Roger Simon, Politico: Q: If Cruz & Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who'd be saved? A: America

[highplainsdem]

Wow.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/government-shutdown-racism-roger-simon-98272.html

Question: If Ted Cruz and John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved?

Answer: America.

Harsh? Look around you at what is happening to America and you will see harsh. I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula.

That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh. And for what? Because Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has grown so drunk on the sound of his own voice and so besotted with illusions of his own grandeur that he believes halting government today will propel him into the White House tomorrow?

As The New York Times ably pointed out, this shutdown did not just happen. It was plotted for months by a coalition of more than three dozen conservative groups led by Edwin Meese III. The groups were funded in part by the billionaire right-wing Koch brothers, who wanted to cripple Obamacare. (Koch Companies denies it has supported using the shutdown as a tactic.)

-snip-

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” the New Testament asks.

Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen Boehner’s suite of offices in the Capitol? It would make Midas blush.

Boehner does not bend to the will of his Kamikaze Caucus because he is an evil man. He does so because he is a weak man. To borrow a line from Theodore Roosevelt, I could carve a better man out of a banana.

There is a price to be paid for all this. Even if the immediate problems are somehow solved and a government default avoided — for now — the scab has been torn off our political wounds.

This weekend, racism came out of the closet. (Which assumes it has ever been in the closet.)

-snip-

America has come to a sorry pass. Not because there are still racists among us, but because the racists among us think they can tell us what makes an American.

These people are like the man in the cartoon: He has climbed out on a tree limb and is sawing off the limb behind him, imagining that the tree will fall and not him.

-snip-

[livetohike]

1. Great article! Thanks for posting it

I think it is the best article I have read that accurately slams these idiots.

[Laelth]

2. LOL. Brilliant! k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Laelth]

3. Nice conclusion to the article from Mr. Simon.

I started with a joke and so I will end with one:

Question: What is the difference between the people who shut down the government and the people who have been furloughed?

Answer: The people who have been furloughed actually want to work.

-Laelth

[cali]

4. wow. great, great piece. I'm kind of shocked that its author is Simon

he's hardly a raging liberal.