The GOP Twists the Knife
Written by Mike on November 15th, 2006Not content with merely be in the minority for the 110th Congress the GOP feels compelled to legislate during its lame duck seesion of the 109th Congress as if the Democrats were already in the majority!
The vote which would have normalized trade relations with Vietnam failed yesterday 228-161. Wait, 228-161 sounds like a majority, so how did it fail? The current Republican leadership in their wisdom hoped to push the bill through without any debate so they altered the rules thusly, with the caveat that a 2/3s majority would be required for passage.
The sheer incompetance of this hurts to fathom. How could the GOP leadership not know that 66 members of its own caucus would vote against this bill? Well maybe they did know and were against the legislation the whole time.
Free trade is one of those policies that the GOP was elected to enact. In addition to the economic downside that we now face our loss of face in Vietnam and the rest of East Asia is going to cost us in the future as we go toe to toe with China.
If any further proof is needed to show that Boehner and Blunt are part of the problem facing the GOP this little episode just provided it.
UPDATE: Their will be another vote today with debate and an outright majority will see the that the legislation passes. I am confident that the measure will pass, but not very confident in how the House has handled it thus far.
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Well, Tom Delay wasn’t around to tell everyone how to vote, was he?
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Tom DeLay was a great leader and a tremendous conservative. The House was much more disciplined under his leadership.
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Joe, how can you say that? NCLB and that wonderful entiltelment progrm Medicare Part D. Seiously Joe stop drinking the Kool-aid.
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Joe is right, using criminal tactics like bribery allowed Tom Delay to run one of the most disciplined majorities in history. Whole lot of good that did us.
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Delay opperated like a mafia thug using threats and blackmail to get the votes he needed. I for one am glad this psuedo-conservative is no longer in the house.
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I agree with my fellow SaveTheGOP’ers that while DeLay may have, um, “inspired” discipline, he did it by bullying Republicans to support liberal causes (already listed in prior comments). Not to mention his ridiculous statement that there “is no fat left to cut in the federal budget,” all the while earmarking the heck out of his Texas district. DeLay was part of the problem, not the solution.
Of course, at this point it doesn’t look like the Congressional GOP has gotten the picture, since they returned Trent “I’m getting damn tired of hearing from them [Porkbusters]” Lott to leadership. Three cheers for completely abandoning conservative principles.