By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
If you believe everything you read, the Republicans are in charge of the country and the Democrats are yesterday’s news. George Bush the Younger, schlepping his book of revisionist history around the country, seems to think that brother Jeb should be in the running for the 2012 election. Given the line-up of potential candidates — Christocrat Mike Huckabee, carefully-coiffed Mormon businessman Mitt Romney, aging political hack Newt Gingrich and syntax-challenged Sarah Palin, who says she’ll run if no one else will — Jeb seems rational, sensible, in short, almost normal. That’s where it gets really scary, citizen! When a member of the Bush dynasty seems to provide the only sane Republican alternative, and the GOP itself is caught in a storm of in-fighting between the most ideologically radical of its members and its corporate contingent, the party seems to risk complete meltdown.
It’s likely that the Baggers will shift the GOP farther to the right, and with our Blue Dogs reduced by half, this will further polarize our lawmakers. That means trouble for all of us, of course. A lame duck Congress hobbled by the specter of coming personnel changes is already giving us a taste of the future. Literally hundreds of waiting bills, passed by the House, are being sniffed at by a newly radicalized Senate, noses turned up. Obstruction is more blatant by the day. Women’s equality took a hit this week as the Paycheck Fairness Act only garnered 58 of the needed 60 votes to bypass a Republican filibuster threat. It will now pass into the void where bills go to die, given the intent of the conservatives.
How do I know? Consider the enormity of Jon Kyl, Republican from Arizona, derailing the new START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia by denying it a vote in this session. This is a non-controversial bi-partisan treaty to downsize our nuclear footprint by reducing arsenals. It’s supported by all sane people including Kissinger and Colin Powell. Its failure would have serious national security ramifications, especially given our ongoing nuclear concerns about Iran. None of this moves Senator Kyle as he stage-manages another attempt to render Obama unable to govern. According to Adam Serwer at the Washington Post:
It’s not like Kyl doesn’t understand the implications here. Last year, when he was criticizing the administration for dragging their feet on renewing START, he fretted on the Senate floor that “[f]or the first time in 15 years, an extensive set of verification, notification, elimination and other confidence-building measures will expire.” Now that the administration has a plan for extending those measures, he’s about to let them expire.
Republican leaders have been willing to entertain the notion, common among their base, that the president himself is an existential threat to the country, leaving little room for cooperation. Voting on START means making a choice between indulging the reflexive hatred of their base or acting in the U.S.’s basic national security interests.