So it went down to the wire and the GOP leadership couldn't even control their own party. After blustering about the budget bill they would pass - and then, in their minds, force onto President Obama's desk - the GOP leadership failed to get enough fellow republicans to support their own budget plan. Incredible.
How does this happen, you ask? It happens, in part, because the current GOP leadership has a history of puffing their chest out in empty displays of machismo and false bravado, and then thinking that it counts for real substance.
Think about it. First we had this intellectually empty display of political PR, colored by a book title filled with Western machismo ...
Gun-slinging tough guys, right? But for the serious student of public policy the book reminded them more of this...
Then we watched as majority whip - and Bakersfield's own - Kevin McCarthy, used this film clip to get his team on board with the budget ...
Wow. Stand back. Don't go into a dark alley with these guys, right?
The reality is that no amount of Hollywood-inspired tough guy bravado can hide the fact that the current GOP leadership is led by corporate errand boys. Worse, they do the bidding of a Speaker who seems more comfortable crumbling emotionally like this ...
Then, for good measure, we heard about Speaker Boehner using more tough guy language. He actually told fellow Republicans to "Get your ass in line," only to watch as GOP lawmakers ignored his "laying down the law" ultimatum. At the end of the day, only Boehner knows what his fellow Republicans saw, and why they rejected his last minute police-like command ...
I know, I know ... what they're discussing in Washington deserves better then the caricatures I've presented above.
Then again, there are times when you get what you deserve when you create an image of yourself that doesn't fit with reality ...
Just saying.
- Mark
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