Boehner Boys Are Back-- The Loyal Opposition

Republicans must be fuming now that Obama has coopted their whole platform and made it his own. True, lunatic fringe sociopaths like Georgia freak and John Bircher Paul Broun are screeching that Obama is a socialist, but-- when push came to shove-- the official GOP response to Tuesday night's State of the Union address by Paul Ryan had more in common with Obama than with Michele Bachmann's crackpot Tea Party ravings. Broun tweeted away during the president's speech, like this:


Earlier in the day, Broun walked in lockstep with his Republican colleagues in passing H. Res. 38. The resolution was introduced by flagrant Republican closet queen David Dreier, a man whose entire pathetic life is built around lies and deception, and he named it "Reducing non-security spending to fiscal year 2008 levels or less." It sounds like he had gotten an advance copy of Obama's SOTU speech and was determined to claim the ground Obama would be covering. The resolution, which passed 256-165, "requires the Chair of the House Committee on the Budget to include in the Congressional Record the contemplated allocation for the Committee on Appropriations for the remainder of FY2011 that assumes a transition to non-security spending at FY2008 levels or less."

Looks like there was some bipartisanship going on there even before everyone had picked their cross-species sitting partners for the night's Big Event. I mean there are only 242 Republicans, so how did the resolution wind up with 256 votes? Easy... the Boehner Boys are back (in town)! Remember this?

Since Obama was elected there are a handful of neo-Confederate Blue Dogs who have voted-- on crucial substantive issues-- more frequently with the Republicans than with the Democrats, Parker Griffith of Alabama has gone so far as to promise his constituents that if they re-elect him, which isn't very likely (since Democrats have no reason to vote for him and Republicans will have their own candidate), he'll vote against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year. The Blue Dogs, and fellow travelers, who vote more frequently with the GOP on the big issues are, from bad to worse:

Baron Hill (IN)
Jim Matheson (UT)
John Barrow (GA)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
Mike McIntyre (NC)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Chris Carney (PA)
Mike Ross (AR)
Artur Davis (AL)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Frank Kratovil (MD)
Walt Minnick (ID)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Bobby Bright (AL)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Glenn Nye (VA)
Scott Murphy (NY)
Jim Marshall (GA)
Dan Boren (OK)
Travis Childers (MS)
Parker Griffith (AL)
Gene Taylor (MS)

Many of these clowns were recruited and nurtured by Rahm Emanuel to help keep the Democratic caucus corporate friendly for his Wall Street paymasters. There are several Republicans who vote more frequently with the Democrats than some of these characters-- Tim Johnson, Ron Paul, Mike Castle, Jimmy Duncan, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Vernon Ehlers, Walter Jones and Chris Smith. But most of the time the Republicans vote in lockstep. Their party discipline is good; they're all a bunch of robots for the most part.

The names in bold are congressmembers, mostly Blue Dogs, who were defeated in November and are no longer selling out Democratic principles and values-- at least not on the floor of Congress, many having moved on to Blue Dog Heaven (K Street). But the ones not bolded somehow escaped the midterms intact and are, once again, doing whatever Boehner and Cantor want. And a few hours before Obama's State of the Union, what Boehner and Cantor wanted was a partisan GOP banner proclaiming that these Republicans are no longer the Bush party that drove America to the brink of Depression and economic ruin-- although millions of families were driven over that brink. And which Democrats, exactly, danced to the tune Boehner and Cantor was playing? Should be easy for DWT regulars to guess:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jerry Costello (fellow traveler-IL)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Larry Kissell (fellow traveler-NC)
Lipinski, Jr (fellow traveler-IL/TN)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Mike Quigley (IL)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

Keep track of these names. They will be the Democrats giving bipartisan cover to right-wing Republicans on their quest to destroy the middle class and empower Big Business. And, of course, to win back the Senate and the White House in 2012. These guys give a new meaning to the term "the loyal opposition."

Just so you know, Blue America, which was key in defeating the single worst Blue Dog from last session, Bobby Bright, is starting up operations again for BadDogs.