P.M. Carpenter

House Democrats should have let Republicans go down

It was a bittersweet blow that House Democrats delivered to the Bomb-throwing Caucus yesterday: sweet because it was decisive, but bitter in its inconstancy.

Pelosi's Thermopylae-like stand against the bungling forces of nihilism was a thing of resolute beauty. I doubted her forces had it in them. As Politico puts it, "In the past, Democrats have thrown Boehner a lifeline … when the speaker couldn’t scare up the votes" to execute even the most basic functions of governance. Yesterday, "they showed the GOP what it feels like when they refuse."

House Republicans stood alone — humiliated, defeated, exposed as the utterly incompetent cutthroats they are.

Only one strategy will dynamite Republicans from their monstrous locus of power: the Dems' unremitting resistance. In the GOP's morbid mind, proper American governance means a party of one — which of course must be their party; pluralism, aisle-crossing and compromise need never apply. As the minority party, they skirmished as a brutish and monolithic whole, and they promised to govern that way as the majority. Just give them a chance, they said to voters. The voters, mostly through omission, did. And yesterday, briefly, we saw the result: chaos, confusion, and the subordination of national-security needs to Republicans' characteristic political pettiness.

Someday, such pettiness will imperil the nation more permanently. Crisis-to-crisis "governance" cannot stand; critical departments and their agencies charged with the protection or general welfare of the American citizenry simply cannot function on a staggering, week-to-week basis. In brief, no party can run the world's oldest and mightiest republic like a tinhorn banana operation without, in time, there being hell to pay.

If that party tries, but finds it can stumble through and survive only because of unmerited lifelines being thrown by those it abuses, then the danger accumulates and national catastrophe awaits. It requires guts and a gritty resolve by the conscientious resistance, but those lifelines must be withheld and the offending party be allowed to go down. Otherwise, someday we'll surely stumble our way into that awaiting catastrophe.

Yesterday, with House Republicans flailing and splashing about in their petty distress, the lifeline came. "Your vote tonight [for not three weeks but merely one week of DHS funding; the House actually went backward] will assure that we will vote for full funding next week," announced Pelosi to her plucky band of resisters.

But guess what? Sure enough, you guessed it: "It’s her opinion, there is no agreement," replied a typically ungrateful Boehner spokesman.

Grover Norquist was more right than he knew when he once mused that government should be drowned in a bathtub. His only error was that he had the wrong government in mind.

 

DHS funding. Yet another crisis made in the GOP.

I'm watching the DHS temporary funding vote in the House and at the moment — a very extended moment — it's failing, 204-222. Boehner's head-counting operation did its usual crackerjack job.

CNN's Dana Bash is reporting that the speaker has no Plan B. 

What else can one say? This is GOP governance for you: inept, fractious, and harmful.

On the upside I salute House Democrats. They mainly held firm, only 12 Yeas in support of Boehner's governance in three-week tranches; 172 opposed (some voting is still in progress). This was precisely what they needed to do to further expose GOP as the party of perpetual anarchy.

***

Of course it could be that Boehner knew he lacked the votes, but had to demonstrate the obvious to his moronic majority. Should he proceed to a full-funding vote, he'll finally be doing his job.     

 

The GOP is imploding at warp speed

The wackos and establishmentarians are drawing their swords and squaring off with delightful rapidity. First, at CPAC this morning, came Laura Ingraham and some of her usual, talk-radio trash:

Women could really turn out in droves for Jeb Bush. What woman doesn't like a man who gives her a blank check at Tiffany's? Diamonds are a girl's best friend -- that would be a great theme song for Jeb Bush.

Ingraham said this at a convention of her fellow GOP comrades, mind you — all of whom may soon need to fake orgasms for GOP nominee Bush. Angered pushback was swift. Reports HuffPost:

Ingraham's joke … didn't sit well with some, including Bush confidant Ana Navarro and conservative Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin.

Tweeted Navarro: "As a woman, I find it particularly distasteful that Ms. Ingraham's anti-Jeb obsession, turned into a swipe at Columba Bush at CPAC. Unseemly." Tweeted Rubin: "A distasteful personal attack on jeb by Laura Ingraham," and "Ingraham apparently doesn't think anyone can beat Bush so she will do it. Tries to help Walker but just made worse. Claimed it was a joke." 

I've been predicting a permanent rupture in the Republican Party for longer than I care to recall. What makes today's intensely personal collisions so encouraging? A Bush nomination could effect the schism just as easily as a Walker nomination could. Heads the American political system wins, tails the GOP loses.

If the establishment gets the primary nod — again — the wacko faction might finally wander into third-party territory. Why not? Bush is doomed anyway. And should the wacko faction prevail, the party will, at long last, get the 1964 nomination — and subsequent electoral results — it's been begging for. The establishment could then jettison whatever wackos remain.

For everyone but Republicans in 2016, it would be a win-win. And "it" is looking hopeful.

 

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Shelby, Reid, Giancana and Molière

I rather like Harry Reid's Sam Giancana look.

And with it has come some muscle, which Capitol Hill's more traditional mobsters abhor. From the party that loved Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's extortions and knee-cappings: "[Harry Reid] is controlling the agenda. And he probably will control the agenda if we don’t change the rules." 

Speaking was Alabama's Sen. Richard Shelby, paladin of caprice and lawlessness, both of which, of course, he detests in Reid — and, it should go without saying, President Obama. When Democrats practice strong-arm politics they're tyrants; when Republicans practice it they're God-fearing, America-loving, Constitution-abiding patriots.

I try not to make too much of political hypocrisy, since the two-word term is reducible to one: politics. There are certain behaviors peculiar to both minority and majority parties — always have been, always will be — and virtue has nothing to do with them. The behaviors are dictated by status, which shifts, often according to electoral whim. Hence what is virtuous today (e.g., the filibuster) could easily be maleficent tomorrow, meaning it was never really virtuous in the first place — just expedient. Hence hypocrisy. Hence politics.

But, Republicans have a way of flaunting this inescapable core of politics — i.e., the art of hypocrisy — that chills the epidermis and makes it downright crawl. They're just so bloody brazen about their hypocrisy … well, it gives it a really bad name. From Molière we once had "Tartuffian" to describe the most wretched of hypocritical decadence. Until Republicans rejoin the merely standard-issue hypocrites, I suggest Molière be revived.

 

The Bush-Walker gangland war has begun

The target is now strapped with firmness to Scott Walker's back. And if this, from former W. speechwriter Michael Gerson, is an indication of what's to come, there will be blood, for The Dynasty is already aiming its arrows with lethal precision:

When Scott Walker pronounced himself agnostic about President Obama’s patriotism and Christian faith, it must have seemed like a clever formulation….

[Yet a] politician who tried this form of passive aggression before also got criticized for it. During the 2008 Democratic primary fight, Hillary Clinton said that Obama was not a Muslim "as far as I know" — sounding more like one of the wackier speakers at a CPAC convention….

For Walker, this is more of a paper cut than a chest wound. But for the Republican Party, which some Americans associate with religious exclusivity, it can’t be good for a front-runner to sound religiously exclusive….

Questioning [Obama's] affirmation [of religious faith] involves a serious charge — an accusation of the worst sort of cynicism.

The worst of cynicism — scarcely a charge suggesting a mere paper cut; and a characterization of Walker as "one of the wackier speakers at a CPAC convention" — a forbidding portrayal of unelectable extremism.

There's no need to wonder how the Bushies will go after him. They're advertising the time, place and manner of their collective hit: Scott Walker, they'll relentlessly thunder from the stump and on air and in print, is the very breed of intolerant wingnut that has reduced the party to a regional joke, put the White House out of reach, and even further constricts its electoral appeal. Such an assault may have little positive effect for Jeb in sparsely populated caucus states like Iowa, but there's always the Establishment vote in — and many more delegates from — New York, California, Florida, and so on.

The Bushies are well aware, as I am, of the power of wingnutism among the GOP's hardest-core base. They also know they'll have months to frame Gov. Walker as a self-destructive blend of Palin, Santorum, Gohmert and Torquemada — and plenty of graft and Establishment mob associates to do it with. They will, as well, have the freedom to attack at will, because Walker will be spending most of his time dodging questions about his latest rabble-rousing, rather than piecing together any kind of coherent campaign.

Will the Bushies' bushwhacking work? Well now that's the fundamental question, which they, I suspect, will formulate thus: Do you fellow Republicans want a real shot at the White House? Or do you just want another shutout earned from a cheap politician huckstering his cheap thrills?

 

Timothy Egan's rousing double-header

As I've opined before, Timothy Egan is the NYT's finest opinion writer, and he proves it again in "Happy Talk History." His column is a charming denunciation of that idiot legislator in Oklahoma who wants to convert A.P. American history courses into proselytizing hoedowns, which I'm sure you've read about — which is to say, laughed or cried at. The subtext of Egan's piece is, however, the dreariness of high school history as reconstructed from the stale towers of academic officialdom. Writes Egan:

Much of the A.P. history framework is boring, bland, and sounds like it was written by committee, which it was. There’s little narrative, drama, heroics or personality — in other words, the real-life stuff that makes for thrilling history.

Here’s a sample "learning objective" from the current national course and exam description from the College Board: "Analyze the role of economic, political, social and ethnic factions on the formation of regional identities in what would become the United States from the colonial period through the 19th century."

Jesus! Why not ask the teenage test-takers to formulate a unified theory of physics while they're at it? I have a couple graduate degrees in the subject and I'd need a few days just to sort out the question, let alone come up with a coherent, on-the-spot answer. What the College Board knows, or at least hopes, though, is that the poor high schoolers have been put through the mill of rote learning: Woven through their boring, bland text is The Answer (in 500 words or less) to that immensely unruly setup, and all they need do is vomit it back. As Egan observes, "And you wonder why the humanities are in trouble."

I'm delighted to report that my 15-year-old daughter tells me that history is now her favorite subject in school. Her love of the discipline comes not from her readings but from her teacher, who is genuinely excited about history and passes that excitement along to her students. Even though my daughter has informed me of this, I could have guessed it, because I've read some of my daughter's history textbook. No one could get excited about history by reading that dead, uninspired phone book of a narrative. Egads.

Were I a high school history teacher — and I wouldn't be for long; administration's long knives would soon be out — I'd first apologize to my students for requiring their parents to pay for their boring, bland, exorbitantly priced textbooks and then I'd assign selections from Hofstadter, Halberstam, McPherson and Foner. I'd encourage them to think about change, which is the stuff of history, but mostly I'd advise them to simply enjoy great writing from great historical writers. Once they're interested enough in the subject to actually care about it, then they could tackle the College Board's incorrigible questions.

 

Scott Walker's stunningly ill-reasoned op-ed

We've all read a lot of disingenuous op-eds in our time, but I doubt we'll ever read one more cynically mendacious than Scott Walker's in USA Today. It finishes:

There has been much discussion about a media double standard where Republicans are covered differently than Democrats, asked to weigh in on issues the Democrats don't face. As a result, when we refuse to take the media's bait, we suffer.

I felt it this week when I was asked to weigh in on what other people said and did and what others' beliefs are. If you are looking for answers to those questions, ask those people.

I will always choose to focus on what matters to the American people, not what matters to the media.

What Walker presents here is the classic Sarah Palin gambit: While exploiting the media, he portrays himself as a victim of it. Has Walker risen in the polls because he has "focus[ed] on what matters to the American people"? Or has his rightist popularity soared precisely because he has said nothing of any value to anyone?

It's Walker's suggestion. We could ask Ms. Palin how that gambit worked out for her. We wouldn't get a straight answer, of course, and therein lies the even more salient reason why Palin is now a complete nobody in politics. Even blinkered right wingers figured out she has nothing to say.

In dodging what were never sensitive questions, Walker has tailored himself a haunting straitjacket. He thought it cute and politically expedient to deny knowledge of Obama's religion or love of country, and indeed it was expedient. The cheaper the politics, the more the GOP base eats it up. Yet presidential campaigns are long, grueling, and as much about questioning others' ideas as avowing one's own principles. And here, Walker cuts himself out of the game. You wish to know what he thinks of "others' beliefs"? Walker puts it in writing: You'll have to ask them.

If the political press does its job — granted, that's a big if — this is a shortsighted blunder that will stalk him throughout the primaries.

One other thing. I can assure the governor that those political others won't be shy about questioning Walker's beliefs, as well as his past activities. And once their assorted opposition-research teams begin spewing their mountains of dirt and skulduggery, the questions will abound. What will Walker's answer then be? That he doesn't talk about himself, either?

This clown is amateur hour personified.

 

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Before me is a computer screen on which it is written, "0% chance of snow." Just to the left of the screen is a window, whose blinds are open, and beyond that there's a veritable blizzard taking place. 

 

DHS as a Republican chew toy

First Read:

It's déjà vu for Boehner: He's caught between trying to help his caucus out of tricky situations, and looking over his shoulder for conservatives who want his head on a platter if he caves to Democrats. What we haven't been able to understand: Why haven't Boehner and Republicans been able to make their success (so far) in the courts against Obama's executive action an asset here?

That's simple. House conservatives don't want a resolution to the funding impasse. It was actually a Texas judge holding the platter, on which lay an easy out for House Republicans: Obama's executive action had been struck down, temporarily anyway, and higher courts would soon decide the executive action's constitutionality. With that ruling, conservatives could have declared victory, passed a DHS funding bill, and that, as they say, would have been that.

But "that," for Republicans, possessed two cyclopean pitfalls. First of all, using a judicial ruling as a legislative escape hatch would have been logical, and Republicans don't "do" logic. The even more sizable pitfall was, as always, political: Republicans have their teeth deep into a new and quite popular chew toy, and they're not about to let loose. Screwing tens of thousands of government workers and endangering national security may not be ideal for the country, but what do the GOP base and its couple hundred Huey Longs care? There's raw Obama-Tyranny!-bashing to be had, and that's all that matters.

 

These guys have six-figure incomes?

It just keeps getting better.

Politico reports that though "the situation is very fluid," Speaker Boehner is "strongly considering amending the Senate’s 'clean' DHS funding bill and dumping it back on McConnell’s doorstep." Still, Boehner & Co. is "mulling several different options" and — drumroll — "One is to approve a one- to two-week stopgap funding bill" for Homeland Security.

Yesterday I ridiculed House Republicans for being more incompetent than Stalin's macroeconomists. The latter at least had five-year plans, I wrote, while for Republicans, six-week CRs appear to constitute long-range planning. I had no idea at the time that six-week CRs for Republicans really are long-range planning.

And then there's this belly laugh: "McConnell, meanwhile, has turned into one of the most loathed figures among far-right House conservatives."

Remember Will Rogers' line? "I don't make jokes; I just watch the government and report the facts."

 

Jeb Bush, CPAC, and Fun Friday

Jeb Bush will address those perpetually angry CPAC villagers tomorrow, about which WaPo's Robert Costa has this enigmatic entry:

Carefully watching will be handicappers in the Republican donor and consultant communities who will measure just how far Bush goes to ingratiate himself with conservatives, and whether he is still willing, as he said months ago, to "lose the primary to win the general."

Costa — a conservative himself, though he uses a pen instead of crayons — leaves me puzzled. Did he mean to write "or whether" Bush is willing to sacrifice some primary support in exchange for greater electability in the general? The distinction is critical, for the contrast of Bush vs. the activist base is the essential question. He can't both ingratiate himself with conservatives and speak of moderate policies on immigration, education and taxes; he must choose one or the other, and the former would be likely to explode in his face. That Bush, in the next 24 hours, would suddenly realize his hard-right convictions is laughable. Even CPAC conservatives would get the joke — just as they did in 2012 when Mitt Romney performed his "severely conservative" stand-up routine.

More puzzling is Costa's neutral treatment of "the Republican donor and consultant communities." Their handicappers will be "carefully watching" indeed. But watching for what? I'd be interested in knowing what Costa — as a conservative — believes the handicappers are looking for. Are they hoping that Bush grovels? Or stands his ground? Which path do strategists and donors see as more favorable to Bush? Costa leaves us hanging.

But, I guess we'll just have to tune in tomorrow — same batty channel, same batty time.

 

DHS funding and the Toddler Party

Not since Ronald Reagan circulated an ignorant tale of an extravagant "welfare queen" has a Republican pol so perfectly demonstrated the immature smallness of the modern conservative mind. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank gives us Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona, who, speaking yesterday of a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, said he had chatted with two TSA agents about it, "and they both said: 'Stay strong. We’ll be all right.'"

That's all Rep. Franks needs to propel him on a policy decision of major ramifications: the idle bravado of two TSA agents.

The effects of a DHS shutdown on 30,000 unpaid, furloughed employees are of no concern. Nor are the demoralizing effects on 50,000 TSA screening agents who'd be required to work, but without pay, as would 40,000 Customs and Border Protection employees, 40,000 active-duty Coast Guard members, 13,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and 4,000 Secret Service employees. For Rep. Frank, it's not to worry — because two of them will be "all right." He had talked with them. He knows.

Altogether foreign to Frank's narrowest of epistemological capacity is the straightforward concept of absurdity. And in this case, the absurdity is as immense as it is straightforward. Said an anguished DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson yesterday: It's "absurd to be having this conversation" within the sprawling throes of domestic terrorist threats. "It is even absurd that I have to spend a very, very large part of my work week simply defending paying our people to work."

I guess Johnson was unaware of Frank's consultation with the two TSA agents. What's to worry? "We'll be all right."

I don't often quote the Bible, yet one of its wisest and better-known passages neatly defines the fundamental difference between this country's Trent Frankses and its Jeh Johnsons, and the passage deserves citation: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Who would have thought that the world's greatest power would someday be at the seemingly endless mercy of mere toddlers?

 

Meet Hillary's new campaign manager: J. Pierrepont Finch

There must be something wrong with PPP's latest poll, which "finds Hillary Clinton leading all of her potential Republican candidates by between 7 and 10 points." I'm not skeptical of Hillary's overall lead, but I am skeptical of its parts, which make little sense:

She has 7 point advantages over Rand Paul (47/40), and Rick Perry and Marco Rubio (48/41). She has 8 point advantages over Ben Carson, Chris Christie, and Scott Walker all at 48/40. Her advantage over Mike Huckabee is 9 points at 50/41, and she's up 10 points each over Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz at 50/40.

I appreciate that PPP is reporting within margins of error, but at their extremes the margins are exceedingly suspicious. Clinton would best Bush by more than she would beat Rand Paul, or the inimitable Rick Perry? — who can't even get a foothold among the Republican base? Those findings are more than peculiar. They're unbelievable. And any finding that puts Jeb Bush in the same electoral neighborhood as Ted Cruz is surely an outlier.

That said, PPP's overall finding is consistent with other polls of late — most have shown high single or double-digit leads for Clinton over the oppositional pool. And the rule of thumb is that popular-vote leads approximating 10 percent render the leader statistically unbeatable in the Electoral College. For a national lead to reach 10 percent (or thereabout), battleground states must on the whole be favorable to the leader.

What's Hillary's secret of success? It's kind of a musical Broadway thing. She stopped doing interviews after her book tour, which is to say, she shut the hell up and stopped really trying.