by Eyck Freymann
Frank Rich has an excellent op-ed in the New York Times today about the behavior of the house Republican leadership throughout the stimulus debate. I post his words because he says it better than I: although Obama and his team are not perfect and will make mistakes, trying to subvert his plan for recovery for political gain is both immoral and stupid. The economy is going down the toilet, and congressional Republicans are showing now that they don't care about the unemployment rate or the deficit. Not a single house Republican voted for the stimulus plan this week, instead favoring a tax-cut laden plan which has been demonstrably shown to be less effective than infrastructure spending.
“It’s up to me to hijack the Obama honeymoon,” Limbaugh soon gloated, “and I’ve done it.” In his dreams. He has hijacked what’s left of the Republican Party; the Obama honeymoon remains intact. The nightmare is that we have so irrelevant, clownish and childish an opposition party at a moment when America is in an all-hands-on-deck emergency that’s as trying as war. To paraphrase a dictum that has been variously attributed to two of our most storied leaders in times of great challenge, Thomas Paine and George Patton, the Republicans should either lead, follow or get out of the grown-ups’ way.
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