For people who profess to lead a major political party, the GOP congressional leaders were an abject and feeble lot in the aftermath of yesterday's stimulus meeting with the President. While it is unclear whether they were Jedi mind-tricked by His Worship or just intrinsically lame, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were a sad and pitiful bunch as they ambled up to the microphones outside the White House.
McConnell's capitulation to the spending spree was as terse as it was significant, with the senior senator from Kentucky apparently forswearing any possible filibuster from the loyal opposition, stating that the Senate would have the stimulus on the President's desk, ready for signature in a month. Perhaps the gentleman from Kentucky will even provide the President with pens with which to volley hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the ether.
Boehner was barely better. For openers, could he please lay off the Man-Tan? Nobody from Ohio looks that bronzed in winter. It's just getting ridiculous Congressman...COME ON!!! As far as defending the Treasury from epic fiscal folly, Boehner was less than full-throated, or for that matter coherent, in his opposition. He mumbled concern about "the size of the package," which when repeated (as Boehner kept doing for five minutes) sounded like something else...but this is a G-rated blog, so innuendo quickly withdrawn. He then muttered something vaguely disapproving about hundreds of millions of dollars for contraceptives, which combined with the words stimulus and package REALLY sounded like something else (Please Congressman, not in front of the children...). What it did not sound like was any manner of lucid and persuasive defense of fiscal conservatism, which his caucus purportedly represents.
To some extent, Boehner's verbal flailings and flounders, while earnest, are beside the point. House rules for debate and voting are the exclusive province of the majority. Nancy Pelosi can do as she pleases with the House. A Senate filibuster is the only thing that can prevent the enactment of the liberal spendfest, and Mitch McConnell made it clear yesterday that the Senate GOP will go the way of France in May 1940. Boehner's rhetorical fecklessness, while sad and piteous, is emblematic of a larger, self-willed irrelevance.
Which begs the following question...what exactly is the point of electing Republicans to Congress?
