Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

There's hypocrisy that makes you shake your head, and then there's the kind of hypocrisy that just takes your breath away. This is definitely the latter kind:

In Bill Clinton's second term, Senate Republicans did everything they could to slow the Democratic president's drive to fill judicial vacancies. By 2001, those same Senate Republicans changed their own rules to make it easier for George W. Bush to stack the federal courts. By 2003, a group of senators led by Orrin Hatch had completely re-written the rules on senatorial objections to would-be judges.

Left without the traditional tools, Senate Democrats started filibustering the most extreme right-wing nominees. This, Republicans said, was literally unconstitutional and an affront that tore at the fabric of our system of government. "Advice and consent," the GOP said, meant giving every judicial nominee an up-or-down vote. Anything else, they said, would be an outrageous insult to our democracy.

According to reports in Roll Call, Politico, and The Hill, Senate Republicans have miraculously changed their minds again.

President Barack Obama should fill vacant spots on the federal bench with former President Bush's judicial nominees to help avoid another huge fight over the judiciary, all 41 Senate Republicans said Monday.

In a letter to the White House, the Republican senators said Obama would "change the tone in Washington" if he were to renominate Bush nominees like Peter Keisler, Glen Conrad and Paul Diamond. And they requested that Obama respect the Senate's constitutional role in reviewing judicial nominees by seeking their consultation about potential nominees from their respective states.

"Regretfully, if we are not consulted on, and approve of, a nominee from our states, the Republican Conference will be unable to support moving forward on that nominee," the letter warns. "And we will act to preserve this principle and the rights of our colleagues if it is not."

In other words, Republicans are threatening a filibuster of judges if they're not happy.

Even by the standards of the congressional GOP, this is truly ridiculous. The same people who said judicial filibusters were literally illegal are threatening to launch judicial filibusters. What's more, they also want to see the failed former president's unsuccessful judicial nominees put on the federal bench for life -- just a gesture of goodwill.

All that talk about up-or-down votes has gone completely out the window. The passionate arguments about an elected president being able to stack the courts with like-minded judges, enjoying lifetime appointments, are but a memory. Why, it's almost as if the Republicans' deeply held principles vary depending on the president's political party. That couldn't be, could it?

*headdesk*

Criminy. These fuckwits are truly beyond belief. They remind me of thieves who, when caught, ask the court for mercy and for that plasma screen TV they couldn't haul out with the rest of the loot.

And the same party that told us that a single word said against Bush's policies was treason are now gleefully proclaiming their desire to see their President fail. The latest to join the fail wagon:

On CNN this afternoon, Rick Sanchez asked Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) — the Chairman of the House Republican Caucus — if he agreed with Rush Limbaugh’s claim that “all Republicans want Barack Obama to fail.” Pence at first demurred, calling Sanchez’s question a “nice try.” “I know what Rush Limbaugh meant,” he said. But after listing off several caricatured aspects of Obama’s economic recovery plan, Pence said, “[Y]ou bet, we want those policies to fail..."

And because dumbfuckery loves plenty of company:

In an LA Times op-ed today, right-wing blogger Jonah Goldberg joins the bandwagon of conservatives hoping for President Obama’s failure. Implying that hoping for the country’s failure is a perfectly natural sentiment, Goldberg writes, “The scorpion must sting the frog. The conservative must object to socialized medicine”:

Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh’s statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails.

Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too.

In a pathetic attempt to excuse themselves, Cons are now bleating that Dems rooted for Bush's failure. David Neiwert does the debunking duty. There's no excuse, and even their lame "but Mommy, they started it!" excuse fails. They truly are the party of fail.

As well as the party of hypocrisy. We're not done with the hypocrisy yet, oh, hells, no. The next time they start whining about earmarks, remind them of this little detail:

For all the recent Republican talk about wasteful spending and unnecessary earmarks, the GOP is more than pulling its own weight when it comes to the very practice they claim to hate.

Drinking water and wastewater projects, mosquito-trapping research and beaver management and control, are just a few of the pet priorities -- known as earmarks, that catapulted Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, to the top of the charts for earmarks in the $410 omnibus spending bill, according to a spreadsheet released on Monday by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington advocacy group.

Angry debate is expected throughout this week in Congress over the roughly 9,000 earmarks in the 2009 spending bill that critics complain represent the worst kind of pork barrel spending. And the signal by the White House that President Obama will sign the bill, despite his own campaign promises to end earmarks, has only fueled the fury, particularly among some Republicans, like Senator John McCain of Arizona.

But while Mr. McCain, a former nominee for president, has been among the loudest critics of the earmarks in the bill, the spreadsheet released by Taxpayers for Common Sense shows that six Republican senators are among the top 10 earmarkers, with Mr. Cochran, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee in the lead. [emphasis added]

Given the makeup of the Senate, I'd expect to see four of the top 10 as Republicans, since the GOP caucus is 41% of the overall body. That six of the top 10 earmarks are Republicans suggests the minority party is especially ambitious when it comes to these spending measures. (Indeed, "red" states do surprisingly well in the omnibus bill.)

If they hate earmarks so much, why do they ask for more than their share? This seems like a pertinent question. I shall enjoy asking it of Con candidates very much.

I'll also enjoy asking them their opinion of Limbaughtomy and Glenn "Crazy Fucker" Beck:

What's the latest evidence of Obama Evilness, according to Glenn Beck? On last night's show, it came in the form of his plans for changing the tax deduction structure for upper-income folks when they give charitably:

I don't think I've ever seen a president or a government do anything that I thought was out-and-out evil. I mean, we've gotten close. I think rendition is pretty darned evil. But this is enslaving, what our president has proposed and what is in this new bill. Changes in the tax deductions for charitable giving!

What makes this enslavement? Beck never really gives a coherent explanation, but it apparently has to do with how much he hates giving through taxes and how he loves to give through his own charitable donation.

Evidently, in Beck's world, it's important to keep up tax exemptions for charitable donations so that people can keep using them as a tax dodge.

Let's take a moment to appreciate this. In Glenn Beck's world, renditioning people so they can be tortured is, eh, kinda evil. But lowering the tax breaks for charitable donations? That's beyond-Hitler evil! That's the most purest evilest dastardly scheme ever to be hatched by anybody anywhere in the whole history of the universe. And, a few percentage points off the tax deduction means that poor Glenn Beck has become a slave.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?