Once again, clueless Democrats count for survival on even more clueless Republicans

Remember this guy? He used to be one of the country's leading experts on "conservative principles." Now he's mostly just a guy hanging around for his turn to take that big Appalachian Trail hike in the sky.

by Ken

The rumor flying around today was that Treasury Secretary "Tiny Tim" Geithner is about to be dislodged from his job. And people say the Obama administration doesn't listen to its critics!

Just two things before you head out to the street for dancing:

(1) The rumored replacement is Jamie "Ebenezer" Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, making him the man responsible for the savage war currently being waged by the retail-banking portion of his company against, well, its customers, at least the credit-card-holding ones, in anticipation of the new credit-card regs that go into effect, er, in this lifetime, give or take. If you thought the administration was in the pocket of the Wall Streeters and banksters before . . .

(2) In any case, the rumor appears to be coming, not from the White House, but from Wall Street sources, presumably on the ground that Tiny Tim has lost too much credibility to continue serving effectively as their front man. And presumably "Ebenezer" Dimon, who is known to have a cordial relationship with President Obama, has indicated to those sources his willingness to suspend his current project, which is to make sure that JPMorgan Chase is officially Too Big to Fail when he or one of his successors drives it broke.

So no, there's no indication yet of any willingness on the part of the administration to modify the course to disaster being set for the administration by chief economic mastermind Larry Summers, with the president's right-hand man, Master Rahm Emanuel, cheering from the sideline.

Meanwhile the NYT's Adam Nagourney reported this afternoon on the paper's political blog The Caucus (G.O.P. Considers 'Purity' Resolution for Candidates) that a resolution was circulated this morning signed by 10 Republican National Committee members --

listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they "espouse conservative principles and public policies" that are in opposition to "Obama's socialist agenda." According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire -- would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members and was distributed on Monday morning. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting [in Honolulu].

The moving spirit behind the resolution is none other than the ghost of Ronald Reagan, who is said in it to have championed allowing a certain amount of diversity within the party's conservative views, believing "that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent."

Whence the mathematical formula that fellow Republicans should be allowed to disagree with two of the ten principles presumably deemed by these deep political thinkers to be the core of conservatism -- in contrast to "Obama's socialist agenda." However, anyone who disagrees with a third principle should be denied money from the party and even its endorsement.

So what are the Magic 10 "conservative principles and public policies"?

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

I'm sure I don't need to detail for DWT readers how much unadulterated bullshit there is here above and beyond the ideological wackitude. For example, I've seen several people point out, with regard to (3), that the very definition of "cap and trade" is that it is "market-based," and that this "principle" therefore really doesn't mean anything. But this seems to be asking for more subtlety than can reasonably expected from people who seem to be, basically, mentally defective.

Obviously if you make a reference to "Obama's socialist agenda," you have just demonstrated that you don't have the tiniest clue in the universe as to what you're talking about. As it happens, our mentally defective wackadoodles don't have a much better clue as to what constitutes "conservatism." For example, (2), (3), (4), and (9) aren't statements of principles; they're hallucinations. And there's nothing in any way "conservative," though quite a lot that's delusional, in (5), (6), or (7) -- these are just positions that happen to have gained currency among the wackadoodles, and haven't even been accepted as Republican positions, as in the case of the immigration "plank."

And we should remember who these people with their fine conservative values are. These are, by and large, people who don't even believe the blather that pours out of their own steaming orifices. Think back a year, and remember how many of the white knights the wingnut battalions were expecting to lead them into battle in 2012 are now disgraced butts of jokes, having been shown up for the lying garbage they always were.

No Republican in the country, for example, was as categorical and uncompromising in his attempt to mandate "conservative values," or as peremptorily dismissive of even the tiniest dissent from them (hell, he would never have allowed shirkers to get away with agreeing with him on only eight out of ten conservative principles), as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

I'll bet many of you even forgot that the slimy, lying turd is still governor of his state. But heck, no quitter he, our Mark, nosirree! No Sarah Palin, or Tim Pawlenty!

Of course there is already a movement afoot in the state legislature, though not much of one, aimied at impeachment, with a hearing on just such a motion -- based on the governor's lies in connection with his affair with his Argentine honey -- scheduled for Tuesday. Meanwhile today the state's ethics commission made public a list of "37 counts of using his office for personal financial gain," as Shaila Dewan reported today in the NYT:

The charges on the list include spending state money on business-class plane tickets, instead of flying coach; using state aircraft to attend political and personal events, like the birthday party of a campaign contributor; and using his campaign fund for noncampaign expenses, like a ticket to President Obama’s inauguration.

The list provides the first details of the accusations that the ethics commission will pursue after a wide-ranging review of Mr. Sanford’s travel and financial records, citing incidents from September 2005 to April 2009.

The specifics of the charges look like pretty small potatoes to me, but what's not small potatoes is that the guy, at the very core of who and what he is, is a liar and a fraud. Those bible-thumping values he's spent his career trying to shove down everyone else's throat are just lies he spewed to impress people and gain power over them. He's a man who has no discernible principles or morality, who in fact has no strength of character to stand up to the slightest tingle in his weewee.

Of course the RNC geniuses who cobbled this list of "principles" think Americans have forgotten last year, maybe 'cause they sure have, or have tried their darnedest to. And maybe Americans will forget, being rattled enough by the shitpile that eight years of the Bush regime dumped them into, which is now officially blamed -- by particularly stupid and/or dishonest people -- on "Obama's socialist agenda."

It's not as if the Obama administration or Congress has done much for those people who feel under siege. But it may be just their luck to have as their opposition so many people who are even dumber and more dishonest than they are.

God bless us every one.

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