Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Squaring the Circle

Squaring the Circle

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Much has been said about Michael Steele’s patently dishonest piece in (where else?) the Washington Post, but I liked what Joe Klein had to say:

What makes Steele’s column especially hilarious is that it’s about health care for senior citizens–actually, it’s an attempt to scare senior citizens–but it never mentions that Medicare is “a government-run health-care system.” One would think that the Washington Post’s intrepid editors would have force Steele to cut or modify Steele’s lie about Obama’s “government-run” plan, and one would hope that the Post’s editors would ask Steele to point out the Medicare–the program he wants to “save”–is precisely such a plan.

Think Progress does what Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post can’t do, which is to point out that for the past two decades Republicans have repeatedly attempted to axe Medicare spending, and those plucky bloggers apparently even spent five minutes with a high-tech tool (not Tom Friedman) called “Teh GOOGLE,” and dig up recent interviews in which Steele actively and openly called for cuts to medicare. Because bloggers don’t fact check.

Finally, Yglesias thinks long ball:

So congratulations to Fred Hiatt for landing such a buzzworthy piece of nonsense for his publication and I hope the right-wing enjoys the giant tax hikes we’ll be enacting down the road once they show the political world that any attempt to trim Medicare spending, no matter how modest, will be savaged by opportunists on the other side.

Now that the RNC has declared fully-funded medicare today, fully funded medicare tomorrow, fully funded medicare FOREVA, you can almost feel the heartbreak among glibertarians and fiscal conservatives everywhere. Must feel good getting used like that, because they keep on letting it happen.

*** Update ***

Props to Ben Smith for quickly calling BS on Steele.

Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    MattF

    It’s all about (and only about) power. P-O-W-E-R. POOOWWWWEEEERRR. Power Power Power Power Power Power.

  2. 2.

    joes527

    meh.

    Since when are republicans required to be consistent?

    You can’t nail republicans tomorrow with what they said today because … because … because … well — just because. That’s why.

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    Much has been said about Michael Steele’s patently dishonest piece in (where else?)

    The WSJ? The Washington Times? The Atlantic Monthly? The Weekly Standard? The National Review? The New Republic? The NYPost? The New York Times on alternate weekdays? The LA Times? The Chicago Sun? CNN? MSNBC? FAUX? Good Morning America? The Today Show? ABC? NBC? CBS? The Woman’s Home Journal?

    Oh, I’m sorry. Please continue.

  5. 5.

    jwb

    Since Steele and the other goopers are so gung ho for Medicare these days, it seems like now might be a good time to float an expansion of Medicare downward to say age 50. At the very least it would get those buggers to shut the fuck up.

  7. 7.

    kay

    It’s probably good for spineless Democrats. I knew Republicans were going to grab credit for “saving” Medicare.
    Hopefully the OUTRAGE! will get Congressional Democrats off their asses.
    They have to show up. They really can’t continue to hide.

  9. 9.

    kay

    @jwb:

    It’s a shame, because there was real movement towards reigning in some abuses, in “medical equipment” sales, for example, and that was bipartisan.
    I guess that’s out the window.

  11. 11.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Notorious P.A.T.:

    Meanwhile, some guy cries and moans that people don’t seem to think there is any reason not to lie about health care reform:

    Shorter Howard Kurtz: Why do heavily armed people keep firing and reloading their guns when we keep saying mean things about their bullets? Oh the huuuumanity!

  13. 13.

    T. O'Hara

    Think Progress does what Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post can’t do, which is to point out that for the past two decades Republicans have repeatedly attempted to axe Medicare spending . . .

    So what? Think that matters now? After years of blocking meaningful reform, Democrats just noticed the Medicare spending curve is unsustainable and want to use the crisis to sell a whole new entitlement program. You think the RNC has some obligation to help? Politics makes strange bedfellows. Here, seniors are a natural ally to the GOP.

  15. 15.

    brantl

    This is the Republican’ts all over. Medicare is now established, so now it’s “good”. If it doesn’t already exist, it can’t be good. It’s just as indefensible as the opinion that if it hasn’t been tried yet it MUST BE good, but they haven’t ever thought about it enough to cotton on to that.

  16. 16.

    brantl

    If you mean “meaningful”, as in “screwing old people”, why, yes the Democrats have blocked that. If you mean “unsustanable”, as in “people are going to die of ailments that any decent health policy would cure, only the Rethugs won’t possibly avoid being too miserly to care for the old, yes, you’d be right. If you mean “has an obligation to help” as in, having a moral compass and willing to do decently by their fellow citizens, yes, that’s what we mean, but the Republicans haven’t shown any spine for that since before Eisenhower. The Republicans haven’t felt an obligation to do anything for anybody but lie about their policies, unless they are talking to the rich.

  17. 17.

    brantl

    John Cole, put some commas or semicolons in your XHTML tags, to logically separate them! I just put up a block quote with nothing in it, for Christ’s sake!

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