UP@NIGHT

The GOP, seeing that it is in a Death Spiral, has announced a new slogan to help revivify the Party.

The GOP:  A Party that won’t be compromised by compromise!

Representative John Boehner, House Minority Leader, made the announcement early this morning on “Morning Joe.” In making the announcement Boehner specifically mentioned how his Party must continue to respect their icons:  Goldwater, Reagan, Bush and Bush.   He then added something that left Joe and his guests mystified.  Boehner said that he would be damned, “if John Dewey and his liberal pragmatist friends are going to put lady liberty behind bars.”*

*Okay, Boehner didn’t say this on “Morning Joe.”  But he might have if he had read Dewey….

Following the unregulated free market logic that has spiraled the country into our current economic morass, the Republican Party, especially those in the House of Representatives, have taken a page from the corporate world.  They have decided to downsize, and it appears that the execs at GOP, Inc. are expecting the downsize to be permanent.   The logic here seems to be that it is better to have a smaller, more efficient body of ideologues, that can be held in line, in order to toe the line.  This will guarantee that the rhetoric from GOP  Inc., its most important product line, will remain as pure as the first snows of winter.   After all, Republicans are principled folks, unlike Democrats and Obamanites who are willing to be “pragmatic.”

The unprecedented scope of their business plan has only become apparent in the last few days.   The Republican execs in the House of Representatives, Boehner’s band of boys, have been especially aggressive in supporting it.  A recent Washington Post-ABC News Poll has shown overwhelming support for the President’s stimulus package, yet not one Republican in the House voted for the President’s package.

Would you support or oppose new federal spending of about 800 billion dollars on tax cuts, construction projects, energy, education, and health care to try to stimulate the economy?

70% Support
27% Oppose

And Nate Silver reports on January 29, 2009, the following on FiveThirtyEight:

It’s not just the goose egg that the House Republicans laid on the Democratic stimulus package yesterday: Boehner’s Boys have been equally uncooperative on other matters. Case in point: a bill yesterday to delay the transition to digital TV. This measure was approved unanimously by the Senate; every Senate Republican gave it the green light. But 155 out of 178 House Republicans voted against it, which resulted in the measure’s defeat since a two-thirds majority would have been required for passage under the House’s suspension of the rules.

Or, take the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a seemingly fairly popular/populist (if not inscrutable) piece of legislation on gender-based pay discrepancies. This was something that Barack Obama whacked John McCain on on the campaign trail, with McCain offering little rebuttal. In the Senate, five Republicans — out of 41 — voted with the Administration on Ledbetter, including all four Republican women. In the House, just three Republicans did — out of 178.

There may be a few retrograde Republicans in the Senate not fully with the downsizing program.   But one has to understand that the  House represents the life blood of the Party.  They are the elected Republicans closest to the forces of production, those that produce the largest quantities of grade A  ideology.  So, unless there is an unexpected upheaval at the top of GOP, Inc., expect the downsizing to continue.  (The proposed new motto for the new GOP:  Change through Ideological Purity.)  There have even been rumors that GOP, Inc. would rather go bankrupt than compromise its principles.   (Unnamed sources suggest that bankruptcy filings can be expected any day now.  Stay tuned.)

(Image from The Boston Phoenix)

UPDATE:  August 26, 2010.  Well, it looks like I must have been terribly wrong about this from what appears to be a Republican resurgence.  As of today, the Republicans look like they may win back the House this November.  They have been temporarily saved by the bad economy and the mid-term election pattern of voters turning against the incumbent party.  However, I would still argue that in the long term Republicans will be forced to downsize if they decide to stick with ideological purity.  They don’t have any answers to the economic mess that we are in.  (Just look at the how dependent they are on the “magic” bullet of lowering taxes, which helped bury us during the Bush years.)  Once people realize this, and understand how much of the Party is under the sway of right wing ideologues, the Republicans will indeed have to consider downsizing.   (And then there are the demographics that are against them.  But this would be another blog.)

[Here's a scoop that you won't find on Andrew Sullivan's site.  He isn't sufficiently in tune with this stuff.  Too much Oakeshott.]

Sometimes the familiar reveals itself in strange and wonderful ways when viewed in hindsight.  Here is John McCain’s (in)famous anti-Obama ad “Celeb.”  Not only does the line of attack seem even more ludicrous after the election, but take a good look at McCain’s picture as it “morphs” at the end.  (Freeze framing the image is helpful here.)   Tell me if you don’t think that he has just had a close encounter of the third kind, that he has come face to face with a “benevolent” alien?  (His present claims about the stimulus package certainly suggest that he is out of touch, in a serious way. “What we need are more tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest aliens.”)  Of course, it could simply be that Obama strikes him as an alien.  I mean, he did refer to him as “that one.”

And while we are at it, let’s not forget how closely the Republicans, and John’s soul mate, George, have been to the aliens.   When Obama gets through cleaning out the Justice Department, he should really have his people check this out.

“SPACE ALIEN BACKS BUSH FOR PRESIDENT”

Don’t think we could have done it without you, George.  And you knew way back when.  Mission, indeed, Accomplished.

Obama Photograph by Jonas Karlsson in Vanity Fair

We know that the contrast between Bush and Obama could not be more stark.  But I have just come across a distinction that may trump many of those with which we are already familiar, for example, that Obama has studied history, while Bush has become an object lesson for historians.

As reported in Politico:

Bush famously arrives at the Oval Office by dawn, leaves by 6 p.m. and goes to bed by 10 p.m. Dinners out are as rare as a lunar eclipse.

Obama, by contrast, stays up late. He holds conference calls with senior staff as late as 11 p.m., and often reads and writes past midnight. Ahead of the Democratic National Convention, he spent consecutive nights holed up in a Chicago hotel room, working on his speech until 2 a.m.

Why, you ask, might this be important?  Night owls are often viewed with suspicion by day-timers, the morning people, the early risers, etc.  Base prejudice.  The list of productive night people is long, from Voltaire to Kafka to Winston Churchill.  As a matter of fact,  it seems that the odds of being creative increases if one is a night owl, at least this is what one recent study demonstrates.

Not a morning person? Take solace — new research suggests that “night owls” are more likely to be creative thinkers.

Scientists can’t yet fully explain why evening types appear to be more creative, but they suggest it could be an adaptation to living outside of the norm.

“Being in a situation which diverges from conventional habit — nocturnal types often experience this situation — may encourage the development of a non-conventional spirit and of the ability to find alternative and original solutions,” lead author Marina Giampietro and colleague G.M. Cavallera wrote in a study to be published in the February 2007 issue of Personality and Individual Differences.

Yes, one small study, but a giant leap for all humankind.  (The study was reported on The Discovery Channel’s on-line site.  You can read more of the details here.)

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Nighthawks by Edward Hopper (1942)

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If you are interested in the world of night folks, the final frontier, you can try the web site Night People. According to Night People:  You Know You’re a Night Person If...

• Sunrise comes as an unpleasant surprise.
• You call someone on the phone to just chat and discover that they’ve been asleep for six hours.
• You do your best work at 2 a.m.
• You finally force yourself to go to bed at 1 a.m. and then keep having brilliant ideas that you have to get up and write down.
• People who are perky or sharp in the morning appall you—and can run rings around you before noon, too.
• Birds start singing about the time you fall asleep.

“Night People” is connected to a site that sells items supporting the cause of night people.   Right on!  Here is the link. A couple of my favorites are pictured below.  (This, I might add, is the first product “suggestion” by UP@NIGHT.)

Okay, I thought that I was done thinking about Bush.  Just two more days to go and he will be deep in the heart of Texas, reading all those “Drive Friendly” signs posted along the highways and byways of the Lone Star State.  (A message that his foreign policy should have heeded more often.)

Unfortunately, it seems that this guy can’t leave us with any good news.  His presidency has helped confirm that a large segment of the American populace is either deeply illiterate about American history or perhaps just plain bonkers (or both).  I don’t know which hypothesis I prefer.   A recent Pew poll tells us the following:

Here is what I want to know.   Everyone is talking about how extraordinarily high Bush’s unfavorable ratings are as he leaves office, perhaps the highest ever, around 70% in some polls.    And yet, more than one in ten Americans think that Bush was an above average or an outstanding president.  And another 28% thinks that he was average.   We can leave it to future historians to tell us whether he has been the worst president.  (He might not have beaten out James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, or Warren G. Harding.  Then again, he might have.)  A survey of present-day historians tell us that he is going be at the bottom of the heap.   (Yes, all of these historians could be deluded.  Odds are they aren’t.   And if George was even an average president, I tremble for the future of The Republic.)

I know, this might seem a small matter.   However, I worry about stuff like this.  39% of Americans think that Bush was an average or above average president.  Can there be any better argument for increasing the funds for the study of history and politics in our schools?  We saw how much damage ignorance led to in the Oval Office, but no doubt it has repercussions in the hinterlands.  Remember, we, the American people, elected George for a second term.

There is, however, some good news in all of this.  Two of the worst presidents ever, Pierce and Buchanan, preceded Lincoln.  Maybe we will get lucky.  You know, it’s always darkest before the dawn.   (And, hey, Obama doesn’t have to be a Lincoln to succeed.  Just a truly above average president.)

P.S.  A personal note: as a former Houstonian, and as someone married to a former Houstonian, I was very pleased to learn that when George heads back to Texas he will be splitting his time between Crawford and Dallas.  Perhaps the Cowboys will make him an honorary dude.