... the title being a pluralization of the Eugene O'Neill play, whose Wikipedic plot summary, mutatis mutandis, reads: "The characters are are all GOP men, except for a handful of female crackpots, who are dead-end nihilists and who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in each other's company and who drift without purpose from day to day, coming fully to life only during President Obama's annual visit to deliver the State of the Union."
A morality play it decidedly is not. There's no triumphant dénouement, no heartbroken revelations, no flashes of spiritual insight on any road to political recovery. These are undisguised dead-enders, whose epilogue, while still being written, is easily imagined.
"We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans," said Speaker Boehner yesterday--presumably in search of some existentialist basis--about the president's amplified use of executive orders. "There are options that are available to us," he added.
One of them being, one supposes, an Article II, Section 4 remedy?
Granted, Boehner's ominous ambiguity was a far cry from calling for impeachment hearings. However the only identifiable "basis" of House Republicans' constitutionalism has been to ice this president in any way they can. Having altogether neutralized him on the legislative front, they've nothing left to stir the diseased passions of their radical base. Except ...
Assisting this cause yesterday was the utterly self-unaware chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Xavier Becerra, who blurted: "[Obama is] working with Congress. He has said, 'Let’s pass the legislation that’s been introduced in the Senate and the House to pass the minimum wage.' But should he have to wait because of the intransigents?"
The short answer to that is, of course, an incontrovertible Yes. No doubt Becerra was contextually speaking of a pay boost for the federally contracted only, but he failed to frame his comment that way. Hence those who applauded the autocratic tendencies of a "unified executive" six years ago, but who have since converted to a dedicated Whiggism, will be quoting this seemingly monarchically inclined congressman for months to come. Thanks, Xavier.
Still, House Republicans require little but their own passionate delusions to strike up fresh rounds of deranged rabble-rousing. Proximate government shutdowns are now out, and ceiling collapses seem to have lost their nihilistic appeal. So ... impeachment, anyone?
I wouldn't put it past them.
Comments