Friday, February 12, 2010
Catch Dem "Drift"-ers
WASHINGTON, DC -- After losing an entire week to the one-two punch of the Blizzards of 2010, Democrats find their political plans in total chaos. No work done on a jobs bill (except for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid blowing up the bipartisan plan crafted by Max Baucus and ChuckGrassley). And more precious time was also lost on House and Senate Democrats getting their act together on that great health care plan.
In potential crises situations like this, it's important to isolate the appropriate scapegoat.
Realizing that blaming George W. Bush for this might be difficult, Democrats instead took a page from their "Party of No" strategy: They have now chosen to to blame this week's problems on the "Party of Snow."
This isn't to be confused with the previous plan by Democrats that placed responsibility on their inability to produce a bipartisan health care reform plan on the "Party of Snowe" -- when the usually reliable squishy Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine refused to provide a 60th vote on the Baucus health care bill.
Instead, the congressional majority party points to Sen. Jim DeMint's Tuesday tweet: "It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries "uncle." Most people thought DeMint was just, you know, kidding about the blizzard and alleged global warming.
Democrats saw this as no laughing matter.
For example, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, noted: "It's simply outrageous that Republicans would use their closer connection to God to separately negotiate with the Almighty in a transparent effort to scuttle the Democrats attempt to help this great nation." While admitting that his party was completely snow-blindsided by the storms of the last eight days, the Massachusetts Democrat added, "This is another example of Republican lack of bipartisanship."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also hinted that hearings might be held to examine possible links between the congressional GOP and Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty whose inability to plow the capital streets this week has been widely criticized. "Obviously, the Republican mayor of Washington was happy to see our important legislation slow to a crawl. You're crazy if you think we're going to let him skate on this."
When reminded that Fenty, like all Washington, DC, mayors was actually a Democrat, Pelosi retorted, "Ha! You expect me to believe that a Democratic mayor could be so incompetent that he wouldn't know how to deal with an intense-yet-natural weather-related emergency of Biblical proportions? As if."
The speaker then departed to make a make a phone call to outgoing New Orleans Mayor RayNagin.
Labels: Barney Frank, Democratic majority, Olympia Snowe
