The Workday Liberal

The last week has been highly instructive when considering the course taken by the leadership of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. There are three cases in which they used deception for purely short term political gain.

Speaker Pelosi is on notice that any, and I do mean ANY, chance the Republicans perceive to attack her will be used. Even if they have to make up the stuff they are attacking her for.

Even the White House could not go along with the right wing noise machine in full throat over the supposed plane scandal, which really wasn't. When the Republican attack dogs are too far out there for even Karl Rove to back up, you KNOW that's freaking bad. So strike one.

Then the "house based Republican Study Committee" had to admit they were wrong to attack Speaker Pelosi for posting clips from C-Span on You Tube. In the press release by the RSC, they say: "The RSC spoke with C-SPAN today, who confirmed that these videos violate C-SPAN copyright/trademark of the House proceedings." The funny thing is... and any news junkie worth their weight in spit knows this already... C-Span is NOT copyrighted. So the RSC backed off... Strike two.


So Pelosi is obviously a target... but how about the American people in general?

For strike three, consider the debate on the non binding resolution to condemn the troop surge into Iraq called for by President Bush. There are actually two parts to this deception... I'm calling b.s. on the word put out by Republican leadership before the vote that 50-60 Republicans were expected to vote for the resolution. This was done in order to minimize the well understood number more likely to defect from the Republicans, which in the final tally was 17. If a corporation were to intentionally inflate their predicted losses before the actual figures were released, they would be accused of fraud and insider trading.

Let us consider the entire house debate on the surge. What issue could be more vital to the interests of the nation than the way forward in Iraq? But house Republicans pre determined to debate anything but the surge. As a leaked memo from Republicans Pete Hoekstra and John Shadegg proclaimed: "If we let Democrats force us into a debate on the surge (in troops) or the current situation in Iraq, we lose,".

Thus we were regaled with Republican silliness about Normandy, fighting them there so we don't have to here, the global war on terror, and anything else the resolution did not actually address. So we see the Republicans unwilling to face the issue which is of the greatest concern to most Americans. They deceptively seek to change the subject, and prove themselves incapable of admitting the paucity of their logic, except in internal memo's which are not meant to see the light of day.

These house Republicans have proven themselves to be completely deceptive and devoid of redeeming virtue where matters of public trust are involved. If this is the example they intend to carry into the 2008 elections, I expect another tidal wave to cement Democratic power in that institution.