Sometimes I enjoy impossible tasks like squeezing blood from a turnip. So today I attempt the near impossible task of trying to make Standard & Poors (that stalwart watchdog company that was totally on top of the mortgage crisis and has never had any questionable calls before…sarcasm dripping from computer screen) credit downgrade sexy. Well, not exactly sexy but at least interesting, well, not exactly interesting but…
Anyway, Tea Party hostage takers–let’s not call them terrorists as Joe Biden did because they get really pissed off if someone besides right wingers use terrorism to trump up fear–caused so much agita in their wrangling over the debt ceiling fiasco that last Friday we experienced the first credit downgrade in US history. I know Tea Party blowhards wanted to make history but I”m not sure this is what they meant. OR is it…
You see what Obama fails to understand and the rest of us know all too well is that The Tea Party aren’t interested in “working with him to build a brighter American future,” or engage in an “honest, civil debate about how government can improve.” The only way a Tea Bagger thinks they can improve government is by destroying it, and for someone besides Obama to sit on the throne in the final minutes to Midnight. Chris Matthews accurately calls The Tea Party a “Protest Party,” and we’re learning just how hard it is for protestors to govern. Mostly because they don’t want to.
Far right Republicans say entitlements aren’t solvent, which is true, but if you think they have the answers on how to fix it you’re kidding yourself. In their book, the only way to “reform” entitlements is to eliminate or privatize them. And that’s because the Tea Party doesn’t fundamentally believe in government. They don’t believe government can do good things, and that only private companies can. Which just begs the question why people would elect people to govern that don’t fundamentally believe in government? It’s kind of like asking a lifelong Pepsi drinker to become the new CEO of Coca-Cola.
The Tea Party is happy to get US debt downgraded because they know (alas, correctly) that Obama will take most of the blame for it even if they caused it. In a year, the heat won’t be on a bunch of anonymous, disposable Tea Party goons who aren’t up for re-election until 2014, it will be on Obama. And if that isn’t enough for him to wake up to the true intentions of a Protest Party, I don’t know what is. The best summary for The Tea Party I can think of is the way a character described The Joker in The Dark Knight “Some men can’t be bullied, bought, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” It’s time for Obama to finally realize he can’t reach a deal with a bunch of Jokers.
Nice post. Will the madness ever end?
Stop the insanity! Teabaggers must go!