Comments on: The Republican “Insurgency”

By: mnmike44

mnmike44 — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:11:31 +0000

The Republicans seem to have gone off the deep end and have become ideologically rigid, held hostage by their far right “base”, so it strikes me as unbelievably ironic that, al qaeda, means “the base” in English and this buffoon is using tactics he picked up from them.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmâ€”Wait a minute!
OMG! The Republicans are terrorists! Now it all makes sense.

By: david

david — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:48:10 +0000

Oh, Iâ€™m ticked off at the GOP for their stupid big spending ways from 2002-2006…

Right, just not enough to stop voting for them so they can keep doing the exact same thing. Brilliant.

By: mw

mw — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:26:25 +0000

@Jim
Actually Jim, I was just practicing my standard word flop inversion when confronted by a rabid Democratic partisan comment. Not up to my usual standards. I’m a little out of practice.

However, as the Democrats hold all the power now, I am required by libertarian principles to treat them as the primary threat to liberty. Just as I was required to to treat the Republicans that way from 2000-2006.

So I’ll probably be sounding like a Republican to you for the next four years.

By: Jim S

Jim S — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:36:29 +0000

Ah, the usual “Republicans are saints, Democrats are evil.” lines from mw. Like his Republican heroes care whether or not any bill helps the country so long as the Democrats are in the White House or hold the Congress.

By: mw

mw — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:38:50 +0000

@Mario
If anything is now clear, itâ€™s that Democrats are playing politics. I canâ€™t imagine any version of the stimulus bill more filled with partisan self-serving pork than the one they wrote themselves and is now being foisted on the American taxpayer.

Hereâ€™s the bottom line: Democrats are the majority party and theyâ€™re very happy. They have their eyes set on making up for every minute lost when they were out of power, and they are going to do it all in this one gigantic pile of pure Democratic partisan pork.They have have absolutely no desire to let anyone consider whether this bill will actually aid the country in this time of crisis.

In short, Democrats are being Democrats.

By: Rich Horton

Rich Horton — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:54:33 +0000

Oh, I’m ticked off at the GOP for their stupid big spending ways from 2002-2006….always have been….always said so. But I’ll always be against short circuiting the democratic process (and yes claiming everything, including funding the building of a frisbee golf course OR extending unemployment insurance benefits, can now no longer be discussed in the normal fashion because this is an “emergency” is an example of short circuiting the democratic system.)

And if you want to claim the GOP put forward almost a trillion dollars in spending without any Democratic involvement, I’ll need a link.

By: gerryf

gerryf — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:04:27 +0000

Rich,

You cannot be serious. Obama says not to prosecute those responsible for 9-11 and attack on the cole….ou got a link for that?

But you’re right the stimulus plan is the product of one party without Democratic deliberation. You find this bad? I don’t recall you complaining when the GOP did it.

OK. That said, I agree with you. The stimulus bill could be much better then proposed. And when Obama invited the GOP to roll up their sleaves and help, it sure would have been nice if they had. They didn’t. Instead, they opted to use this as opportunity to cloud the issue and re-invent themselves as concerned about fiscal responsibility.

The GOP has no credibility in this.

Furthermore, when Obama invited them to take part in the process, they slapped him in the face because they would rather start running for election in 2010 and 2012 rather than facing up to the hard decisions today.

You want to be ticked off at the Dems. Go ahead. I support you. But if you are not ticked off at the GOP as well, you don’t have any credibility either.

By: Jim S

Jim S — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:09:36 +0000

I’ve thought of the Republicans as Taliban Lite for several years now.

By: JMG

JMG — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:40:48 +0000

Rich,

Your (feigned?) righteous indignation is almost has hilarious as a Congressional Republican insisting they’re the Taliban.

By: Mario Piperni

Mario Piperni — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:18:52 +0000

If anything is now clear, it’s that Republicans are playing politics. I can’t imagine any version of the stimulus bill they’d accept unless it was one they wrote themselves.

Here’s the bottom line: Republicans are the minority party and they’re not happy. They have their eyes set on the Congressional elections in 2010 and have absolutely no desire to aid Obama (or their country) in this time of crisis.

In short, Republicans are being Republicans.

By: Rich Horton

Rich Horton — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:26:09 +0000

What terrorists? Obama just announced he doesn’t think those who attack the US (USS Cole, 9/11) should be prosecuted.

What I find more outrageous is the belief that a “stimulus” plan that was the product of a single party, done without democratic deliberation, AND is opposed by a majority of the American people, is somehow the holy of holy’s and you must be demonized if you dare disapprove of it.

I also think it is morally wrong to insist that it is illegitimate for Republicans to be Republicans, which is what this kind of garbage amounts to.

And yes…why couldnt he have picked a “nice” insurgency….maybe the cuddly one that friendly Che fellow led.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:11:46 +0000

This only confirms my suspicion that most if not all republicans are nothing more than “slack jawwed” good ol’ boys. How stupid! The country is on the verge of economic collapse after 8 years of the Bush administration and almost unilateral support from the republican house and senate, now all of a sudden, they (republicans) think that they know what is good for the economy. Unbelievable!!! The republicans are worse than any taliban…they are akin to domestic terrorists!!!

By: Trescml

Trescml — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:14:50 +0000

Always nice to see a political party taking lessons from the Taliban. Of all the insurgencies is that the one he had to pick?

By: kranky kritter

kranky kritter — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:02:13 +0000

It’s certainly stupid and ill-advised for any politician to voluntarily analogize common and well-established political practices to modern terrorist practices.

That said, he’s not really incorrect. Here’s the thing. If you read up on fourth generation warfare(4GW), the practice of modern terrorism, one insight hits you over the head. Namely that modern terrorist insurgencies carefully and deliberately incorporate politics and public relations into whatever they do. Because the primary goal is to manage public opinion their way. Why? because it’s proven to be a successful way for an outnumbered and outgunned foe to achieve its objectives by turning the conflict into a test of will and opinion, and away from being a test of numbers and weapons.

So, the well-established common practices of any minority political party will have similarities to what terrorists do…BECAUSE terrorist organizations are part minority political party.

So it’s not controversial or upsetting to me to hear Sessions say what he did. But yeah, extraordinarily stupid to say in public and likely to be quite upsetting to folks at a glance.

Let’s send Sessions a Che Guevera t-shirt and a framed copy of the first rule of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.