Between a rock and a hard place: Who's worster, the R's or the D's? (Or doesn't it matter?)

Welcome to Rahm Valley, the lowest point in North America

by Ken

I've only just started George Packer's interesting-looking piece, "The Empty Room," in the new (Aug. 3) New Yorker, which based on extended firsthand exposure to the beast poses the question: "Just how broken is the Senate?" At the outset, responding to an especially egregious feat of Republican obstructionism in the wake of the passage of the health care bill, Carl Levin expostulates, "“It’s unconscionable. The obstructionism has become mindless.”

Since, as I've pointed out with numbing frequency, Republicans now feel free make every word, every breath that comes out of their grubby maws a super-whopper lie, they pretend not to understand why they are regarded as shameless, country-destroying hooligans. But of course they know. They just think that at this point in time there are political rewards to be reaped by being shameless, country-destroying hooligans.

Sometimes all it takes to shake a little honesty out of them is being dumped unceremoniously out of office. Scott Keyes offered this example in a Think Progress post today:

Rep. Inglis tells all: GOP using racism, demagoguery in response to Obama.

by Scott Keyes

In June, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) became one of the first incumbent Republicans to be knocked off by an insurgent Tea Party candidate. Although he maintained a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, primary voters deemed Inglis to be insufficiently conservative. In an interview with Mother Jones, Inglis said that one of the reasons for his defeat was because he refused to demagogue like other conservatives in the House. In one instance during the primary, Inglis was chastised simply for not calling President Obama a “socialist.” He also noted that many of the GOPs criticisms regarding Obama’s response to the economic crisis were motivated by racism:

Instead, he remarks, his party turned toward demagoguery. Inglis lists the examples: falsely claiming Obama’s health care overhaul included “death panels,” raising questions about Obama’s birthplace, calling the president a socialist, and maintaining that the Community Reinvestment Act was a major factor of the financial meltdown. “CRA,” Inglis says, “has been around for decades. How could it suddenly create this problem? You see how that has other things worked into it?” Racism? “Yes,” Inglis says.

Inglis also had particular criticism of House GOP leader John Boehner and GOP whip Eric Cantor, whom he accused of being unwilling to “summon the courage” to stand up to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Tea Partiers.

To which the only response I can imagine is: "Ooh, those Republicans!"

Only then there's the damn Democrats, or should I say Rahmocrats? Whose only political strategy is to be just ever so slightly less hooliganish than their cross-aisle fellow doodyheads. As you know, I swear by every word uttered by Ian Welsh, so I've been grappling with this post of his from yesterday:

Stating the Obvious: Obama wants to gut social security

2010 AUGUST 2
27 COMMENTS
by Ian Welsh
Let me state the obvious, which we all know, one more time.

Obama intends to gut social security. Republicans failed, it requires Democrats. If Obama did not intend to gut social security he would not have set up the SS comission with the members it has.

Nancy Pelosi is onside with this (or she wouldn’t have forcefully scheduled a vote for the lame duck session.)

The Democrats most of us supported in 08 intend to gut Social Security.

Betrayal: the most bitter sauce.

But why shouldn’t they betray us? No matter what they do, most folks say “well, the Republicans are worse”. All it requires is that Democrats beat ordinary people with canes instead of chains.

They’re not the suckers.

OK, so the Dems can be counted on to betray us, and the R's can be counted on to just dump on us, so . . . so we . . . we, uh . . .

I dunno. Ya got me.

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