Republicans on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents related to the ‘Fast and Furious’ Mexican border scandal.
“We and the American people need answers sooner, not later said the committee chairman. The vote came after Senate hearings led by Daryl Issa (R-Calif.).
President Obama invoked Executive Privilege to protect the documents, but the die has been cast in a new GOP war on---wait for it---the two most powerful African Americans in government.
Absent a Whitewater scandal with which to spit-roast President Obama in the tradition of Ken Starr during the Clinton Administration, the GOP has elected to trot out a contemptuous precedent by charging an AG with contempt for the first time in the nation’s history.
Curiously, when the Democrats had the same option with which to plunder Bush strategist Karl Rove, they declined to spare the nation the ugliness that would have certainly entailed. Angered by the Republican inquisition of Holder, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, “I could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day” during the scandal following the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
As a result, there was no spectacle of a perp walk for Rove who is now running the Super PAC apparatus for the Republican Blitzkrieg of Ugly ahead of the presidential election in November.
The House is currently threatening to go through with the contempt vote if Holder does not produce the documents. What’s more, he can be arrested and literally sent to the gallows with this vote if House Speaker John Boehner decides to give him two-thumbs down like Pontious Pilate and seal his fate.
This Republican Inquisition is grotesque and despicable, and marks a new low in a season that has seen them savage Planned Parenthood and try to dictate how women will or won’t avail themselves of birth control; distinguish themselves as the Party of No on nearly every initiative put forth by Democrats since 2008; and most recently has seen them lend voice to the battle plan of gutting all things middle class should they wiin back the White House.
In today’s politics, the GOP racist attacks are pursued under the protection of a red herring; cheap pot-shots and petty positions designed to look legitimate on their face, but cover up the truth behind the tiff.
Mitch McConnell’s statement when President Obama was elected that the entire mission of the GOP was to see that he is a one-term president properly translated means, “Get the black man out of the White House”.
Think that’s a stretch? Sorry but it's high time to crap-can political correctness and call the situation exactly what it is: Racism.
Consider the entire Birther Movement: despite being given proof to the contrary, the GOP continues to bang the drum that the president wasn’t born in the U.S.
The issue never was about missing documentation or a sense of patriotism to protect the country; rather, it’s a blatant tactic to reinforce that not only does America have a black man as Commander-In-Chief, but calling him thus won’t get him out of office sooner so let’s forever lay the groundwork that a black president who could be a Muslim stole our White House.
Really it’s amazing that the Republicans haven’t sunk to the new low of calling the Obama’s ‘nappy-headed hoes’, but this colonial drama they are foisting on the president and Attorney General is an entirely new load of dung in their bottomless pit of gutter theatre.
One can only hope that House Speaker John Boehner won’t subject the president or Eric Holder to the injustice of having Holder arrested and trotted off to the jail in the capital. The crosses of racism are already burning throughout the corridors of power and the streets of Washington that once saw more bipartisan times and actual progress over the racial divide.
Think the angry mob from ‘Frankenstein’ or the sheet-bedecked rabbles burning crosses in front of homes of mere innocence condemned by the color of their skin; think ponies dragging bound black men behind them in the dust and dirt of the Old West; and now think Kunte Kintay from Alex Haley’s ‘Roots’, shackled and chained with a metal collar as a choker around his neck.
It’s a dangerous game the Republicans are playing having angered immigrants on the nation’s policy, denigrating and disrespecting women, and now targeting their racist repulsion of All Things Obama at the president and Attorney General, and one that can hurt them beyond comprehension at the polls in November.
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