The Garlic: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls

Senator Roark, from “Sin City - That Yellow Bastard”

Well, the Oxymoronpalooza ended this weekend, otherwise referred to by the MSM as the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, and, not to anyone's surprise, there was more red meat tossed about then at a month full of Texas barbecues.

That would the Texas that hasn't - yet - seceded from the Union.

They forgathered in New Orleans, and true to the PartyofNoican coda, they managed to completely avoid making any mention, not just something compassionate, or heartfelt, none-zero-zilch, comments about the city The Bush Grindhouse let drown.

No doubt, the Café du Monde must have been off-limits, lest any of the slimebags be caught being "French" by some tourist Teabagger, surely creating a litmus test, and, likely, a career-killer.

You had the volcano-denier, the only open-publically-elected exorcist, Governor Bobby Jindal, whining about the PartyofNoicans feelings being hurt, because people call them names.

And, there was Diaper-Boy, Senator David Vitter, pumping up Mommy Moose, and the Teabaggers, urging the PartyofNoicans to walk hand-in-hand with, that they're getting a bad rap too, while whipping up a little smear against the President.

Of course, a red-meat-mashing wouldn't be complete without the Village-of-the-Damned Cheney daughter, Liz, doing her part to "Keep America Safe", much in the manner of her father, delivering, essentially, an off-the-shelf NeoNitWit speech;

Below the fold, more excerpts from Cheney's speech.

When it comes to foreign policy, it looks increasingly like there are three pillars to the “Obama Doctrine” – (1)Apologize for America, (2)Abandon our allies, and (3)Appease our enemies.

I think she stopped short of advocating the building of those 1950's "Fallout Shelters".

Mommy Moose was there, fresh off her Bachmann-Palin Overdrive (and her little joust with the President), perhaps, using the event as an early dry run at her candidacy in 2012.

Or not;

There was nothing about the speech that necessarily indicated one way or another whether Palin would run for president in 2012. She's not doing anything that looks like preparing a national organization, but she's so well-known that she wouldn't have to. Her political outfit, SarahPAC, did hand out little packets of Alaska-made caribou and reindeer jerky to every delegate ("An Alaskan Snack from SarahPAC!" the label read, along with invitations to follow her on Twitter and Facebook). And there were a few Palin buttons around the room.

But it's not entirely clear she'd have the whole thing sewn up. As the delegates filtered out of the hall afterwards, I stopped one woman randomly, figuring her own Palin button meant she was a big fan. True enough, she was. "It was awesome," she said, identifying herself only as Loretta from east Tennessee. "She's wonderful. She thinks the way America thinks, she knows what we want, and she's not afraid to voice it... We need change, but we can't afford Obama's change -- he's killing us." Palin, she told me, would bring the right kind of changes -- jobs, prosperity, God back in our country. "This is a Christian country, it's not a Muslim country," she said. "We have Muslims here, and they are welcome here. But we as Christians have rights, too." Obama, she insisted, is a Muslim (which is why she wouldn't tell me her last name or exactly where she lives). So surely, Loretta would be voting for Palin if she ran in two years? "I don't think she's ready," she said. "I love her. I don't think we're ready for her as president yet... I think she still needs to educate herself a little more on foreign policy."

Well, she got to do a lot of bad jokes, bash the President, and it doesn't matter if she just took the stage and started reading the Louisiana phone book, the Teabaggers love her - emphatic period.

Last, but not, least, we saved the best for last.

This was, truly, almost, breathtaking.

The former Speaker of the House, the man who put out a "Contract On America", Newt Gingrich actually used the gathering to display that Einstein's theory on insanity, was accurate.

Steve Benen was in awe, describing it as "PARTY LIKE IT'S 1995", while Al Giordano billed it as "Supervillain Newt Reveals His Plan for World Domination!".

See, Newt wants to bend the river, turn around this nonsense of being "the Party of No", to becoming the the "Party of Yes".

Yes, that is, to shutting down the government (again);

But the plan that Gingrich got the most applause from, as he tried to rally a few thousand GOP activists to say "yes," involved... just saying no in a different way. "When we win control of the House and Senate this fall, stage one of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any more," he said. "The Congress doesn't have to pass the money. If EPA gets no money, it can't enforce cap and trade."

[snip]

In other words, shut down the government. Which, of course, worked out very well for Gingrich the last time he tried it.

[snip]

If that sounds familiar, it's probably because that was the agenda Gingrich carried into power after the 1994 election. It turns out the "party of yes" concept isn't actually about working with the White House to get anything done; it's about finding new ways to sell the same old GOP policies without looking stubborn in the process.

While the crowd lapped it up like happy soup, Jed Lewison, over on the Daily Kos, stuck a pin in Newt's balloon;

Teabaggers of the world: Newt is lying to you

Moreover, if Gingrich were serious, the GOP would be shutting down the Federal government now. Whether or not we like it, the fact remains that Republicans in the Senate could filibuster appropriations bills today. They don't need to win the fall elections to stop appropriations bills. Yet they are not following Gingrich's strategy because they know -- as Gingrich proved in 1995 -- that it is political suicide.

[snip]

I suppose if the GOP were to essentially dismantle the Federal government, stopping the Social Security Administration from sending out checks and blocking Medicare from paying claims that they could also stop the subsidies. But if you believe the GOP will actually go that far, I've got a state in Bob McDonnell's Confederacy to sell you.

Newt's pledge may sound good to the teabagging Republicans. But they should also know this: They. Will. Never. Do. It. Didn't do it in 1995. Won't do it in 2011.

To add some more spice, Make-Up Mitt Romney won the Straw Pole (by one vote, over Ron Paul), and he wasn't even in attendance.

With this level of idiocracy being bandied about, the Midterms are sure gonna be fun.

Newt, Romney, The Wasilla Whiz Kid...

It's going to be like the blogosphere having an intravenous feed of shit you just can't make up.