Shameless and Clueless

Yes, I am talking about Congressional Republicans.  Half the shame of it is that they media keeps giving full attention to their absurd pronouncements.  The latest, Obama has just been "lucky" and does not have a counter-terrorism strategy.  Slate's John Dickerson has a nice article deconstructing just how clueless and absurd these arguments are.  I almost want to suggest to Dickerson that it is not worth the effort, as this is just complete Standard Operating Procedure.  Dickerson writes:

You can make the case that President Obama's strategy for fighting terrorists is dumb, too cautious, or ineffective. But no one who wants to be taken seriously can claim Obama lacks a strategy. Boehner is either being sloppy with his language, slippery with the facts—or both—to score political points.

The sad thing, though, when does Boehner ever make any public pronouncements that arent' sloppy or slippery, at an absolute bare minimum– if not outright lies?  Sadly, this is just every day rhetoric from Republican leaders.  And no, the Democrats do not do it to (at least not at all to this shameless and egregious degree)!  But that's another post I've been meaning to write and will soon. 

 

Annals of Depressing Headlines

From the Washingtonpost.com today: "Holder defends decision to read Miranda
rights to Times Square suspect."  Just so we're clear here, the Times Square bomber was an American citizen apprehended on American soil!  Since when should basic constitutional rights ever not apply in this situation?  Apparently, if you are a Republican in Congress who simply does not understand the concept of Civil Liberties.  The Times has a nice article on this absurd "debate" last week.  The absolute scariest thing about it?  Glenn Beck as the voice of reason.  Seriously.  Can think of few more damning indictments of today's Republican party.  Here's Beck making me thing aliens temporarily took over his brain:

 In a case of odd allies, Glenn Beck,
the conservative Fox News commentator, said Mr. Shahzad was entitled to
his rights. “He’s a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold
the laws and the Constitution on citizens,” Mr. Beck said. “He has all
the rights under the Constitution. We don’t shred the Constitution when
it’s popular.”

There's got to be a tag-line in there…. "The Republican Party, upholding your civil liberties when we think its convenient to do so."