Thread: Obama Seeks Bipartisanship; RNC Declares War

December 31, 2008
Obama Seeks Bipartisanship; Republican National Committee Declares War (Brent Budowsky)
@ 9:53 am

Barack Obama will probably be tested by the Russians, but he is definitely being tested right now by the Republicans. While Obama seeks a bipartisan stimulus and decides whether to investigate issues such as torture and domestic spying, the Republican National Committee (RNC) discusses a sick and demented CD about "Barack the Magic Negro" and prepares to formally attack Bush, Republican leaders in Congress, Democratic leaders and Obama as socialists and oppose any economic aid to companies and seek to dramatically cut back any economic recovery program for the nation.

How far will Republicans take this, and how will Obama respond? Remember, in the wisdom of the Senate Republicans this past year, they killed a puny $60 billion economic stimulus and killed even a puny $15 billion emergency aid for the auto industry by Congress. The pundit class is, again, missing the really important question, which is this: Will the RNC attack everyone in a radical, extreme and irresponsible effort to kill any significant economic program, attack everyone as socialists and intimidate Republican leaders in Congress into joining their ill-fated mission of economic destruction?

The issue will soon be joined at the RNC meeting, and it remains to be seen whether the full Republican committee goes along and then, whether Republicans in Congress will be bullied and intimidated again into do-nothing policies of extreme opposition to any meaningful government role in saving the economy. If they do, how Barack Obama responds will determine the course of his presidency.

My view is that there should be some form of Committee of Inquiry to determine whether actions of torture or eavesdropping were not legal under law and to determine what action should be taken. I would also propose a formal report summarizing whether eavesdropping or torture actually saved America from specific terrorist acts that were prevented, which I doubt, or whether there were fear tactics that justified wrongful action and did not enhance our security, which would show the fear tactics were a falsehood protected by secrecy.

My view is that torture fundamentally violates historic American notions of law and clear rules of international law and that what was done violates cardinal American principles that were honored from George Washington through Bill Clinton and accepted by every president and Congress until George W. Bush. The same is true for eavesdropping on a massive scale, in clear violation of the FISA law, without even any proof that our security was enhanced.

Be that as it may, I would have strongly preferred naming Chuck Hagel or Sam Nunn rather than Bob Gates as secretary of Defense, and have warned, and warn again here, that Obama will not buy himself anything lasting with Republicans through Gates. Time will tell who is right about this.

The larger issue is, there is a cancer of extremism in the Republican Party that is manifested today with the ridiculous and sick "Barack the Magic Negro" CD and will now be hotly debated when the RNC decides whether to take an extreme, obstructionist, McCarthyite position opposing government support for the economy and slandering Democrats and Republicans alike as "socialists.â€

If the GOP wants to find its way out of the wilderness, it should figure out why so many formerly staunch GOP people left the party under Bush.

The lapses in fiscal conservatism were Reason #1, as the party of the once sober became the party of pork barrel favors and drunken irresponsibility with the likes of Ted Stevens and Don Young and the Jack Abramoff circle of influence.

Whatever happened to the GOP as the party of Robert "Mr. Republican" Taft, who preached foreign non-intervention militarily? Somehow, a supposedly GOP Executive Branch followed a path of utter lunacy personified by the Cheney "1% SOLUTION" doctrine which held that if there was even a 1% chance that a foreign nation was harboring terrorists then the War on Terror demanded that it be given a 100% U.S. military response (attack).

Meanwhile ... back here in the HOMELAND that got attacked on 9/11 ... Bush and Cheney allowed the border to our South to stay porous for who knows how many millions to cross over, local police departments got mixed messages about their ability to deal with illegals who committed crimes, and the seaports were found to be no better after 9/11 than they were before.

There are a lot of ex-GOP who regard the U.S. as having an essentially one party system right now, with no party speaking up for the America of small business and private enterprise and common-sense "sovereignty" issues. Rather, it's a Socialist/Oligopoly Economic Party guided by entrenched elites in Washington, DC, and it is characterized by extremes of Left (Democrat) and Right (today's reduced-size GOP) on largely social issues like abortion, gay marriages, racial affirmative action and the like.

When 80% of the polled American population expresses a big NO to the bailout of Wall Street, and yet Bush and the Congress (both parties voting) pass the bailout bill regardless of that popular sentiment, what does that tell anybody?