitriol on California Congresswoman Hilda Solis, the only actual progressive among Obama's cabinet nominees, who, if confirmed, will be Secretary of Labor. Under Bush that job went to a hack-- the "wife" of Mitch McConnell-- whose only priority to was undercut organized labor. Congresswoman Solis has been an unyielding ally to American working families for her entire career. The far right is well aware she will be the polar opposite of the ridiculous Elaine Chao.

One Republican senator, who is keeping his name secret, has put a hold on Rep. Solis' nomination, preventing her from being confirmed. It was widely rumored that the obstructionist in this instance was Tom Coburn (R-OK), although his office denies that he is the miscreant this time and there have been leaks that the obstructionist is Richard Burr (R-NC). Burr's hatred of Solis stems from her support for the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation geared to restoring the right of workers to form unions unharrassed by Big Business thugs.

Republican staffers, while refusing to identify which senator filed the hold, admit that the reason is because Solis backs the measures to prevent pay discrimination in the workplace and because she backs Employee Free Choice. The Chamber of Commerce demanded one of their stooges place the hold on the nomination. Even when her nomination clears HELP (the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) next week, the hold will delay her confirmation-- pure obstructionism from the party that literally would rather see America fail than Obama succeed. Some of the worst of Republican strategists have warned that if the Employee Free Choice Act passes, Republican politicians will wander in the political wilderness for decades, ineffective in advancing the agenda of their corporate masters.