Last Call

Somebody want to tell the Republicans that nobody is buying this, least of all Republican voters?

Top Republicans had harsh words Sunday for a leaked Republican National Committee document containing images skewering President Barack Obama and other top Democrats.


"There is no excuse for that type of stuff," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told NBC's "Meet the Press." He added that he is "ashamed" of it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on ABC's "This Week," was asked whether such messaging is helpful. "I can't imagine why anybody would have thought that was helpful," he responded.

The PowerPoint presentation described high-level Republican donors as "ego-driven" and claimed they could be enticed with "tchochkes." The document included a slide - titled "The Evil Empire" - with cartoonish images depicting Obama as the Joker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

Since the presentation was leaked to Politico, Republicans have been working to distance themselves from it.

Last week, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele described the document as a presentation that "a staffer" put together for "a small group of about nine or ten folks and thought that they would intersperse the presentation with humorous shots.

The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is expected to come out with an ad this week highlighting the controversy and the images that many consider offensive. The commercial asks, "Today's Republican Party: Is fear all they have left?" The DNC says the ad should start running on cable television in Washington and a few other markets beginning Monday or Tuesday.

Steele condemned the document, but would not say if disciplinary action would be taken against the official who created it.

McConnell, when asked Sunday by ABC whether someone should be held accountable, responded, "I don't run the RNC. That's up to them. But I don't like it, and I don't know anybody who does."

Racists and sexists hate to be caught red-handed like that.  The really funny part is that all voters know that fear and hatred really is the only things the Republicans have left now.  Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch running as far away from this as possible is fooling a grand total of nobody who paid any attention to the last 18 months in politics.

Note again the speed at which the Senators are throwing Michael Steele under the bus for this one.

Steele Playing The Victim After All This Time

Michael Steele is playing the race card as the GOP Cult Of The Professional Victim continues.

Steele acknowledges that at times he has a tendency to take things too far. “And I get checked on that, just as when I was a young boy and I pushed the envelope too far and my Mama was there to check me.”

But there’s an edge to his voice when he talks about a double standard that he believes has been applied by his critics, and he posits racism as the cause: “I don’t see stories about the internal operations of the DNC that I see about this operation. Why? Is it because Michael Steele is the chairman, or is it because a black man is chairman?”

Nice. But I thought Republicans didn't play the victim card?

After all, any criticism of Sarah Palin is automatically misogyny, so why shouldn't Steele play the race card whenever he can?

Those poor Republicans.  When they're not making ridiculous demands, they're whining like children that the mean old Democrats aren't taking them seriously.

Coming Apart At The Seams

The civil war in the Republican Party continues as the Teabaggers and GOP insiders are slugging it out for control of the party heading into November's elections.  The disagreement is over Sarah Palin, America's favorite moose-shaped lightning rod.

A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party's professional class -- and maybe that's just how she wants it.

In a survey of 109 party leaders, political professionals and pundits, Palin finished 5th on the list of candidates most likely to win the party's '12 WH nomination.

Mittster came in first, by the way.  Moose Lady?  Fifth behind Tim Pawlenty, John Thune and Haley Barbour.  Tied with Mitch Daniels of Indiana.  As in "Don't call us, we won't call you."

(More after the jump...)

Dr. Feelgood

I feel like crap, I'm sick, at work, and Joe F'ckin Lieberman makes my soul hurt.



...OK, I feel better now.

What's Good For The Goose

Following yesterday's story that the RNC's insurance plan had elective abortion coverage in it, Michael Steele has come out today saying that's pretty much over with as of now.

Faced with the charge of hypocrisy for providing employees health insurance that covers abortion, the Republican National Committee has moved to strike the benefit from their policy.

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," said chairman Michael Steele. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

And just think, the Republicans want to do the same for all of America's women, not just the ones who work for them!
As tristero says over at Digby's place,

Short answer to commentators who claim that "pro-life" is just a morally neutral label for one side in a political controversy: You're kidding yourself. You may think the nuanced meanings of a specific phrase don't matter, but they do.

The goal here is to eliminate the procedure for all women in America.  Period.

Please Let The Autotune The News Guys Get A Hold Of This One

Michael Steele's latest hit:



The full song:

Michael Steele is in the house today
To show you the G-O-P way
Gonna kick some butt on Election Day
Gonna tell Obama there's no way, cause

You're not gonna spoil my juice right now
You're not gonna take this high away from me
You're not gonna harsh my buzz right now
I'm gonna be the man that I can be

You're not gonna suck all the air from the room
I won't let you wreck my day with gloom
You will not speak to me of doom
Teabaggers gonna take off with a zoom

You're not gonna spoil my juice right now
You're not gonna take this high away from me
You're not gonna harsh my buzz right now
I'm gonna be the man that I can be

We rule Jersey and Virgina Beach
Ain't nothing outside Republican's reach
This is the lesson that we will teach
(Doug Hoffman's just a lousy leech)

You're not gonna spoil my juice right now
You're not gonna take this high away from me
You're not gonna harsh my buzz right now
I'm gonna be the man that I can be...

Word

Quote Of The Week

Sadly, No!'s Brad on Michael Steele:

It occurs to me that if he’s going to remake the Republican Party in a hip-hop image, Steele needs a hip-hop name. My nomination: Filibusta Rhymes.

That is priceless.

No Longer Buying What You're Selling, Mike

Poor Michael Steele. He holds a conference call with reporters to attack the President on health care (which is not news, because the GOP is irrelevant on health care reform by their own admission), and then makes the mistake of attacking the President on the Olympics (which the Village, being the Village, thinks is news.)

Dems are now seizing on that as proof that reporters don’t believe the GOP has credibility on health care, or at least have no interest in Steele’s views on it.

“It speaks directly to the RNC’s complete lack of credibility on health insurance reform that they would hold a conference call on health care and no one was at all curious about how Republicans felt about health care,” emails DNC spokesperson Brandi Hoffine. “I guess that’s what happens when you have no plan.”

To be fair, the Republicans who might better be questioned about health care are those with a direct say over it: Members of Congress. And Steele did get in some health care licks, hammering Obama’s reform plans as imposing untold costs on “businesses and families that will not hasten recovery but prolong recession.”

It’s also worth noting that the GOP’s health care opinions just aren’t relevant. The final proposal will pass with a handful of Republicans at best. It’s up to Dems.

But Dems counter that the RNC billed the call as being about health care — and couldn’t even get a reporter to ask Steele for his views about the big topic of the day.

I don't honestly know what's worse, the Village, or how completely awful Michael Steele is at playing their games.

[UPDATE 3:50 PM] Speaking of attacking the President on the Olympics, why do the GOP insist on saying idiotic stuff like this?

"I think it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri. "[Obama's] got a lot of responsibilities. His number one responsibility is to keep our country safe."

Yes, because at this point in George W. Bush's first term we had just been hit by the worst terror attack in our nation's history. I'm going to say in comparison, Obama's doing a great job on that.

The Race May Be Over

Back on Monday I mentioned it could be a race to see which happened first: a Senate vote on the Baucus Bill or Sen. Ted Kennedy's replacement being named (giving the Dems 60 votes again). That race may have been decided today as Brian Beutler reports.

This is somewhat complicated, and I'll flesh it out and get you video just as soon as I can. But with Democrats anxious to pass a health care bill, and avoiding delays seen as a high political priority, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) indicated today that there may be major delays in the health care process going forward. During today's health care hearing, he told CBO chief Doug Elmendorf today that the Senate Finance Committee must be provided with a complete CBO score of the final package before the panel can hold a vote on it.

"With respect to the issue of when scoring might be available, because...it is critically important that we have scoring before a final vote is cast in the committee," Conrad said, "it is important for us to know, once there is a package, after the amendment process here, can you give us some rough estimate, in days to have a CBO score."

How long will that scoring take?

Elmendorf estimated that the full reporting could take two weeks:

"I think we can update our preliminary analysis...within a few days of the package actually being set. A formal cost estimate would require...two weeks of work by us, once the package is settled."

Two weeks means that Kennedy's replacement will surely have been appointed by then, meaning that the Dems can face things going forward with the votes to crack a filibuster...then again, there's some evidence that they might let Dems get that up or down vote.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele told students at a historically black college in Arkansas yesterday that Martin Luther King Jr. would be disappointed with President Obama.

"Dr. King would be disappointed in the political leadership of this country for failing to address the least of us," he said.

As Think Progress points out, a student then approached the microphone and asked, "In all seriousness, I'm curious what you think that Dr. King would think about your party's current attempts to block universal health care?"

"It's a great myth that we're doing all this blocking. I wish we had that kind of control with the numbers, but we don't," Steele responded. "As I've said to the president many times, 'If that's the bill you want, vote it up or down.'"

Now I'm 99.9% sure this is Michael Steele being Michael Steele, the world's worst Republican at actually being a Republican. But hey, if he doesn't want to filibuster, craft a real bill then and pass it.

The GOP Domestic Agenda

WaPo's Steven Pearlstein runs the numbers on Michael Steele's "GOP Patient's Rights Plan" announcement yesterday and comes up with the number zero, as in the number of domestic programs the GOP plan will allow for besides Medicare in 2035.

The plan came to light as a result of an op-ed piece this week in The Washington Post in which the party chairman committed the GOP to spending an ever-increasing share of the federal budget, and the national income, on Medicare. When combined with other Republican promises -- to balance the budget, protect defense spending and never, ever raise anyone's taxes -- the inescapable inference is that the government would run out of money for every other domestic program sometime around 2035.

Steele's stunning announcement brings the conservative strategy of "starving the beast" to a new level. Under the guise of protecting the elderly, Republicans hope to realize their dream of eliminating half a dozen Cabinet agencies, firing tens of thousands of government workers and ending government regulation as we know it.

Steele's op-ed was the latest salvo in his party's campaign to defeat President Obama's health-care reform effort at all costs and build public support for a Republican alternative that remains, to this day, a closely held secret. The new Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, however, hints at the outlines of the GOP domestic strategy.

Steele promised that under the Republican health plan, runaway Medicare spending would continue unabated. Not only would that mean no cuts in benefits, but it would ensure that reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals and drugmakers would continue to rise faster than inflation, regardless of how much they earn or how unnecessary or wasteful the services they provide. Any effort to contain future spending growth, Republicans now believe, is nothing more than a "raid" on Medicare, the government-run health plan that Republicans were against before they were for it.

The country's top Republican official also vowed to cut off all federal funding for research to determine what are the most effective treatments for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even that new scourge, restless leg syndrome. Left unclear was whether he prefers to have such research done by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, but one suspects that is the case.

On the issue of end-of-life care, Steele was uncompromising: In a Republican world, no government funds could be used to pay doctors to provide information about living wills, hospices or palliative care, whether seniors and their families ask for it or not.

"Government programs that seem benign at first can become anything but," Steele explained in articulating the new philosophy. Once back in power, look for Republicans to apply the same approach to issues such as flu vaccinations, disaster relief and air traffic control.

War and Medicare. Everything else, let the private sector handle. And no, I don't believe Pearlstein is being hyperbolic here. Pledging zero cuts for Medicare and zero tax increases means other things will have to be eliminated eventually, period. It's simple mathematics.

But that's Republican math for you.

The Right Hand Not Knowing What The Right Hand Is Doing

Michael Steele, still aiming at his own foot as Josh Marshall points out.

Michael Steele is on Fox now going on about how Medicare is a wreck, completely bankrupt, and an example of how the government has already proven it can't run a health care program.

Except didn't the "health care bill of rights" that the GOP unveiled yesterday declare preserving Medicare and protecting it against any cuts an inviolable right?

Shorter Steele: Medicare is a disaster! Long live Medicare!

Right, so Medicare is an example of a government program that has failed, but of course making any cuts to such a program is against the GOP health care reform plan, and the Republican platform is officially that of preserving the program in all of its failed glory.

And people wonder why nobody trusts the Republicans on health care.

He's Steele In Denial

Michael Steele is simply pretending that the astroturfing efforts bringing out GOP health care protesters to Democratic town hall meetings simply do not exist.

Steele dismissed questions over whether the GOP move to deflect critical calls was hypocritical in light of recent criticism of Democrats for "demonizing" the town hall protestors, and denied the Republican Party had any role in organizing the confrontations.

"We're not inciting anyone to go out and disrupt anything," said Steele. "We're not organizing the town halls," only encouraging individuals to visit their congressman or senator to "express their point of view."

"There's no upside for the Republican Party [in the protests]," he said later in the call. "That's not something that's coordinated or deliberately set in motion by me or anyone in the state party.

"…To sit back and say this is a Republican cabal is a bunch of baloney. And you can substitute that 'b' for something else if you want."

Later, a frustrated Steele shot down another question about the GOP's view of the recent chaos at congressional town halls. "I'll speak slowly. There's legitimacy to the protest. But how people protest…. I have no control over."

He added that there was nothing unusual about the development, and that he did not understand why the face-offs were drawing media attention. "Why is it so out of the ordinary that the American people should stand up and say, 'I have a concern about something the government is going to do?'

"… I'm not telling people to go out and be disruptive, because there's no upside to doing that. We want to have a legitimate debate…there's no upside for us in starting a fight with the Democratic Party, or with elected officials that we disagree with."

Oh reeeeeeally? Republicans have nothing to do with this?

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

Sure you don't, Mike. Sure you don't. And the American infidel tanks will all be destroyed within sight of Baghdad, and the fundamentals of our economy are strong , and it's never lupus.

Then again it's only fair that Michael Steele keeps pretending the GOP astroturfing doesn't exist, because the GOP is more than happy to pretend that Michael Steele doesn't exist, either.

Hell, time to give this guy his own tag. Michael Steele!