Blind Trust

So much disunity and fractiousness inside the GOP these days! I think people are turned off by it. But in an interview with the National Journal, anti-tax/anti-government fanatic-- and self-loathing, demented closet queen-- Grover Norquist had just the thing to unite all factions of the Republican Party: impeaching President Obama if he doesn't extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, something polls consistently show the public opposes by wide margins. But the hell with the public, Norquist thinks he can force delusional Republicans in Congress to get back into the impeachment thing that went over so well last time they tried it.

Norquist has long held a tight grip on the marionette strings of the GOP. Wielding undue influence as the head of the Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist ensures that Republican lawmakers sign his anti-tax pledge and threatens them with electoral defeat should they even think of deviating from it. Norquist has marked a successful few years, killing the deficit super committee agreement, batting down a tax increase on millionaires, and, of course, ensuring the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

Pleased with his headway, Norquist is now mapping out how he can ensure further anti-tax victories by securing Republican majorities. In an interview with the National Journal, he mused that a GOP mandate would obviously enact an extension of the Bush tax cuts, work to maintain a repatriation holiday for corporate profits, and even pass House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan that jeopardizes Medicare. But when asked what Republicans should do if faced with a Democratic majority that won’t keep the tax cuts, Norquist had a simple answer: “impeach” Obama.

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?
NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

[Confidential to Grover N: The Senate doesn't impeach; the House impeaches. If it does, an impeachment trial is then held in the Senate. Sometimes it's handy to know these things. -- Ed.]

Wow! It's like the whole GOP has become unhinged and disconnected from the real world Americans are facing every day. Yesterday you may have missed the Newtster chitchatting on ABC with Jake Tapper, who was sitting in for George Stephanopoulos on This Week. Here's Gingrich's best shot at Republican unity, the kind of unity it will take for these kooks to impeach President Obama.

I think clearly the conservatives and the grassroots are increasingly angry about the way in which the Washington establishment has rallied in many ways with complete dishonesty, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out the other day. Some of the articles, some of the attacks on me have been breathtakingly dishonest. And I think as that deepens, the conservatives are going to come together and decide they do not want a Massachusetts liberal to be the Republican nominee.

...I'm standing next to a guy who is the most blatantly dishonest answers I can remember in any presidential race in-- in my lifetime. And I've seen, I think, every presidential debate-- presidential campaign debate or virtually every one. And, you know, he would say things that were just plain not true.

Look, it's a little bit like yesterday's L.A. Times report. I mean, now it found 23 foreign accounts he never reported until he released his taxes. He would say-- he would say thing after thing after thing that just plain wasn't true.

And I had-- I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false. And that's going to become a key part of this. I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order.

We tried a moderate in 1996 for president. He lost. We tried a moderate in 2008 for president. He lost. It's very hard to take Romneycare and Obamacare and have a debate and have the Republican win that debate... [Romney's] supposedly a great manager, yet he can't explain 23 different foreign accounts that weren't reported. He's a great manager. He can't explain being on the board of directors of the company which got the largest Medicare fine in history for fraud?

...[W]hen you get outside the zone where Romney carpet-bombs with Wall Street money, and you look at what's happening in the rest of the country, I'm ahead in all three national polls that were released this week. I'm ahead by a big margin, because when you come to positive ideas, I represent real change in Washington, I represent unleashing the spirit of the American people to get us back as a country, rebuilding the country we love. And when we get to a positive idea campaign, I consistently win.

It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all. ...He is a manager who will manage the decay. I am a leader who has a vision of a bold, exciting American future where we change Washington decisively. And there's a good reason the Washington establishment is afraid of me. I will, in fact, lead the American people to change Washington. Romney will, in fact, hang out with his establishment friends, managing the decay, and explaining to the rest of us why that's the best hope we have.

God must love Barack Obama.