They Can’t Even Muster A Decent Hissy Fit
by dday
The House is taking up a “resolution of disapproval” for Joe Wilson today, carefully writing it so nobody thinks they actually disapprove – just a technical rules violation is all – and the Republicans are cleaning their clocks with it on the House floor.
In a clear sign that Republicans intend to turn the disapproval vote against Joe Wilson into a rallying cry for their own base, far more Republicans than Democrats have been speaking during the floor debate on the resolution.
The subject of their talk: That the American people are done with this and don’t want to talk about it anymore. The message here is that the Dems are wasting time with the proceeding, and abusing their power to persecute Wilson.
“There is definitely a sense that House Republicans aren’t dealing with the same hot potato they were dealing with on Thursday morning after the president’s speech,” a GOP leadership aide just told me. “The president’s acceptance of Joe Wilson’s apology has left the Democrats looking petty and possibly on the verge of overreach. The fact that White House has now adopted some of Wilson’s policy proposals is evidence that this is no longer the political loser Democrats once thought it would be just a few days ago.”
The highlighted portion above took any teeth completely out of the hissy fit, and partisan Republicans used it as a rallying cry. The resolution passed 240-179, BTW, with a whopping seven Republicans crossing the aisle to vote yes (12 Democrats voted no and 5 “present”).
The point is not whether or not Wilson’s outburst represented some violation. The point is that Democrats gradually made a decision to try and beat up Republicans over a universally despised high-profile action, and they managed to blow it. And get the policy wrong by tailoring it to the universally despised person. Who’s also a serial liar (Just throwing that in because I think it’s funny. You can literally say anything as a Republican and never get called on it).
If you can’t even pull off the hissy fit, about the easiest two-step in politics, particularly in this day and age when the cable news channels might as well rename themselves “Umbrage 1,” “Umbrage 2” and “Republican Umbrage 3”, then really, it’s time to get a new batch of consultants.
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