John McCain, who serves on the Intelligence Committee that unanimously approved Gen. James Clapper to be the Director of National Intelligence just last week, has now put a hold on his confirmation vote. Personally, I am not enthusiastic about Clapper’s nomination, but I didn’t vote for him in committee. Apparently, McCain is requesting some kind of report from Clapper and doesn’t want a vote until he gets it. So, did McCain act rashly last week when he voted to confirm Clapper? Or is he just playing along with the stalling tactics (on every single goddamn thing) of the Party of No strategy?
This obstruction got ridiculous and absurd a long time ago, but it shows no signs of abating or having any rational limits whatsoever. Last week, they blocked money for victims of the World Trade Center cleanup in a maneuver that screwed the ‘heroes of 9/11.’ Now they take on another of their shibboleths by ‘undermining our national security.’ After all, what if there is a terrorist attack while John McCain is jerking around our DNI and preventing him from getting to work? What’s Liz Cheney gonna say? What’s Rudy Guiliani gonna say?
It’s a strange phenomenon. The Republicans are whittled down to such a hard core of fringe lunatics in safe districts that they seem to have no fear. They will obstruct money for orphans, gifts for Christmas, even the Easter Bunny himself. There are no evident bounds that I can find. When they are not even afraid to get blamed for a terrorist attack, they have lost all sense of political accountability. They’ve simply gone fishing.
