Most people are making fun of Bobby Jindal because he resembled a Mr. Rogers who had been bodysnatched by Grover Norquist or because he reminded people of Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock. But the really amusing thing was that he set forth an argument against Federal action to tackle the problems the country is facing. I don’t know if he expects the Louisiana Comptroller to fix the problems at Bank of America or if he thinks the president should beg the governors to create jobs when they’re facing record budget deficits. Who knows what he thinks, because none of it makes any sense. When I say that ‘We’re all liberals now’, I don’t mean that everyone is now literally a liberal or even that the Obama administration is pursuing a purely progressive agenda on all fronts. What I mean is that the argument against Federal action is dead. The issue of states’ rights is dead. We all liberals now because all our options are liberal options. No one gives a shit what Republicans think anymore and they just want them to shut the fuck up. Even some Republicans feel that way.
The Republican governor of Utah on Monday said his party is blighted by leaders in Congress whose lack of new ideas renders them so “inconsequential” that he doesn’t even bother to talk to them.
“I don’t even know the congressional leadership,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, shrugging off questions about top congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “I have not met them. I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential – completely.”
What’s cracking me up is that the reason they selected Governor Bobby Jindal to respond to the president is because the congressional leadership is completely inconsequential so they wanted an ‘outside the beltway’ kind of guy. But, first of all, Gov. Jindal was a member of Congress until last year, and secondly, he had nothing to say that was in any way distinct from what John Boehner or Mitch McConnell might have said.
You want to know who could reasonably run against Obama in 2012? Dick Lugar or Chuck Hagel could do it if the Obama administration fails dramatically in foreign relations. Otherwise, this is a liberal nation now and will remain so even if the road ahead is rocky. The Republicans destroyed the conditions that made them possible.
