An item in The Onion has been making the rounds in lefty circles. "Obama's Declaration Of Swine Flu Emergency Prompts Pro-Swine-Flu Republican Response" has the GOP taking the H1N1 advocate position, because the president is against it. "Thousands of Americans -- hardworking ordinary Americans like you and me -- already have H1N1," RNC chairman Michael Steele says. "Now Obama wants to take that away from us. Ask yourself: Do you want the federal government making these kinds of health care decisions for you and your family." Bobby Jindal urges Louisianans to stop washing their hands and Rush Limbaugh "made a point of dying of the virus during his show on Wednesday."The reason that liberals are sharing this one paragraph "News in Brief" spoof is that it's really not that far outside the realm of possibility. As I've said more times than it's possible to link to here, the GOP has become a party of kneejerk reactionaries, whose first and often only impulse is to oppose anything that Democrats think might be a good idea. I often put it this way; Republicans' only principle is that Democrats are always wrong. Other than that, they don't really stand for much anymore. Look at the healthcare debate. Democrats want a public option, but the GOP was against that. So they floated the idea of co-ops instead of a public option and Republicans were against that too. A trigger? Nope. Opt-out? Nope. By default, the party took the position of defending an unsustainable healthcare "system" rapidly heading straight for a cliff. As stubborn and unbudgeable as the symbol of the other party, they planted their butts in the road like jackasses and refused to move forward, backward, left, or right. As a result, congressional Republicans are enjoying the lowest approval ratings in at least a decade. It may be that its the old habit of escalating a failing strategy that's driving them to continue this campaign of contrariness or may just be that they have no idea what else to do, but we've gotten to the point where The Onion's satire is only barely satirical.
Harry Reid takes a lot of lumps on this blog, but when he nails it, it deserves repeating. In a floor speech to the Senate, Reid addressed GOP obstructionism yesterday (note to avoid confusion, Reid refers to "Madame President" because he has to hand over the gavel to make a floor speech. He's referring to the Senate's President pro tempore):... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
