Another thing for which we can thank the GOP knuckledraggers

Writing for the Nation, John Nichols reports that:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Rove and Bush hold Congress in contempt

How could they not consider Congress loathsome?

Karl Rove intends to ignore his latest Congressional subpoena (about which see this, this and the articles linked therein) and will do so while appealing to the authority of President Bush, according to a Newsweek
article.

If only Congress had impeached President Bush as it rightly should have…. If only the members of Congress were committed to the rule of law and to meeting their Constitutional responsibilities…. By delaying the inevitable, by refusing to discipline a sitting President whose actions demanded discipline, they merely put off working through the confrontation that must occur when Congress finds itself forced to bind a rogue executive to the law (Fisher, 1997, 181-182).

Obama, the decider

According to reports (see this, this, this and this), Karl Rove's attorney has already sent Rove's most recent House Judiciary Committee subpoena to the White House for its opinion. The question the White House must address: Whether former President Bush retains the capacity to assert executive privilege in the matters at hand, namely, Rove's role in the Justice Department's Attorney dismissal and Siegelman scandals and whether Congress can force a President's advisors to give testimony.

Mr. Evil faces the lights

According to a Talking Points Memo report, John Conyers (D-MI) yesterday (1.26.2009) issued a subpoena to Karl Rove ordering Rove to appear before the House Judiciary Committee early next month.

The Committee press release can be read here and the subpoena can be read here.

Out of power but not out of whine

The Bush cabal returns home

Karl Rove now interprets history. He no longer makes it. Thus demoted and perceptibly bitter about the indignities he and his kind now suffer, his recent effort to interpret the Bush II Presidency is meant to teach the truth to those of us too dumb to get 'it':

…as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.

Rove then spends the rest of his article identifying the policies George W. Bush allegedly got right. His list makes for tedious reading, as one would expect, since his Boss bungled so much when he had state power in his hands! Oddly enough, Rove missed Bush's greatest and, perhaps, only real accomplishment. Bush failed to take the steps necessary to insulate himself and his crew from the legal challenges that await them. Freedom loving people everywhere can be grateful about his lack of foresight!

How bad has life become for the GOP?

David Michael Green nicely sums up the situation:

The regressive movement — so deluded that they still like to think of themselves as conservatives — is on death watch now, and yet it doesn't know it, nor does it remotely begin to understand why. But the reasons — both proximate and distant — are plain enough to see. The immediate problem is that they ran a pathetic candidate against a great candidate. More importantly, they ran a slimy, Rovian campaign against a guy who knew how to fight back, and also had the guts to do so, and they presented it all to a national electorate that is frightened enough to no longer be willing to indulge foolery anymore. The proof of this is that John McCain might actually have the best night of any Republican candidate on Tuesday, as Democrats massively increase their majorities in both the House and the Senate, perhaps even gaining a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority, perhaps even giving Senate Minority Leader and major scuzzbucket Mitch McConnnell (from Kentucky no less!) his walking papers. And, as if that weren't proof enough, this comes after a similar blow-out in 2006, when the GOP got a "thumpin'", and lost control of both houses of Congress. And, to top it all off, voters don't even particularly like Democrats, and they sure don't like the current Congress, which is controlled by Democrats. It's rare for an American political party to get stomped two elections in a row, let alone by a generally disliked alternative party. You have to be screwing up really badly to do that, in a collective effort sort of way [emphasis added].

Indeed, the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party in 1980, will benefit greatly from the American party system's democracy deficit. Its democracy deficit: America necessarily lacks an electorally viable party opposed to its party duopoly. This lack must exist because the institutional mechanisms are in place which ensure that it will exist.

Old Scratch calls out McCain for lying!

Along with a bit of his customary nonsense, Karl Rove stated the obvious this morning (9.14.2008):

Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

And he made the claim on Fox News!