Republicans to accuse Obama of working to solve the country's problems

The Party of No really seems to think it's onto something with its strategy of accusing the president of working too hard to solve America's problems.

The chief spokesperson for GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell just said in an interview that leading Republicans are going to ratchet up their criticism of the Obama administration for releasing too many big plans on the economy — with too little sense of how they mesh with or impact each other.

The comments from McConnell spokesperson Don Stewart amount to a preview of what we’ll likely be hearing from Senate Republicans and other Republican leaders in the days ahead.

“We can’t help but notice the numerous and sundry plans that seem to come out at a rate of one a week without any clear picture of how they interact and whether they interact well or not,” Stewart told me. “That’s a very real concern among Senate Republicans.”

Not only are they unwilling (or unable) to offer any plans of their own, they are actually trying to demonize Obama for working to improve Americans lives.

I admit that I have never understood how Republicans think, but this is just jaw-dropping.

Vile

Smear tactics like these are unacceptable whether the target is a Democrat or a Republican.

It is not difficult to argue a substantive case against Mitch McConnell's re-election. Evidence abounds. This flyer is, at best, a distraction from the issues.



I have no idea who these people think they are persuading with this garbage.

And they are distributing these things at churches.

Churches.

Hopefully, nobody will vote for McConnell or against him based on anything other than his record as a United States senator.

The GOP's Earmark Hypocrisy

Republican lawmakers hate government spending - just absolutely hate it.

Except when they can use it to persuade their constituents to give them another term in office.

In those cases, pork is not the problem, it is the solution.

Senator Mitch McConnell has certainly delivered for this western Kentucky community, where an esplanade called McConnell Plaza wends along the Ohio River waterfront, which is being spruced up with government help.

At a time when home-state projects sought by lawmakers are being condemned by Senator John McCain and others, Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, boasts in a series of campaign advertisements about how he has showered federal money on towns, airports and universities in Kentucky, like the nearly $60 million he won for the face-lift for downtown Owensboro.

Besides the money for Owensboro and $10 million for the waterfront of a nearby town, Mr. McConnell, a savvy veteran of the Appropriations Committee, secured $3 million for a community youth center in Owensboro and snared the final $10 million to finish an impressive Ohio River bridge linking the area to the Interstate 64 corridor.

“He has brought a lot to Owensboro,” said Vickie Poteat, who promised Mr. McConnell her support as the four-term senator worked a welcoming weekend crowd at Owensboro’s annual apple festival, a family-friendly and calorie-laden event at Reid’s Orchard on the outskirts of town.

Now, working to hold on to his job in what is shaping up as a bad year for Republicans, Mr. McConnell is counting on voters to express their gratitude for the federal largess as he tries to fend off a spirited challenge from Bruce Lunsford, a Democratic businessman with rural roots and a fortune made in health care.

[...]

Mr. McConnell’s focus on federal aid illustrates how he and other lawmakers view such legislative earmarks as valuable political currency back home despite their increasingly bad name in Washington. It also shows that in the current hostile environment, Mr. McConnell has decided to focus less on overarching policy issues than on old-fashioned pork.

Veto, Pt. II

History will record that congress approved the funds to wind down the occupation of Iraq to a foreseeable end, and that George W. Bush vetoed the legislation for the pettiest of political motives.

Harry Reid's reaction:

"A bipartisan majority of Congress sent the president a bill to fully fund our troops and change the mission in Iraq. The president refused to sign this bill. That's his right, but now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war. ... But if the president thinks that by vetoing this bill he'll stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken."

Mitch McConnell's reaction:

"This veto is the first step toward quickly passing the legislation our troops asked for. The president's call for a quick turnaround on the funding bill after the veto is consistent with what we've heard from commanders in the field. No matter how you may feel about the effort to secure Iraq, providing the funds to our troops should be everyone's top priority."

Everything Reid says is absolutely correct. By contrast, everything McConnell says is completely false. It's amazing, really.

First of all, the troops did not ask for the funding. The president asked for the funding. The congress approved the funding and sent the bill to him for his signature. He vetoed it. So, the veto is not, in fact, the first step toward anything. It is, at best, a detour on the way to what the president claims to want: funding to continue the fighting in Iraq.

Finally, providing funds to continue the fighting should not be everybody's top priority. Getting American troops the hell out of harm's way should be everybody's top priority. Tragically, it is only the Democrats who are trying to bring them home. George W. Bush and his Republican enablers are determined to keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely so that they never have to admit they were wrong about the invasion in the first place.

I am starting to gag everytime I hear Bush and the GOP invoke "the troops" with that empty, cheap sentimentality that comes so naturally to them. The legislation our troops asked for. Give me a break. You love the troops so much, Mitch? How about some damn body armor? How about some armored Humvees? Or, how about this, Mitch? How about just getting them out of the way of the bullets and the IEDs?

Until you can summon the will to tell George W. Bush that there is nothing to win in Iraq, and that he is sending the troops unnecessarily to their deaths, I don't want to hear anything you have to say.