Rachel Maddow:
MADDOW: “What Republicans are doing on policy is no longer interesting. It is so thoroughly, unrelentingly, consistently predictable, that anyone who thinks it’s an open question as to what Republicans are going to do about the next legislation that’s proposed just is not paying attention.
Let me be emphatic here. Let me be emphatic about one particular example. The stimulus.
The stimulus passed despite every single Republican in the House voting ‘No’ on it. Every one. Since then, the consensus among economists is that the stimulus has worked, even though it’s maybe been too small. The consensus among the Republicans is that it has been a horrible, giant thing that hasn’t done any good at all.
[…] If there’s one thing that Republicans agree on now is that the stimulus is a bad, bad policy. It’s a bad idea that does bad things. It’s a bad President’s bad way of making a bad economy more bad because he’s bad. Stimulus BAD.
Also… Stimulus GOOD!
What you’re looking at here are pictures of the same Republicans who have trashed the stimulus as a bad, bad thing, in there home districts taking credit for all the good things the stimulus has done. That’s Bobby Jindal, there, governor of Louisiana, who has railed against the stimulus and then gone around the state handing out big fake checks with his own name on them, as if the money came form HIM, instead of from the stimulus he has been railing against. Then there’s Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia. That’s him getting all Publisher’s Clearinghouse with a giant check for funds he voted against, and then criticized as worth than worthless. He called the money in that check he’s holding a boondoggle and a dismal failure.
And it’s not just a couple of these guys who have been caught like this, either…
[…] Republican Mike Castle of Delaware trashed the stimulus, voted ‘No,’ then praised it’s effect in his home district by sending out press releases touting how imperative those funds were.
Do you want to see Mike Castle of Delaware handing out one of those giant checks? (Shows Photo) Yeah. As if he hadn’t actually voted to KILL the money that’s in that check. Mike Castle’s running for Senator from Delaware now, presumably on the platform of being a giant hypocrite.
Republican Eric Cantor not only trashed the stimulus and voted ‘No’ on it. He coordinated the feat of having all House Republicans vote against it. Then he held a job fair in his home district at which nearly half of the companies who were at the job fair, because they were in a position to hire, had received stimulus funds.
[…] Republican John Carter of Texas trashed the stimulus, voted ‘No,’ then praised its effect in his home district by saying it was a victory for the economy in central Texas.
Republican Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania trashed the stimulus, voted ‘No,’ then praised its effect in his home district by saying it would be great for employment in the area.
Shall I go on?
I could. I could keep going till the top of the hour and beyond. But you get the idea, right? This stuff isn’t secret. The conservative newspaper The Washington Times had a big feature on this today. Politico has reported on it, as well, calling what the Republicans are doing here a ‘cash-and-trash’ strategy. The blog ThinkProgress has done yeoman’s work tallying up all the Republicans who have done this and posting pictures of them handing out the giant checks representing the funds…
Even the President has called out Republicans for attending ribbon cuttings for stimulus-funded projects that they voted against. The White House has put some of the documentation of Republican hypocrisy on this in writing.
None of this is a secret. Which is the most important thing to understand about it.
Republicans, right now, do not care about policy. By which I mean, they will not vote for things that even they admit are good policies. On policy terms they have been caught bragging on the stimulus as good policy. I have no doubt that some of them think that health reform is good policy. We know they think that things like a deficit commission or cap-and-trade or pay/go are good policy, because they’re on the record supporting them, but they’re not going to vote for them BECAUSE:
Screw Policy. Screw what even they believe is good for the country. Screw what even they believe is good for their own districts. They are not voting ‘Yes.’ For even things they agree with. For anything substantive. They are not going to vote ‘Yes’ for anything substantive that this President supports. It’s not going to happen.
You’re not going to earn Republican votes for a second stimulus, for example, by pointing out that it’s good policy that creates jobs. We know they already know that. They concede that in their home districts. And they’re STILL not voting for it.
And they are unembarrassed about this fact. They are not embarrassed. Charging them with hypocrisy, appealing to their better, more practical, more ‘what’s best for the country’ patriotic angels is like trying to teach your dog to drive. It wastes a lot of time, it won’t work, and ultimately the dog comes out of the exercise less embarrassed for failing then you do for trying.
Grow up , Democrats. Face the music. Do it alone. You’re the majority. Kill the filibuster if they won’t let you use that majority. The country needs you to.
At this stage of the game the Dems are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Come mid-terms they’ll be less powerful and will surely be in a position where licking-up to the Thugs will be the only way to get anything done. In fact, they act as if they are already there.
great video, and doomd to be ignored by the democrats.
i’m trying to goad one of my facebook pals, who also wants them to kill the filibuster, into a bet as to whether that will actuall happen.
He’s not biting, and for good reason: they won’t do it. No guts, no principles, no vision.
I saw it and agree with her every word but I’m afraid the people who need to see it do not watch TRMS.
My conclusion after watching the video is slightly different. Democrats must work as had as we can to convince the country that the Republicans are trying to damage the country, they don’t care about the people, all they want is to get to power again. We live with the damage the brought upon us between 2000 and 2008, next time it may be terminal.
Of course, experts can make the above stronger and better; all I want is to do it several times a day.
I’m glad someone said it. Rachel has some value here.
But it remains that she used her position to attack the Democratic candidate who would have gone in and fought for Democratic principles and been willing to play hardball. Now, we have the president whom she preferred, who quite clearly signaled in his campaign that he would acquiesce to rightwing talking points, and she’s surprised by what happens.
Obama’s leadership is such that he states a liberal goal, then steps out of the way allowing the worst entities to fill the void in leadership that he created, and then he fusses about what they do.
It’s all theatre. Maddow ultimately blew her one chance to be better than the Republicans she’s rightfully descrying here.