Do We Need a Rent Strike for the GOP?

I have this quick history lesson I pass on every St. Patrick's day (so bookmark this site, I'm sure you'll want to come back and laugh at it again). Short form, minus all the witty historical examples:

95% of Irish history ends with the words, "And then he was betrayed by..."
3% of Irish history ends with the words, "And then success went to his head and turned his brains to crap."
2% of Irish history ends with the words, "And then he made something of himself, but he had to get the hell out if Ireland to do it."

Who knew the GOP was Irish?

The current leadership of the Republican Party appears to have been inspired by Casey Stengel:



"Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?"

Well, apparently not...

Seriously: what are we paying these people for?

Thirty percent of this nation's wealth vanishes with the stroke of our new President's pen. Our oldest ally, Great Britain, is fobbed off with gift shop trinkets and insults from Administration flunkies. The braindead Democratic graft artist Dianne Feinstein, who California calls a senator, blows the cover of a top-secret airbase in an already unstable country wracked by a Muslim insurrection. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are busy dividing spoils that haven't even been printed up yet by the Treasury. The Great and Powerful Ob announces we are losing in Afghanistan even as he sends more troops. Military pay raises are cut and military families' medical coverage is slashed even as Congress votes itself raise upon raise and finds funds for illegal immigrants' abortions. The Great and Powerful Ob seems incapable of finding a Cabinet member who isn't a tax cheat, incompetent, a barking antisemite, or fleeing to Africa to avoid answering questions about impeached lllinois governors. Jobs are lost in the millions; pensions bankrupted in the hundreds of billions; Putin rattles his rusty, blood-crusted sabre and Chinese warships harass our vessels.

But the White House and their house-media know what the REAL problem is: RUSH LIMBAUGH! Never mind that Obama is reduced to appointing his kids' Portuguese Water Dog to the Treasury, A FREE AMERICAN CITIZEN IS EXERCISING HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. BREAK OUT THE BILLBOARDS! ALERT CHRIS MATTHEWS! Never mind that Obama seems bound and determined to repeat the economic mistakes of every Democratic President from Jimmy Carter back through Jefferson Davis, RUSH LIMBAUGH HOPES HIS POLICIES WILL FAIL! DRIVE THIS HERETIC FROM THE AIRWAVES! Never mind that the Great and Powerful Ob is "reaching out" to the "moderate" Taliban (much the way he imagines FDR reached out to the "moderate" Nazis..."uh, uh,uh, look!  They weren't real SS, they were only Waffen SS!") even as he sends more troops to get shot at by them, RUSH LIMBAUGH IS LAUGHING AT ME!  MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP, KEITH OLBERMANN!

And the Republican party leadership scurries to agree with him.  Without, by their own admission, reading what the man writes or listening to what he says for themselves.  They condemn the loudest and most articulate voice for what are supposed to be their values.

What are we paying these people for?

Look, Newt Gingrich is understandable.  He is continuing his campaign to become the next MAC, that is, "Media Acceptable Conservative".  He knows Pat Buchanan won't live forever, and he is ready and eager to become the approved face of American conservatism, even if that means leaping into a steamy bed of global warming with Nancy Pelosi.

Michael Steele is simply inexplicable.  After the abuse he took in the Maryland Senatorial campaign, everything from racial invective to having his credit report pirated, Steele should know better.   Reaching out to Democrats just costs you fingers.

He comes out as pro-choice.  Because that's the selling point to the GOP base that stayed home on John McCain?

What are we paying these people for?

He says the Republicans  have given African-Americans "nothing."  THE PARTY THAT ENDED SLAVERY, that was instrumental in giving African Americans the vote in spite of everything Democrats could do to stop it? (Remember the schoolhouse door, Mr. Steele? Remember Bull Connor and his dogs?  Remember Robert Byrd THE DEMOCRATIC KLAN RECRUITER and his Senate filibuster of the Voting Rights Act?) The party that INVENTED affirmative action under Nixon?  THAT Republican party?  It wasn't the Republicans' 'New Deal' that destroyed an entire generation of black small businessmen and farmers, Mr. Steele. The National Recovery Administration that blacks in the Depression called 'Negroes Robbed Again' wasn't a GOP invention.  If you're going to lead this party, you should know these things.

What are we paying these people for?

And he criticizes Rush Limbaugh, sight unseen, for no better reason than... what? To seem 'moderate' to 'middle of the road' voters?  What have they done for us lately?  Where were they in 2008?  We ran a candidate who made his entire career one of appealing to these chimerical creatures, only to be billed as a warmongering fascist and racist anyway when it mattered.

Rush Limbaugh is perhaps our most articulate and most visible spokesman.  Maybe it would be better if that wasn't the case, but face it, the RNC can't fill that gap.  The e-mails they send to the party members read great, but when Steele gets in front of a mike or camera it's stumblebum time, and we get unchallenged assertions that Republicans resemble Nazis and fumbling statements that maybe abortion ain't so bad, or assertions that fly in the face of the party's own documented history on race relations.

What are we paying these people for?

Except for asking for money, the party doesn't seem to want to talk about it.  GOP Senators and Congressthings are making it harder and harder for anybody not from their state or their district to reach them.  Ladies and gentlemen, you are voting on national issues... expect to hear from the national electorate.  Don't hide behind your staffers and e-mail filters.  We can get that from Nancy Pelosi's office anytime we want.

So, if they're not going to listen to us, and don't, frankly, even seem to want to hear from us, perhaps we need to get the RNC's attention more, well, kinetically.

Maybe we need to to freeze our contributions to the RNC until they show they know how to engage the Democrats on our terms and uphold our values. Until they stop feuding with Rush Limbaugh and start showing as much passion to George Stephanopolous.  Until they make pointing out every botched appointment and hypocritical climbdown by Barack Obama as big an issue as whether Rush quoted the preamble to the Declaration or the Constititution.  Until Specter, Snowe and Collins learn they can't ignore the party leadership and the party principles without consequences.

Frankly, I don't want to give money to Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe to betray my country's future to Nancy's pet constituencies.  I don't want to hear from Michael Steele until he's ready to respond to an attack on a free American citizen with outrage rather than eager, ignorant agreement.

In the meantime, maybe I'll just ask Rush Limbaugh which candidates he likes.