Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 11:57 am
In the world of thoroughbred dogs, there is an unspoken practice of putting down animals that resist intervention training to prevent the propagation of unwanted behavior due to hereditary flaws. Normally, before destroying an animal, they undergo intensive behavior modification and extensive training to modify conduct that is atypical of breed standards that may prove dangerous if a family pet becomes aggressive towards strangers. There are human beings who fall into the same category as what breeders refer to as “bad animals,” and America is home to an organized group of bad animals in Congress known as Republicans. It is a sad reality that despite two overwhelming election victories, Republicans are still disavowing that Barack Obama was legally elected as President, and instead of modifying their behavior and getting down to doing their job as legislators, they have chosen to spend time attacking the President to delegitimize his presidency.
In the aftermath of the President’s resounding victory over Willard Romney in last week’s election, Republicans are making excuses for why they lost, pretending they were victorious, or attacking the President over the tragic Benghazi attack that claimed four Americans’ lives. Perhaps Republicans are following the will of their supporters who, in a recent Pew poll, said Republicans should stand up to the President and not work with him to solve the nation’s problems, but it is more likely they are picking up where they left off and plan to obstruct the President out of spite. In fact, Republican leaders in Congress announced their intention of using Willard Romney’s tax plan as a model to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff within a day of the election, and it signaled their inability to acknowledge the election was a repudiation of Republican fiscal policies.
For Romney’s part, he spent the past week offering lame excuses for losing the election, and in a conference call with donors impugned minorities, women, and students in a repeat of the infamous 47% speech to high-value donors, and reminded voters why they rejected his candidacy last week. Several Republicans gave lip-service to women and minorities by claiming the GOP had to revamp its message to attract Latinos and women voters, but Romney’s message, and lack of pushback from Republicans, coupled with their congressional leaders adhering to his tax plan, portends more of the same bad behavior from the GOP. However, what defines Republicans’ innate behavioral flaw is their assault on the President for the Benghazi attack to invalidate his re-election.
Republicans are so focused on preventing the President from serving a second term, they are accusing him of lying to create a reason for impeachment and to cover up their failure to fund security for diplomats that certainly played a role in the deadly Benghazi attack. They are also diverting attention from David Petraeus’ failure to keep the diplomats safe. The Petraeus affair embarrassed Republicans who envisioned a political career for the incompetent general, so they are attempting to distract the public and focus on the President and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. There is more to the Petraeus scandal than Republicans are wont to concede, and it involves at least one high-ranking Republican in Congress; more on that later.
In a highly charged exchange in the House Foreign Affairs hearing on “Benghazi and Beyond” yesterday, Republicans leveled charges at President Obama that reveal their intention to damage his presidency heading into its second term. Several Republicans accused the President of ”intentionally misinforming, read that LIED, to the American people in the aftermath of this tragedy,” and are besmirching U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, who they feel is in line to succeed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton by blaming her for being the “person who is the actual vehicle used to misinform the American people during this crisis.” In fact, Alzheimer sufferer Senator John McCain and Lindsey Graham went on the offensive and promised to block Ms. Rice appointment (if it comes) because of her comments when she first informed the nation about Benghazi even though she was merely acting as the government’s spokesperson and reporting what the CIA told her in its briefing. Republicans are making comparisons to Ms. Rice and President Obama’s reports on the Benghazi attack to Watergate to drum up support for impeachment proceedings against the President as a remedy for losing the election, and that is precisely what this is about.
Republicans have disavowed that Barack Obama is the President of the United States since he defeated John McCain in 2008, and they have never altered their aberrant behavior one iota. Whether they sat passively and allowed their surrogates to question the President’s rightful birthplace, or impugned him as un-American, the sentiment is the same; he cannot be the President. Never before in American history has one party so traitorously sought to damage the nation’s economy for three-and-a-half years just to prevent President Obama from winning a second term and they show no signs of relenting in their attempt to delegitimize his presidency. In August, Iowa Representative Steve King proposed introducing a bill, which if it became law, would repeal everything President Obama has signed into law in the ultimate action to eradicate the President’s achievements from the historical record. Republicans have sat on their hands for the President’s entire first term and either outright obstructed or voted no on bills that helped all Americans, caused the nation’s first credit downgrade, and nearly caused a credit default that would have destroyed the full faith and credit of the United States, and they show no signs of letting up before the President’s next term even begins.
It is one thing to work through ideological differences on how to govern the country, but these Republicans are behaving in a manner more in line with enemies of the state than an opposing party, and the country has suffered enough. Their actions are reminiscent of a serial abuser who beats his wife because his football team lost a game and Republicans deserve nothing less than imprisonment for their malfeasance. The election is over and President Obama won, again, but it looks like the GOP will continue punishing the American people for re-electing him for four more years, and along the way they will make every attempt to remove him from office as the ultimate censure of a legal election.
Republicans have had four years to change their behavior, and the election was the ultimate behavior modification to rid them of their bad habit of obstructing progress, but like bad animals they have not changed their bad conduct. The people have spoken, twice, and instead of following the simplest directions possible, to do their jobs, they persist in attempting to change the outcome of an election; first by sabotage, and now by seeking ,to invalidate the election with phony reasons for impeachment. There are already over a hundred reasons in the public record to begin proceedings, and if Democrats were empowered, they could expel every Republican in Congress.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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