Incoherence

by digby

Republican hack Ron Christie’s head just exploded on Hardball:

Christie: It’s interesting how the Democrats say, “oh, if we get a Barack Obama in, we’re going to have a new spirit and a new tone in Washington. Speaker Pelosi is gonna bring a new sense of civility.” Look what we’ve seen since the new president has been in office and the new speakerhas been in the House of Representatives!

Karen Finney interrupted and pointed out the cocktails and super bowl parties were part of the new civility and then Christie laid this bizarre bomb:

Christie: No. We had a bipartisan vote, Republicans and Democrats standing together that said that this stimulus bill is not going to stimulate the economy.

The speaker and the president could not put their ideological differences aside to work with Republicans and I thought it was ridiculous.

Christie absurdly spins the losing No vote yesterday as the desireable bipartisan consensus. That’s not particularly convincing, although it sounds a cautionary note about how festishizing bipartisanship can be turned against you.

So there is no common strategy. Hatch triangulates between Obama and the Democrats, Christie seems to be saying that Obama and Pelosi are ruining the bipartisan comity that exists between the Democrats and Republicans in the congress, which is really a stretch. (I suspect he got his talking points confused.)

But then Christie had a total meltdown defending Rush Limbaugh against the ads going out in GOP Senators’ states, saying that it’s a “disgrace” to go after him because he and other talk show hosts represent “tens of millions of Americans who are tired of president Obama and Nancy Pelosi trying to ram a bill through, they are not working in a bipartisan fashion.”

Michael Steele may have just won the job of RNC chairman, but we know where the real power in the Republican Party lies (as it has for many years) —with the radio talk show hosts who “represent” tens of millions of people who are sick and tired of president Obama’s partisan behavior during the whole ten days he’s been in office.

Here’s Gavin from Sadly No explaining what Ron Christie is really saying:

Obama promised to cooperate with Republicans, but Republicans have broken his promise by not-he-cooperating with them. The plumber promised to work on the sink, but shockingly, he broke that promise by not making me stop telling him not to fix the sink, and then working on the sink. Disaster for you, for you promised me a rose garden and I am not accepting gardens from you at this time. Analysis: Historic Democratic victory good for Republicans.

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