Rare glimpse of the truth

Every once in awhile, if one pays close attention, Republicans give us a glimpse of the truth in terms of their ultimate motivation. And it has nothing to do with core principles, or philosophical differences, or what they truly believe to be the best governance, or what they believe to be best for the American people.

It's about power, folks. Just power. Keeping it and wielding it on behalf of those they serve -- who are not the bulk of citizens of this country. From U.S. New and World Report:

Daschle and the Obamacrats certainly have the momentum: a near-landslide presidential election victory, at least 58 Democratic votes in the Senate, and a nasty recession that will make many Americans yearn for economic security. Already the health insurance companies seem set back on their heels. The industry's trade organization now says it would accept new rules requiring them to cover pre-existing conditions as long as there was a universal mandate for all Americans to have health insurance. On top of all that, Obama clearly wants to make healthcare reform a priority in his first term, as evidenced by the selection of a heavy hitter like Daschle. And even if he wasn't interested, Congress sure is, with Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy readying a plan in the Senate. A few observations:

1) Passage would be a political gamechanger. Recently, I stumbled across this analysis of how nationalized healthcare in Great Britain affected the political environment there. As Norman Markowitz in Political Affairs, a journal of "Marxist thought," puts it: "After the Labor Party established the National Health Service after World War II, supposedly conservative workers and low-income people under religious and other influences who tended to support the Conservatives were much more likely to vote for the Labor Party when health care, social welfare, education and pro-working class policies were enacted by labor-supported governments."

Passing Obamacare would be like performing exactly the opposite function of turning people into investors. Whereas the Investor Class is more conservative than the rest of America, creating the Obamacare Class would pull America to the left. Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, who first found that wonderful Markowitz quote, puts it succinctly in a recent blog post: "Blocking Obama's health plan is key to the GOP's survival."

Got that? No debate about the impact on the uninsured or the insured -- just a fight to protect the power base of the GOP.

It was ever thus.

False Patriots

From Veteran Bob Geiger to Republicans on Veterans Day: "...shove it."

Shameful and Shameless

Reaction is already starting to the Repubs shameless exploitation of 911 tonight. Via Hunter at DKos, a media post that will set the tone, is my prediction.

Deconstructing Stupid

This kind of shit really pisses me off. Enough that I went searching through the archives there, looking back over David Ignatius’ constant bemoaning of partisan politics when they were being played most effectively by Republicans. I couldn’t find anything! Imagine that!

All of this began when the Republicans decided to impeach a President for lying about a blow-job “because we can” as Newt Gingrich explained at the time. That began the era of truly ugly, partisan power politics that Ignatius so bemoans. Nixon may have started it with the racial coding of his campaign and the dirty tricks of his administration, but it has reached its gross and ugly fruition in this Bush Administration. Never in the history of this country has one party so abused the power under its control to achieve its agenda, both at the Executive level through power-corrupted cabinet officials and through its legislative leadership and behavior. And when the American people finally woke up and elected a Democratic majority in 2002, suddenly a supermajority of 60 became necessary to get anything done, because issues from small to large became subject to filibuster. This was a breathtaking change in how our government had ever functioned up until that time and we accept it now as a given standard.

This is what the Republicans have done to our government.

But in the face of the continuing Rovian bile that substitutes for reason in Republican campaigns, Democrats shouldn’t fight back?

The “Get Even” bunch?! You’ve got to be kidding me! The Democratic leadership of this last Congress could easily have drawn up Articles of Impeachment against this President, and even the least informed citizen could have helped to write the list of crimes. Yet stupidly, IMHO, they believed themselves faced with the choice of actually pushing forward some legislation that would benefit real people, or spend their two years trying to hold the Bush administration accountable.

So spare me the post-partisan lullabye. The Republicans continue to demonstrate every day that the only ball they know how to play is hardball.

Game on.

h/t to Glenzilla, who picks it up as part of a larger theme.