Letter 2 America for May 8, 2014

Dear America,

I actually started to feel sorry for John Boehner after the last attempt at extortion-by-shutdown of the reactionary element of the Republican House of Representatives.  When he lost his temper in front of the press and exclaimed "Are you kidding me!" after recounting the Tea Party's in-caucus disclaimer that they never thought it would work anyway, I thought that there was hope for him after all.  Perhaps, I thought, he can overcome the Republican fixation on obstruction of the opposition's plan at any cost, regardless of its merit, and actually work in concert with the Democrats to get something done...and send the disloyal opposition within his party packing in the bargain.  But that momentary fit of pique turns out to have been nothing but personal frustration over the undermining of his Speakership by an obdurate, recalcitrant minority within his party that was as willing to dispatch him as it was to do so to the Democrats.  It was not ideological perfidy that he was complaining about as it turns out.  It was personal disloyalty...disloyalty to him...that upset him, and he seems to be over it now.  This week, he commissioned a sub-committee to investigate...for the um-teenth time...the Benghazi murders of four state department personnel on September 11, 2012.  The sub-committee's focus is to find out what the administration is withholding in the way of self-incriminating documentation with regard to...I don't know.  Every time I hear John McCain or some other staunch Republican claim that there was some sort of malfeasance in the executive branch on the occasion of the Benghazi attack I find myself wondering just what Hillary Clinton wondered out loud when she was before an investigatory committee just after it happened: so what?  Why does it matter if the administration erred or misstated the motivation for the attack on our consulate?  And besides, who told these congressmen who are totally lacking in military experience--or the insight, for that matter--that they are competent to question the military command's decision not to deploy troops during that few hours when the attack was under way because there were no troops near enough to intervene in a timely fashion. Last, but not least--or perhaps more aptly said, least among the insignificant--what difference does it make what the administration knew the Sunday morning after the attacks when the assistant Secretary of State, Susan Rice, went on the Sunday morning talk shows and attributed the attack to reaction to an anti-Islam video, and, I would add, who cares.  It seems more significant that the State Department had cut back on security because of cuts to its budget under sequestration, which was largely a Republican idea, if they care to remember.  But that isn't going to be a topic for discussion, and my guess is that the witness list will be the same old disgruntled employees...Greg Hicks, for example...who will reiterate what they have said in the past to no good effect whatsoever, except that the Republicans can keep this non-issue alive until the election and pretend that it is meaningful.  It's all so unseemly.

But, what is worst of all about these things--and there are others like the contempt hearing against Lois Lerner, the IRS employee who pled the fifth when she was called to testify and the continued puling about conservative organizations being denied taxation advantages because they are political, even though the Republicans say they aren't (after all, what organization chooses a name including the phrase "Tea Party" if the organization isn't political)--is that this kind of political theater plays well, at least among the already converted.  It's frenzy whipping material.  In conversations with ordinary Republicans, but with staunch conservatives in particular, these hearings will be referenced regularly, as if the fact of the hearings means that there is something amiss to have hearings about.  And at the center of all this is Trey Gowdy, the conservative South Carolina Republican who is a former federal prosecutor, trying to make a name for himself from his seat on the back bench like so many Republicans before him.  He puts on his rabid dog persona and struts about...at least figuratively...in these committee hearings like the enforcer on the Republican congressional hockey team as if to strike fear into the hearts of guilty and innocent alike.  (By the way, someone should give him a ticket on the same bus ride to Hair Club for Men that they send Rand Paul on, though Gowdy's problem isn't too little hair, it's too much...and for a guy like me who doesn't have enough himself, that's quite a tonsorial indictment, but I digress.)   And as he does so, the choir to whom he is preaching swells its collective chest with righteous indignation that they think is borne out by his sanctimonious pronouncements on C-SPAN.  It's almost like a satire on Saturday Night Live, except that the audience takes it so seriously.  And now, we are six months from an election that will determine how recalcitrant the congress with which Barrack Obama will have to deal for the last two years of his presidency will be.

If I were The President, this is what I would do.  First, I would start holding press conferences at 8:00 at night on week nights...avoiding Thursdays (you don't want to mess with the audience of "The Big Bang Theory"); at least one a month from now on.  I would give these issues a full airing, and I would give the American people an understanding of the significance of a Republican Congress for the years 2015 and 2016.  In fact, I would have done that in 2012.  I would have said, don't vote for me if you are going to vote for a Republican in congress.  If you think that they have the right idea, give them a president who agrees with them.  But remember to be careful what you wish for, because if enough of you vote Republican, you will surely get it.

Your friend,

Mike