The only thing worse than a poor loser is a poor winner. The Democrats qualify on both fronts. They spent 8 years hating everybody and everything affiliated with George W. Bush. They unleashed their attack dogs on Bush, Cheney, Rove, the WAR, the evils of torture, lack of WMD, inability to connect the dots, the end of liberty(in an effort to connect the dots) and GWB’s reckless and needless attack on the Axis of Evil (that’s not looking so stupid now, is it?).
Now they appear committed to spending however many years they are in power – surprise - attacking Republicans. So far GWB is blamed at least twice weekly for something evil, dark and perverted. Rush Limbaugh is maligned at least as often, and Sarah Palin continues to be the Left’s go-to target for venomous spittle. I’m not sure why, maybe they just don’t like Tina Fey.
So what happened to all that bipartisan hopey-changey crap we heard about before the election?
Here’s what passes for bipartisan in D.C.:
Stimulus Bill of 2009: The granddaddy of all Porkulus. The 1,073-page monstrosity included the biggest spending increase since World War II, but more important, it expanded the role of the federal government across the breadth of American business, health care, energy and welfare policy. So critical, it had to be passed before anybody in either house of Congress had time to read it. The Dems effectively cut off all debate and called a roll call vote on the floor because President Obama said it was URGENT and needed to be put in place IMMEDIATELY, before the WEEKEND! He said that just before he flew off for a very special Valentine’s date night with Lady M in Chicago. Congress passed it on Friday, as instructed. He got around to signing it the following Tuesday.
Not that it mattered, since Joe Biden acknowledged last Sunday that the stimulus package isn't really working anyway.
Yesterday we saw the same punk-play pulled on the 2009 appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice and Science. House Democrats whacked the debate on 3 amendments proposed by Republicans, despite having provided assurances that there would be time for debate. But wait. The winners changed their minds. No time to debate the value of cutting funding for ACORN, an allegedly non-partisan organization accused of fevered campaigning for Obama and Obama’s initiatives in direct violation of it’s non-profit status. Just for the record, ACORN is currently under investigation for voter fraud in 14 states, and has admitted to fraud in several others. No need to exclude a group like that from taking part in the collection of census data. Data that will be used to re-district and re-apportion voting districts. Nope, no problem there. By the way, ACORN registered 1,315,000 voters last year alone. Good work! Because drug addicts and schizophrenics – dead or alive - have a right to vote too.
Look for the same, “hey, we won so shut up” poor-winner sportsmanship when far more important legislation appears on Capital Hill: universal health care , climate change/cap and trade, and rules to make it easier to form unions – also known innocuously as “card check”. All of which will be followed closely by proposals to fund the guaranteed “shortfall” of funding for all of the above. Expect VAT to be mentioned, and not as a replacement for existing income taxes but in addition to. These initiatives will be rammed through with equal grace as the Dems push to maximize the take-away from all of these “crises”.
Since Republicans earned their way into the minority dungeon, they have no power to stop anything the Democratic majority supports. Let’s hope at least some of the Dems like being poor winners better than being poor losers and start paying attention to what their own constituents really want out of this Congress. When they voted for hope and change, I think they hoped to keep some of their change.
