House Republicans blame their incompetence on Dems

December 8, 2006

I know I’ve been harping on congressional Republicans wrapping up the 109th with a dud, and then childishly pouring salt in the soil to screw things up for Dems next year, but there was an entertaining twist today.

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) compared the GOP’s behavior on the Hill to the Bush administration’s management of the war. “The war in Iraq and the Republicans in Congress are in disarray,” Pelosi said. “They are going to leave a mess as they go out.”

Given their rather humiliating record, Republicans probably should have just let this one go, but they couldn’t help themselves.

“House Democrats have spent every waking moment of the past Congress obstructing any effort towards progress,” said Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “They have tried to blow up the tracks on immigration reform, tax relief, earmark reform, you name it.

Madden added, “And now in the last few days of this Congress where they have a chance to help make progress, they decide instead to abdicate their responsibilities and play the blame game. Just goes to show they’re a party of zero ideas and zero action.”

This may be the perfect ending for the last day of 12 years of Republican rule of Congress — a nonsensical, buck-passing response rationalizing failure.

Look back over the last two years. What “progress” have Dems obstructed? Can anyone name one major piece of legislation that failed because of Democratic opposition?

Kevin Madden, a former Tom DeLay acolyte who will soon join Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, pointed to “immigration reform,” for example. I know it was three months ago, and perhaps House Republicans have trouble remember that far back, but Dems didn’t “obstruct” any changes in immigration policy; internal Republicans squabbling doomed any chance at reform. The Republican-led House disagreed with the Republican-led Senate, and neither of which were fond of the ideas coming from the Republican-led White House. Where’s the obstructionism?

Madden also said Dems “blew up the tracks” on “tax relief.” Really? When? Was there a single tax-cut bill brought to the floor since 2001 that Dems successfully blocked?

Madden even blamed Dems for standing in the way of “earmark reform.” In reality, Republicans never even considered changing the way in which appropriations bills are created and passed. Dems supported reform; Republicans didn’t.

What we’re left with his perhaps the most miserable excuse of the year for the GOP’s inability to govern. They had everything they wanted — majorities of every branch of government, with powerless Dems left on the sidelines to watch — and they still couldn’t govern. Asked for explanation, the House’s top Republican spin doctor says it’s the Dems fault … and then says Dems shouldn’t play the “blame game.”

Moreover, let’s not forget that these same clowns have not only failed in their responsibilities, they’re intentionally gumming up the works so Congress will have trouble next year. Asked for an explanation, the best the Republicans can come up with is “I know you are but what am I?”

They’re truly pathetic.

Since the wingnut attention span is effectively two weeks, they’ve all forgotten that the Republican’t House took immigration reform on the road rather than into a conference with the Senate and achieved…

… wait for it …

… NOTHING!

Lying sacks of s**t.

  • pathetic and, apparently, arithmatically impaired. Dems didn’t have the votes to obstruct much of anything except the line in the cafeteria. The Rethugs held the WH, Senate, House, and a majority of the Supreme Court and DC Ct of Appeals. Once it became clear in the judicial fights that the Dems really were scared of the “nuclear option,” there simply was no mechanism for obstruction, even had the Dems had the will.

    and that doesn’t even get into the issues of conference committee meetings where Dems weren’t invited, rules that did not permit amendments on the floor, and numerous other way-over-the-line structural tools the Rethugs used to ensure there could not even be honest policy debate, much less obstruction.

    anyone in the general public who has been so inattentive as to buy this nonsense should have their voting rights revoked.

  • I think Dems did a good job on blocking Social Security “reform” – and we should be proud of it. I only wish we could have said the same about bankruptcy “reform” and tort “reform”.

  • Kevin Madden’s professed take on reality is not only dead wrong, it is a bad perspective for me, for my family, for my community, for my state, and for my country. Madden, it seems, can’t put himself and his fellow political brethen in the Republican party in the mix of what has actually happened, (or in the case of the 109th Congress didn’t happen), with any accurate clarity.

    With any such Maddenesque viewpoint reasoned analysis, reliance on empirical data and careful application of consensus driven policy are foreign concepts. For Madden and his ilk, small “d” democracy seems to be more an inconvenience than the basis of sovereignty for America. Americans have short patience with politicos who produce nothing, or in turn only produce policies beneficial to a small portion of our citizens.

    In his denial of reality, Madden can’t fathom the message Americans sent on Novemeber 7th. He is a cynic, and an opportunist. May his political career be a very short one! -Kevo

  • OK he can talk all he wants to but I don’t think anyone but pure die-hard Republican partisans believe him and even then there are likely to be some that think that comment by Madden is a crock (though for party’s sake they would never say so out loud). I can’t decide if this is more partisan hackary or ff this guy truly believe what he said. If he does believe this he needs to really question the GOP’s ability to govern as a party, ’cause they had both houses and the White House, so any incompetence is of their own making. Then he needs to get therapy or a new brain, cause either his sanity ran for the hills or his brain did.

    What I find so interesting is that when Republicans were in the minority and they did what they could to disrupt the workings of Congress they were patriots, out to save the Union from the corrupt and incompetent Democrats. And now that Democrats are back in control of both houses of Congress, I am sure they will be trotting out this line and its cousins all the time.

  • Apparently we all forgot how the Democrats chained the front doors to the Capitol Building and demand that the 109th Congress be the least-working Congress in our nation’s history.

    Or how Harry Reid held a gun to Ted Stevens’ head, screaming “you BETTER take this highway money for your state, or I’ll blow your goddamned head off, you son of a bitch!”

    Or how the GOP bravely fought off an evil plot by Rep John Tierney (D-MA) to instill a Truman Commission to restore Congresional oversight on war contracts.

    What short memories we have

  • “Just goes to show they’re a party of zero ideas and zero action.”

    And the Republitards are the party of zeros. Corrupt, race-baiting, rich-bitch-coddling, no-oversight, lying, overconfident, smug, clueless, Karl-Rove-sucking, incompetent zeros.

    Oh, and I can’t wait to see how these fuckwits handle themselves now that they are in the (natural) minority.

  • Kingston was on Fox News touting his 3 days a week is good for families non-sense. Even Gibson wasn’t falling for this. Video at C&L.

    The truly interesting statement made by Kingston was .”We came up here and some weeks we just twiddled our thumbs…”. He is actually telling us with a straight face that with 3 day work weeks, they were still twiddling their thumbs ? Wow, must be easy when the executive branch and lobbyist write all your legislation, and then tell you how to vote.

    And these clowns are so far gone, they don’t even realize how dysfunctional that sounds the rest of us working stiffs, but at least he had the decency to take credit for doing nothing and not throwing in the Dems lap like some others. Never mind, I forgot he said that Dems were anti-family. Some how, some way, it is never, ever their own fault.

    And I bet they are still wondering how they could have lost Congress.

  • Please folks – remember repeat a lie often enough and ….. you know the rest. What do you expect from that bunch of losers? Thank God they loss.

  • By abdicating their most basic responsibility as a governing majority–FUNDING THE OPERATIONS OF GOVERNMENT–solely to make it more difficult for Democrats to implement the broadly popular planks of their 100-Hour Agenda, the corrupt and depraved congressional Republican caucus shows what they’re all about.

    Perhaps two dozen of those 200-odd clowns legitimately deserve their honored positions. I hope Pelosi steamrolls their punk asses.

  • Madden’s a fuckbrain. What, Democrats should’ve supported the “fetal pain” bill and let John Bolton get reappointed? Fuck off, moron.

    And shouldn’t Madden’s bosses be working on appropriations bills instead of whining about Democratic non-cooperation?

  • The creeps still think they can just make an argument, no matter how easily it can be disproven, and make it stick.

    They really think people are that dumb.

    Unfortunately, a lot of their voters are that dumb, and we should not forget that. We need to keep handy a list of SIMPLE examples of Republicans lying their asses off (like CB’s list above) and be ready to pelt the Republican idiots with them.

  • The last set of numbers I saw showed a Congressional approval rating of 13 percent. I think Madden is just confused. He thinks single digits are better.

  • It’s beyond comprehension: blaming the Democrats, who’ve been systematically excluded from any role in governing ever since these holier-than-thou RepublicRats took over. I’m afraid they have no one to blame but themselves. No one else is creepy enough to behave a like a RepublicRat.

  • Buzzmon @3 brings up a good point:

    I think we all need to be a bit more sensitive here and stop offending those who have done us no harm.

    I’m talking about:

    1) your lying sacks of shit,
    2) your fuckwits,
    3) those who are batshit crazy (an ATF for me)
    4) creeps (an oldie but a goodie)
    5) fuckbrains (a newbie but destined to be a classic)
    6) punkasses,
    7) incompetent zeros
    8) clowns

    I’m sure there are a few that I’m forgetting but no insult is intended to them.

    These people have their own problems – can’t we just leave them alone? I think calling Republicans “Republicans” is demeaning and offensive enough.

  • “And now in the last few days of this Congress where they have a chance to help make progress, they decide instead to abdicate their responsibilities and play the blame game.” – Kevin Madden at the close of the 109th Congress.

    “I know some just want to engage in the blame game. There will be a time to talk about all these issues. We’ve got problems to solve.” – Scott McClellan in post-Katrina presser.

    Wow, deja vu all over again. Trotting out the blame game expression indicates just how much Republicans hate “accountability moments,” which don’t just happen during elections. The parallels between the Katrina debacle and the tenure of the 109th Congress are obvious: two disasters horribly mismanaged with waste, fraud and incompetence running rampant. And thin-skinned Republicans just can’t take getting called on the carpet for it

  • Clearly Boehner’s spokesman meant to say “House Republicans have spent every waking moment of the past Congress obstructing any effort towards progress. We have tried to blow up the tracks on immigration reform, tax relief, earmark reform, you name it. And now in the last few days of this Congress where we have a chance to help make progress, we decide instead to abdicate our responsibilities and play the blame game. Just goes to show we’re a party of zero ideas and zero action.”

    The best part is how perfectly true his entire statement is when you replace the word Democrats with Republicans, and how patently false it is when he says it.

    • Comments are closed.