MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is furious about knee-jerk Republican opposition to anything the Obama administration proposes, but she is equally frustrated by "the futility of Democrats ... trying to persuade Republicans to go along with them on policies that are good for the country." Maddow summed up the current Republican position as one of "Screw policy. Screw what even they believe is good for the country. Screw what even they believe is good for their own districts."
"They are not voting 'Yes' for even things that they agree with," Maddow explained. Her primary example of Republican hypocrisy was the Obama administration's economic stimulus program, which "passed despite every single Republican in the House voting 'No' on it."
"Since then, the consensus among economists is that the stimulus has worked," Maddow commented. But "if there's one thing Republicans agree on now, it's that the stimulus is a bad, bad policy. It's a bad idea that does bad things. It's a bad president's bad way of making a bad economy more bad -- because he's bad."
Maddow pointed out, however, that "the same Republicans who have trashed the stimulus as a bad, bad thing" have also been showing up "in their home districts taking credit for all the good things the stimulus has done."
She noted in particular that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal "has railed against the stimulus and then gone around the state handing out big fake checks with his own name on them, as if the money came from him."
Even Eric Cantor, who coordinated Republican opposition to the stimulus in the House, "held a job fair in his home district at which nearly half the companies who were at the job fair, because they were in a position to hire, have received stimulus funds."
Maddow ran through literally dozens of similar examples. finally pausing to ask, "Shall I go on? I could. I could keep going till the top of the hour and beyond. But you get the idea, right?"
"None of this is a secret," Maddow emphasized, "which is the most important things to understand about it. Republicans right now do not care about policy. By which I mean they will not vote for things that even they admit are good policies."
"They are not embarrassed," Maddow concluded. "Charging them with hypocrisy, appealing to their better, more practical, more what's-best-for-the-country patriotic angels is like trying to teach your dog to drive. It wastes a lot of time, it won't work, and ultimately the dog comes out of the exercise less embarrassed for failing than you do for trying."
"Grow up Democrats," Maddow advised soberly. "Face the music. Do it alone. You're the majority. Kill the filibuster if they won't let you use that majority. The country needs you to."
