If this dispute were not about the safety and security of our country and its citizens, the spectacle would make me laugh out loud.
The Senate is scheduled on Monday to hold a fourth futile vote on getting cloture for the House’s ludicrous appropriation bill for the Department of Homeland Security. When that fails, the Republicans will have no clue what to do. On Wednesday, they’ll have their little group pow-wows and try to hash out a strategy, but all they’re going to do is argue with each other.
Democrats, meanwhile, have had a much easier role in the debate. They’ve defended Obama’s executive actions [on immigration enforcement] from the start and have been only too happy to highlight the Republican infighting on a topic that has long-divided the GOP.
“They are home and getting an earful about how irresponsible it is to not to fund homeland security,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. “To defund DHS, with all that we are seeing in Europe and the Middle East, is just plain reckless.”
At this point, it’s actually beyond reckless. Being reckless is something you do without any regard for the consequences. But it still involves doing something intentionally. What we have here with the Republicans is an inability to take any coherent action at all. They don’t want to leave the DHS without funds, but they literally cannot find the will to fund them. The leadership cannot convince their caucuses to follow them, and so they are useless.
This is worse than incompetence and somewhat different than mere recklessness. It’s like the driver of a car who loses complete control of his arms and legs. They don’t want to crash, but they can no longer steer or apply the brakes, so they are definitely going to crash.
Into us.
And there’s really nothing anyone can do about this. We’re as helpless as they are.
All I want to know is “who the fuck gave these drunks the keys and what the fuck were they thinking?”
