Changing of the Guard – Republicans’ ABOUT FACE

You can conclude that the guard has changed when the charlatan Reverend Al-The-Felon Sharpton is invited to the White House. He was there with Gingrich and NYC Mayor Bloomberg to discuss education issues with President Obama.

Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa was also invited, but had more pressing duties in LA; he sent his regrets. Too bad, for the Administration missed a chance of putting together a rainbow coalition. Blacks, Jews, and rednecks were represented. The attendance by the LA mayor would have killed two birds with one stone – he is a Catholic and a Latino.

The meeting will not resolve the public education issues that has spanned over 20 years as Democrats cannot improve the system unless they break the grip of the self-promoting teacher unions. So they are stuck with a flawed system, because they will not attack organized labor. Republicans half-heartedly tried to solve the problems with vouchers; this measure is strongly opposed by the teachers’ union and Al Sharpton, because it saps money from public schools.

With Obama trying to fuse a bipartisan national consensus using the Colors of Benetton as a model, the Republicans are self-destructive, explosively ripping themselves apart. After eight years in power, political defeat requires an adjustment that so far the GOP is unable to make.

Who really knows whether Obama's economic programs will produce results, but Republicans are non-cooperative and betting on failure; the press has tagged them as the Party of NO. At the same time, Republicans have eagerly embraced Obama's two wars. My judgement, albeit a long shot, is that Obama’s economic policies have a better chance of success than his continued occupation of Iraq or an expanded war in Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Republicans have been wrong for 8 years, so what is new.

First mistake in the post-election era made by Republicans was the selection of Michael Steele as head of the Republican National Committee. By now most in the party agree that the guy is a super flake who makes more gaffes than even VEEP Biden. Republicans figured they needed a man of color to counter Obama. They persisted in this fixation by promoting Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana who stumbled badly in a national speech intentionally set up for him; simply put, both men are not ready for prime-time.

Face of the Republican party is represented in Congress by Boehner who is oiled up with Man Tan, Cantor who has to ask for permission to go to the bathroom and McConnell who habitually finds wrong answers to issues. His latest farce was letting slippery Senator Arlen Specter slither over to the Democratic caucus.

Ring masters for the Republicans today are radio entertainer Limbaugh and former Veep Cheney. Both of them share a common history as they failed to answer the colors during the Vietnam war. It is more than ironic that the hawkish Republican Party is led today by them.

Limbaugh is a powerful force in what is left of the Republican party. Republican politicians often have apologized to him when they have crossed him. At the same time, he treats his followers with contempt, calling them DITTO HEADS. He is on public record hoping that Obama fails. Recently, at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he was taken on by black comedienne Wanda Sykes who savaged him with sharp sarcasm that included his lack of patriotism. Remains to be seen how Limbaugh reacts to this nation-wide verbal kick in the ass. He will find that black comics, unlike John Kerry Democrats, who respond mealy mouthed to attacks, always go for the jugular vein.

Since the Presidents’ inauguration, former VEEP Cheney has continuously attacked Obama for being soft on terrorism. Best guess is that he is trying to vindicate himself for Bush policies and preserve himself from legal jeopardy as domestic terrorist investigations proceed. Only a DITTO HEAD would believe a guy who brought us the fictions of WMD and links between Saddam and al Qaeda as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq.

Republicans have this over sentimental view of President Reagan's presidency. We know conservatives by nature prefer the past to the present and future. This regression is further fanned by a paranoia regarding change that impels them to always assume worst case outcomes. Theoretically, spokesmen such Limbaugh set up false dichotomies, e.g., dialectic stress between liberals and conservatives. This polarization exists mainly in their minds as a majority of American voters fall in the center. Now you know the rest of story of why only 21% of Americans have sufficient courage to call themselves Republicans. Colonel Robert E Bartos USa Ret.

Picture: Painting Napoleon's Retreat From Moscow by Ernest Meissonier