I usually don’t let anger get hold of me when it comes to politics, but there has been an accumulation of outrage going back for some months over the obstructionist tactics of the Republican Senate.
The utter equivocation offered today by Mitch McConnel, Majority Leader of the senate, absolutely squeaked of a desperate attempt to make the blocking of Merrick Garland seem non-partisan. McConnel was right about one thing. The refusal to consider Garland for the Supreme Court had nothing to do with the man, at least not THAT man. It had everything to do with President Obama, whom the reactionary Republicans revile beyond all reason. Embarrassed again and again by the President’s cunning and his political triumphs, Mr. McConnel and his cronies saw yet another opportunity to upend whatever Obama wanted to accomplish.
Predictably, there is no plan except to shut down in terms of letting inaction prevail as it has so often in Congress during this administration. Such work could be accomplished by people who are comatose or have padlocks on their brains, but because they actually still walk and make disapproving grunting sounds, they remind me more of zombies, who could have achieved just as much for America via the Senate during the past eight years.
McConnel criticized the President for staging his choice as a political ploy. Honestly? I had to hear the silly speech three times before I was able to believe that anyone would actually take such a ridiculously transparent commentary seriously instead of the duplicitous mask it was.
I’m weary of McConnel and his monumentally and politically constipated followers doing nothing for the nation except impeding whatever the President is trying to do for the good of all citizens, not just a small group of disgruntled senators who are bitter about Obama’s successes. The denial isn’t about Garland. It’s about the chance to put a knife in the back of the President in an easy way while calling it something else.
All the Republican Senate has to do is nothing, which is what they’re so accustomed to be doing. It’s another case of “not backing down” being a passive refusal to create some level of harmony and needed action. It’s personal. It’s rude, and it’s bad sportsmanship of the worst kind, especially in light of the two-faced excuses offered to the press today by the majority leader.
The pawn in this is Merrick Garland himself, an eminently qualified and politically moderate choice for a seat in the Supreme Court. I believe that accusing the President of political shenanigans is once again the pot calling the kettle black (no pun intended). Sometimes I feel like Jimmy Stewart in the film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a man too idealistic, expecting the Washington political machine to serve the people instead of catering to a small group of jaded, out-of-touch codgers who believe the government was designed to serve them personally and exclusively.
Frank Capra is turning over in his grave. JB
