The Obamacare hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee are a grudge spectacle.
That is how Blow begins
this column for Thursday's New York Times.
The column is rich with quotable material. You can have passing on quote after quote, which are all right on target.
It is on the health care hearings, to be sure, but so much more.
After saying in the 2nd paragraph that the hearings are not about fixing problems but fixing blame, he then offers these words in the 3rd paragraph:
These hearings are a charade and a sham. They are devoid of equanimity and reek of vengeance. This is not the way to win an argument, only to elevate the screeching.
But then, we have known for some time that the only focus for many (most?) Republicans is to make Obama fail.
They want health care to fail so they can say he achieved nothing.
They do not want immigration reform because they fear it will help the Democrats.
They have no interest in attempting to do what is good for the American people, at least not in their rhetoric. After all, remember those Republicans who voted against the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the stimulus) but then tried to take credit for stimulus spending in their districts.
But there is so much more in this column.
The Republicans used to claim they were the party of big ideas. Blow reviews some of what they have done on some major issues, and then offers these words:
When is the last time you heard a truly big idea coming from the right that could become law and could move this country forward? Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Exactly. Silence.
They are less interested in making laws that get things done than in making laws that prevent people from doing things. They want to halt progress and rewind it a few decades. For them, what used to be is always better than what can be, and that is a fatal logic flaw in a dynamic society.
A dynamic society. Gee, that was one reason why we have had dynamic interpretations of the Constitutional material, an approach that horrifies the senior member of the Supreme Court in longevity, one Antonin Scalia.
As to how far they want to rewind things? Well, there are those who want to go back at least to 1960 or thereabouts - Rick Perry and others have talked about secession, we have a state legislator who says he could support slavery if his constituents wanted it. As far as the notion of equal rights even politically, the disenfranchisement efforts aimed at Democratic constituencies seem clearly intended to roll back several constitutional provisions, say the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments.
Blow's conclusion is powerful. He notes that Republican claims to be speaking for the American people seems not to recognize the changing nature of the American people.
Perhaps that is deliberate. After all, we have all these darker skinned people who are not white Anglo Protestants or at least Catholic of the right European ethnicities. I sometimes wonder how many of those on the right would be prepared to adopt the three Ks of the German National Socialists, that in considering the role of women they should be limited to Kinder, Kirche, Kuche (children, church and cooking). If you do not fit their model of who is an American, you don't count.
It is a move of desperation, because demography dooms that path. As Sen. Graham rightly noted, there ain't enough old white men to sustain such an approach.
Blow's final two paragraphs are each a single sentence.
The penultimate:
So, absent ideas, we are forced to watch the G.O.P. wallow in frustration, and hold back American progress in doing so.
Wallow - what an appropriate verb for the greedy porcines like the Brothers Koch who are trying to buy the government to further enrich themselves.
Frustration - because no matter how much they spend there simply are not enough of them to permanently sustain the control they now attempt to wield.
And Blow's final paragraph says all you need to know:
This isn’t about Obamacare, this is about Obama, and the country knows it and is paying for it.
It has been all along.
From stoking the birthers to the secret meetings on how to undermine the administration even as the inauguration is occurring to a Senate Leader who said his responsibility was to ensure that Obama was a 1 term president - umm, I think you failed at that Mr. McConnell.
Has the press finally had enough?
Are we seeing evidence that the conventional wisdom is now ready to call out the Republicans? After all, Chuck Todd did note the House majority was solely an artifact of gerrymandered districts. And even that might not be sufficient to hold the House if the current direction continues.
There are things to critique in Blow's column. I will leave that to you, dear readers. You should read the entire piece.
Grudge Spectacle I am reminded that 39 years ago today, October 30, was a real grudge spectacle, the rumble in the jungle, in Kinshasa, where Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman and regained his rightful title of heavyweight champion.
Spectacle can be enjoyable - hence the word spectacular.
But the spectacle in this case is how thoroughly Republicans continue to destroy their brand in the eyes of the American people.
Which is why even a badly flawed candidate like Terry McAuliffe one week from tonight will easily be elected the next Governor of Virginia.
It's simple.
He's not a Republican.