Seems like it had to happen sooner or later: John McCain’s home state party committee has formally censured him for his crimes against conservative dogma. The specific complaints have to do with immigration reform and not helping Ted Cruz kamikaze the Affordable Care Act, but Arizona has been a hotbed of crazy for a long time and McCain has yelled at that wing of the party to get off his damn lawn at least since he kicked off that torrid bromance with Joe Lieberman in the 90’s. It seems inevitable that they would one day bite back.
You have to feel something for today’s non-crazy Republicans. Here they are trying to enact great evil like a corporatist party is supposed to do and out of nowhere this bunch of coked-up hippy insurgents shows up to monkeywrench it with loony efforts to levitate the Pentagon er, take away health care from Americans who need it. Take John Boehner, complaining that he has to play gestapo to keep the tea partiers in line. No doubt it kills him inside to bring this stuff out in public, yet he apparently needs an even sterner authority figure to emulate (emperor Ming? cthulu?). The GOP’s tail is wagging the leadership towards debt default yet again.
After the last election cycle John Boehner and his dwindling band of semi-lucid party leaders promised to weed out any Todd Akins who might blow more winnable Senate races. The little Nemo in wackoland wing promises to kill obamacare if they have to set themselves on fire to do it*. Consider the current state of the GOP primary electorate and tell me who you think looks ready to deliver what they promise.
(*) Louie Goehmert, showing his usual excess of enthusiasm over brains, took point on that gambit. Senator Vitter more sensibly hopes to get away with sacrificing the staff.
Anoniminous
When John Boehner is a “semi-lucid party leader” the party is in deep kimchi whack-a-doodle land.
PsiFighter37
I thought that ad of him saying “build the dang fence” was supposed to cover his ass though!
Omnes Omnibus
No. No, I don’t. I read the rest of the paragraph, but I just cannot let that sentence go.
Tim F.
@Anoniminous: John Boehner is perfectly lucid. He is a middle-management schmuck with no moral compass who would have made a great choice for Speaker had he been around when Bob Michel retired in 1994. Instead we got Newt and the era of Republicanism as performance art began.
I sympathize with Boehner precisely because he has no ego, no great ambitions and a clear and pretty disciplined life plan. He wants to enact as much legislation to please his wealthy benefactors as he can squeeze into a 10-to-4 three days per week work week, then retire and spend the rest of his life playing golf on their dime. He does not see himself as the great savior of civilization or a character from the bible, and he does not want to burn down the foundations of America and enact some Rand-opian fantasy in its place. He has pretty limited goals and he knows that Obama would be more than happy to meet him halfway in achieving them, if only his lunatic fringe would stop streaking and TP-ing the House chambers. I truly think very few people loathe the tea party more than Boehner.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tim F.: Fuck Boehner. If he knows better and has a conscience, then let him show it. Otherwise, he falls under my “I no longer give any benefit of a doubt to a Republican” rule.
jl
” tell me who you think looks ready to deliver what they promise.”
Nobody? Is that the right answer?
I read someplace that the teabagger nutjobs won’t nearly be as successful in winning primaries for 2014, so looks like a stalemate of hate and loathing within the GOP. Which sounds good to me, might be the best we can do for now. If the GOP spends most of its time trying to blow itself up and not succeeding, will mean less effective obstruction?
piratedan
well Johnny Maverick is in deep dutch with the East Valley Mormon mafia, the Wingnut Express and the other assorted Koch Bros. dupes that permeate the state GOP. Cactus barbie has her issues with them too. What I’m hoping for is some greater schism between the religious/gun nuts fundies and the block of Mormons that comprise the majority of the GOP, the hard part is finding the schism point.
Building the damn fence has been really successful, for the landscaping supply folks who are selling all kinds of earth moving supplies that assist with the expanded tunnel networks being constructed in Nogales and Douglas, but hey, they were already there to move drugs, now they’re moving people too. The only reason it hasn’t been truly noted is that the state economy is still in the dumper thanks to the usual idiocy being passed at the state level that is supposed to resemble lawmaking.
From what I can see, no taxes have been raised and they wonder why in the hell revenue is down, must be because of the illegals….
catclub
Did anything ever come of the Vitter amendment?
Ash Can
Today’s non-crazy Republicans aren’t Republicans at all; they’ve long since left the party. And John Boehner proved during the last government shutdown that he’s willing to do anything at all to keep his Speaker’s chair, and that includes handing the car keys over to the Teahadis, even as he disingenuously complains about their driving skills and insists that, gee gosh golly, he really does want to get things done. Fuck him; he’s just another Republican fraud.
Howard Beale IV
@Tim F.: Psst. John. Why do you keep beating yourself up dealing with these insane ideologues who keep giving you the shiv at every turn?
Don’t you know that in order to save the party you have to destroy it?
Walk away, now, while you still have the chance.
somethingblue
No. I don’t. And you can’t make me.
Chris
That was very well put. Yes, I certainly feel “something.” (Please don’t read that to mean “sympathy” or anything of the kind, however).
The arrogance and idiocy of the GOP elites’ relationship with the teabaggers continues merrily. Apparently, Lex Luthor really thought he could team up with the Joker and have him meekly obey his every word, and when the clown was distracted by the first shiny building and gleefully burned it down without regard for the “LexCorp” logo, no one was more shocked than he was.
You really would think they’d learn. I mean, there was that time Western elites thought financing and supporting right wing nutjobs in 1920s/30s Europe would be a grand idea, only for the Nutjob-In-Chief to turn around and try to burn their whole world to a cinder. And there was that other time immediately after that when they tried to finance similar nutjobs on a global scale for forty years straight, but were rewarded with various incidents stemming from the Falklands War to 9/11. And that other time when local and multinational elites in Colombia put their faith in a right-wing paramilitary force of ex-druggies, only to have it turn into a protection racket… etc, etc, etc.
At some point, you would think they’d clue into the fact that it would be easier to simply sit down with the left, agree to treat its constituents better, and get social peace out of that, than trying to make deals with people who should be in a lunatic asylum and then having to clean up behind them again and again and again.
JGabriel
Tim F. @ Top:
Tim, that’s like telling us we have to feel something for leprechauns and unicorns.
Wag
@Tim F.:
This.
Ruckus
Tim F.
I do feel something for conservatives but this is a family blog and I’m already sitting in the corner in my room for being a potty mouth so I’m not going to say any more.
PsiFighter37
@JGabriel: They give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
SRW1
@catclub:
Yeah, everybody in Congress now hates his guts to such an extent that diaper boy decided to get out of town and try governor for a change.
Chris
@Tim F.:
I get that, but again, who let the clown out of the box in the first place? It was Republican elites – “reasonable” Republicans like McCain and Boehner, whose motivations might’ve been simple, boring greed or power or careerism (and lack of moral compass), but who decided that teaming up with the most batshit-fucking-insane people in America was the best way to pursue that. And apparently it truly never occurred to them that the crazy wouldn’t just stay bottled up and go only where they wanted it to.
They made this mess – if not Boehner personally, then the “non-crazy Republicans” like him who got the ball rolling back in the day (Southern Strategy, etc). All kidding aside, that’s what makes it exceptionally difficult for me to have sympathy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Hence my “no benefit of a doubt” policy. They have forfeited it. Fuck ’em. If the say they want to do something decent, they need to show me that they aren’t faking it. Hasn’t happened yet. I doubt it will.
piratedan
non-crazy republicans…. I guess it all depends on your definition of crazy, I mean was it crazy to embrace the Teabaggers for short term gains? Was it crazy to let the fox (news) into the henhouse on plucking day? Was it crazy of the big money to continue to pump money into backing candidates that are a continual national embarrassment? Was it crazy to go scorched earth and pass so little legislation during your control of the house and completely ignore a President who wanted to “heal” the country and rid it of racial and partisan animus? Was it crazy to embrace the nihilism and question the legitimacy of the President himself and thereby the process by which he is elected? Is it crazy to keep allowing murmurs or sedition and racism and ignorance within the party in conversations with the media?
maybe they’re not crazy, maybe they’re just a bunch of ethically bankrupt asshats who have confused public service with lackeydom.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
No reason to have to chose is there?
Howard Beale IV
@piratedan:
Same can be said for a fair number of Democrats as well-they just fly under the radar and tend to be less likely to spout batshit crazy talk. After all-look at how many are willing to give Obama’s Iran policy the shiv in favor to AIPAC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: How many have actually voted to “shiv” Obama’s policy? By name, please.
piratedan
@Ruckus: well one the very small margin of the ledger, I can at least accept the possibility that some of the completely batshit insane constituency of the Tea Party believe with a deep seating passion in the great white jeebus above that they are right and completely buy into that worldview, thanks to hours of patient cultivation by various and sundry pulpit thumpers and political pitchmen on the 24 hour disingenuous TV and radio networks. They have the passion of their convictions, not that I believe that they have any basis in reality, but hey at least they believe in something. These other bastards, however, are for sale and like an 0830 flight on a Monday morning, they’ve been bought and sold many times over.
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh definitely. Imagine what it must be like for the moderate not-at-all crazy John McCain when some complete nut job extremist like Sarah Palin is foisted on their party for instance, sheesh.
I mean, McCain must be pretty pissed at whatever far-right lunatic chose her as a running mate.
flounder
Weird. I had the honor of living in Arizona in 2010 and watching McCain go up against teabagger JD Hayworth. McCain went full teabag. His campaign mantra appeared to be “just build the damn fence!”. I was at a town hall event where a 20-something year old Iraq vet noted that Reagan tripled the national debt and McCain shouted the kid down with “that’s a lie!”.
Ed Kilgore documents it better than I can
Cervantes
I do: a desire to bury them.
(Electorally, I hasten to add.)
Cervantes
You mock, Tim, but do you know why they pulled that stunt? They were marching from a rally at the Lincoln Memorial towards the Pentagon where they intended to hold a second rally. As they neared their destination, the 82nd Airborne purposefully blocked their way. So, to call attention to their situation — that is to say, to draw the TV cameras — they began chanting and so forth.
Chaos ensued, you’re right. But was it all merely “loony”? I’m not so sure. What would you have done?
Ruckus
@piratedan:
I get that you can make the distinction, I just don’t buy it. The crazy? These people are not mostly adults with faculties? OK some of them seem to have pretty shallow resources in the faculties department but they still make the decisions to believe a lot of easily disproved bullshit. The bullshitters who are after the money? Who gives a damn about them, they are no better than pond scum and about as useful. So crazy or not, both groups are obviously full of shit and not to be trusted with any thing sharper than a pencil eraser. The only thing is they all get to vote. And they vote their stupidity and they do it as a group. So until they separate themselves into groups that are either totally ineffective or so small as to be a footnote to history, I’ll lump them all together. Saves time and energy and gets the same results.
Shorter – I just don’t feel like giving them any more credit than is necessary, it gains nothing and I believe can cost us a lot.
Cervantes
Another historical question: I assume no comparison to Thich Quang Duc was intended.
Gohmert and company aren’t fit to even be mentioned in the same paragraph.
Chris T.
Yes, but it’s mostly schadenfreude.
Chris T.
@Tim F.:
The irony is, Boner could quite probably achieve all of these goals simply by running the House with a firm “we’re voting on this bill even though it will only pass because all the Democrats and 30 non-crazy Republicans will vote for it” rule. True, the TP-wing would attempt to pillory him for this (and perhaps succeed), but he’d still be able to retire quietly, collect huge speaking fees from the remaining Establishment types, and go about playing golf and drinking himself to death long into his retirement. After he keeled over from liver failure, he’d be remembered as a “towering figure … bipartisan stateman” by all the Village.
gf120581
@Chris T.: You’d think that’d be the logical course of action for him to take, but that requires guts and the Drunk Weepy Oompa-Loompa has none of them. He’s a weak and cowardly drunk who goes along with the crazies because he’s scared they’ll take his Speakership away.
The DWOL doesn’t really want to get things done, anyway. He doesn’t want to do the real work of being Speaker, he just likes the perks and stature and free golf games.
debbie
Ha! And the GOP was so confident they could easily quash all wingnut dissent. This is great news!
Ignaz Playel
“The GOP’s tail is wagging the leadership towards debt default yet again. ”
Yep. I’m guessing that these mid terms are going to be about whether to reopen the government.
And John McCain is crazy in many ways. He has his own wing.
Tim F.
@Chris T.: Boehner would love to do that, but he knows he will lose his gavel if he starts to make a habit of it. Most of his caucus will tolerate ignoring Hastert only when survival of the party is at stake. Otherwise the number of GOP Reps with Amashes and Goehmerts breathing down their primary necks easily constitutes a majority.
Peabody Nobis
I believe Boehner would have been very happy to have been Speaker in a non-crazy GOP House. He’s never been a flamethrower, although to appease the loonies he sometimes makes strident remarks, just to keep his job. If you watch him closely, though, you can tell his heart’s not really in it.(Similar to Christie’s Bridgegate presser; his facial expressions gave the game away.)
Boehner apparently likes the power of the position, diluted though it is. Why else would he want to continue trying to deal with the Teabagger clowns? If I were him, I would just walk away from that circus and start my tour of the best golf courses in the world already. It’s not like they are accomplishing anything, and Lord knows history will not be kind to them.
As for McCain, he can go suck a tailpipe for all I care. This is a man with no moral center. The only decent thing he ever did was correct that old lady about Obama being a Muslim.( Which he likely later regretted.) Otherwise he would do or say anything to win an election, to the point of putting an obviously incompetent airhead one weird mole away from the presidency, just because of her appearance.
I miss the Republicans of 70s; they weren’t perfect, but they weren’t crazy, either.
Tim F.
@Ignaz Playel: He is his own wing.
Thoughtful David
@jl: I’m guessing that 2014 is when the GOP begins to split into two parties. It’s becoming clear that the GOP establishment isn’t going to let the Tealiban choose all of the candidates. I don’t think the Tealiban will stand for that. If they don’t get a sufficiently nutty candidate, they’ll wind up running one as a third party. I can’t really see any other outcome, as the Tealiban isn’t going to go away, and the establishment GOP can see the writing on the wall if they allow the Tealiban to maintain control.
Moar popcorn!
slippytoad
Yea, Schadenfreude. And, contempt. That’s what I feel for the Republican party today, from the top on down to the jackass redneck next-door. Contempt.