Amazing

Republican zombies are even scarier than this!

The Republicans really are out to tank the Recovery Bill! Do they really like the disaster they created the last eight years so much they want to make it even worse?

Like most Democrats I assume, I'd love to see Obama chunk this bipartisan kumbaya. But maybe it's just as well that the reality of the Republican Wrecker Party has banged him over the head his first two weeks in office. He seems to learn well from experience.

I'm not panicking on the recovery bill, though. Yes, the Republicans have scrambled the issues via our flat-on-its-face dysfunctional press corps. But what else is new?

But the media mess matters. In both the short run and the long run. The Democrats have to find some ways to shake up the media coverage. And though nobody is talking about a new Fairness Doctrine, even though the loons on the right seems convinced there's a big conspiracy intending to do that, there are some reforms like more stringent limits on who can own news media companies and how they are managed that could increase the ration of journalism to infotainment by at least a bit.

One thing we have to give the Reps credit for, though. They are better at this day-to-day political trench warfare than the Dems are. Imagine how much better off the country might have been had the Democrats been as determined to slow things down on the "USA PATRIOT Act" as the Republicans are to derail the recovery package.

Let the Pod Pundits rattle on about how its always the Dems' responsibility to be bipartisan and how its the main task of the Democratic President to oppose the Democratic Congress and the Democratic base. But Obama and the Congressional Dems need to start making Republican backstabbers and LieberDems pay a real price when they jack the Dems around.

Obama compromised on several of the items that the House Republicans were mindlessly bitching about. And what did they do? They didn't give the recovery plan a single vote. Normally, when you compromise with the other side, they should give you something in return like, say, 15 or 20 Republican votes for the package.

And then theirs the ultimate LieberDem, Holy Joe Lieberman himself. He campaigned for the Republican Presidential candidate. He even endorsed his good buddy McCain during the primaries. He won re-election in 2006 running against the Democratic Senate candidate in Connecticut. And he's welcomed to the new Congress' Democratic caucus as though he had been the most loyal Party stalwart ever. That's just nuts.

Obama is going to have to find ways to go directly to the public to keep a fire under his own Party, too many of whose Congressional office-holders don't seem to much care whether the Party's own priorities and programs get passed. He and the Congressional Party are going to have to make Republicans who deal in bad faith pay some obvious price. And Dems who just want to schmooze with the likes of David Gregory and their Republican buddies should get the [Cheney] out of the way.

And while I'm grousing, Obama's setting up a Presidential Office on Faith? Isn't that what we have churches for? That's another kabuki the Dems need to flush. Conservative fundamentalists aren't going to vote for Democrats because the Dems talk about how much they love Jesus. Ain't gonna happen. Some of those conservative fundamentalists, though, may decide that having a functioning economy and real jobs is an important priority.

I just saw Pat Robertson on TV. Good grief, he looks like a mummy already and sounds like one, too. Keith Richards, the world's most famous zombie, looks to be closer to alive than Brother Pat. He barely seemed to know where he was. Anyone who can take political advice coming from a doddering old reactionary fool like Robertson just ain't gonna vote for the Democrats. They just won't.

Tags: democratic party, republicans, us economy