The World According to Dick Cheney is now showing on HBO. It's a documentary about a cranky old former Vice President who helped drive America into one of the biggest economic ditches in history. What's left of this old coot's life is devoted to convincing America (& the world?) that he wasn't a grand failure. His former boss (or should I say co-worker), George W. Bush has mainly kept his mouth shut preferring to let history document how his role in it should be evaluated. What the hell, Bush will be dead in time and I don't think he's loosing sleep over much of anything. At least Bush is keeping quiet and not trying his hand at revisionist history, like Cheney.
Meanwhile, back in Washington D.C., the extreme right is gathering at CPAC, a convention of what is now considered conservatives, although this crowd passed conservatism quite a ways back and is in the extreme right-wing mode. They seem to think they're doing fine, and shouldn't change at all. The only thing they think they should change maybe a little is their rhetoric. Make the Hispanics, women, and the working poor think they're in your corner when they're really not, like that's a valid plan.
Look at some of the, so called, "leaders" of this crew and marvel at their inability to change or offer any ideas that would be any different from what they've been offering (& consequently rejected). Their big "savior", Marco Rubio put down those who would make fun of the Republicans by saying their (the Republicans) ideas basically come down to "America". I'm not sure what he meant when he said that, but I think it comes out of the same grab bag of empty slogans like "liberty" and "freedom"...patriotic sounding drivel which always gets applause from this lame crowd but means nothing. Another speaker at CPAC was the dude with the widows peak, Paul Ryan who simply dusted off his old budget which helped lose him and Romney the White House. He now says this same budget will balance our budget in 10 years not 20 or more like he claimed during the campaign. The only problem with the "Ryan Plan" is that it's still the Republican play book of more tax cuts for the rich while vaporizing safety net programs plus gutting Medicare and Medicaid.
I haven't heard anything yet from Donald Trump, but maybe his new ideas for making America a better country for all will include more baseless claims concerning President Obama's birth certificate. Chris Christie won't be speaking because he wasn't invited since he's not deemed "conservative" enough. In other words, he has been too cozy with the enemy: Democrats including that Muslim pretender to the throne, President Obama.That one non-invite perfectly illustrates just how far gone these loons are because simply talking and maybe agreeing with a Democrat-you become an outcast. This is what's causing massive polarization in Washington: a declaration to beating your enemy even at the peril of helping the majority of Americans. These extremists would rather not compromise their crippled belief system and the country be damned. Increasingly, this is what Americans see, and is why Republicans will (outside gerrymandered districts) continue to lose. One day enough of the old Republican Party (logical moderates) will see this endless destruction and take their party back.
The CPAC crowd is having fun I'm sure, giggling and making jokes all while Rome burns. President Obama has already declared he's willing to make changes to Social Security and other entitlements, but that's still not enough to get these crazed kooks off their collective butt and negotiate. Spending over the past three years has gone down so that accusation isn't relevant. By the way, check out Britain: they began cutting spending over the past couple of years (instead of putting money into the economy as stimulus) and they're on the verge of a triple-dipped recession. Our economy is growing-slowly yes, but it's growing and not going backwards like our British friends who did what Republicans wanted and it backfired. While the extreme right freaks over cuts to defense, we increased defense at least twice since 9/11 and just how many more weapons programs do we need in a time when utilizing huge armadas and battalions is not the way to fight terrorism.
The gang at CPAC is adrift and rudderless. They keep inviting the same worn out geeks to their dog and pony show and refuse to listen, much less invite, the one guy who could maybe win the White House for them in 2016. From the look and sound of it, they'll whither away more because they refuse to change. Even Jeb Bush who still clings on to the hope of winning the presidential nomination next time around, took a 180 turn and decided it's better to win the shrinking Republican base than the hearts of the Hispanic community as he is now against a path to citizenship. Whatever credibility he had left to moderates has died along with his stature as a more open-minded Republican: there is no such thing anymore, at least among the CPAC crowd.
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