This morning I listened to CNN's Carol Costello interview Wisconsin Congressman Reid Ribble, in which she asked the Republican pol what he thought of his party's turmoil. Well, well, he conceded, for the moment his party is in a spot of "disarray." He added, however, that this is but typical of the Republican Party's love of internal "debate."
There is just nothing Republicans love more than digging into "ideas," discussing their merits and sorting them out, said Ribble.
This is one of those oft-uttered fallacies that always makes me wonder if the utterer genuinely believes the fallacy he's uttering, or is he uttering it only for publicly consumed hornswoggling?
After all, where was the GOP's love of internal debate when much-needed healthcare reform was winding its tortured way through Congress? Where was the love of ideas when President Obama was attempting to craft an intelligent, Keynesian stimulation of a (Republican-) shattered economy? Where was Republicans' love of intellectual tussle when Obama, almost single-handedly, was rescuing the American auto industry?
One could go on — easily. For indeed when, throughout the past seven years, have Republicans offered anything but mindless and monolithic opposition to every Obama initiative? Which of Obama's proposals or presidential triumphs weren't assaulted by predetermined, altogether unthinking Republican malice as either strong-willed socialist despotism or weak-minded Democratic incompetence?
Just where the hell has all this Ribbled love of internal debate or intraparty competition of ideas been? The self-evident answer is that it has suffered a disgraceful absence.
But it still leaves me wondering: Do at least some of the Ribbles of the GOP's rhetorical horseshit really believe in their proffered fallacy? I honestly can't say, since we're dealing with devilishly dishonest minds, in which there is often mixed, as William Peter Blatty reminded us, a smidgeon of truth.
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