According to the Washington Post, the blundering GOP seeks to shift the target of their flailing desperation from Nancy Pelosi to President Obama. So far, their efforts include second guessing Obama's letter to the Russians (an act they would've decried as treason had the letter been written by Bush), hyperventilating over Obama's remarks on stock market fluctuations and denouncing Obama's tireless efforts to improve the sinking plight of American workers.
The GOP hopes their initial attacks on Obama help restore their facade as the party of fiscal discipline, but, in light of the astronomical debt they amassed during their reign, statements like the following brim with hilarious irony:
"He is the president of United States it takes the signature of the president for this to become law," Boehner said, referring to a provision that includes thousands of Congressionally mandated projects, or earmarks, that Obama criticized during his campaign. "So the president ought to keep his campaign promise."
(snip)
"There is no point in triangulation when it comes to his budget," Boehner told a group of his House members last week in a closed-door meeting, referring to the previous strategy of trying to isolate congressional Democrats from Obama. "It's the president's budget. His name is on it."
In keeping with the Republican tradition of being a part of the problem rather than the solution, Boehner and his band of Limbaugh-worshipping malcontents have nothing constructive to offer the budget debate. Speaking to this fact, a former spokesperson for Dennis Hastert called out his Republican colleagues for not countering Obama's proposals with solutions of their own:
Ron Bonjean, who was a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Republicans are smart to oppose Obama's economic vision, but he questioned whether they have found the right proposals to offer as alternatives.
"Are they also connecting with Americans who have serious financial anxiety?" he said
But Ron Bonjean is not alone. The Washington Post report reveals that tis the season for anonymous Republican operatives to criticize their fumbling colleagues' total lack of vision:
Party strategists said that while the stimulus opposition unified all but three Republicans in Congress, it wasn't clear that Republicans had articulated their alternative proposals, which focused on larger tax-cut provisions and less direct government spending.
Republicans have already lined up to oppose Obama's budget, but they admit it will be hard to make it clear to the public that they have a vision beyond opposing Obama.
Sometimes I marvel at how the Republican party has managed to survive this long.