 GOP, Still Going Down For all the screaming and hoopla going on this month over the federal healthcare website, the fact remains that the website is improving. That doesn't mean it's perfect yet, as the downtime the system experienced last Sunday proved once again. The numbers of Americans finding insurance plans for themselves using the system has continued to increase though. Further, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius testifies before Congress Wednesday, members of Congress will have a chance to discover why the rollout fell so short of public expectations.
There's actually a far more important mechanism falling short of public expectation or even legitimate function right now - namely the current Republican Party. Thankfully, we already know why that machinery of government isn't working: The Tea Party wing of the GOP, that's dragging the party down rapidly.
As John Judis of The New Republic wrote on Monday, and as all but the most delusional right-wing fanatics have already admitted, the Tea Party is going down. Whether they last until the 2016 election is anyone's guess, but as Judis notes, after the teapeople brought the government to a dead stop and nearly blew up the world's economy earlier this month GOP leaders aren't likely to let them do the same thing again this winter.
That hasn't stopped the teabaggers - and those who continue to pander to them - from bringing out the crazy. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a master of the political pander, dragged out one of the extremist's most tattered ideological toys when he promised to block all Senate nominations over more investigation into Benghazi. Conveniently, as Kevin Drum pointed out on Monday, 60 Minutes already did that for Sen Graham last weekend, and as any sane person would expect... |
