Something Vichy Going On: My Two Cents on the Republican Bail-Out

Spare Change | January 30, 2009 | David J Aland

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

There are a lot of things to admire about France: fashion, wine, truffles, a couple of nice museums, a nifty tower, a few good writers and musicians, and most of the Cote D’Azur, for example. But there are also a lot of things not so admirable: a declining workforce, a bankrupt entitlement system, ethnic riots, an insufferable superiority complex, and a history of surrendering.

Unfortunately, the Senate Republicans are learning all the wrong lessons from those Congressional junkets they must have taken to France. Now, the putative conservatives in the Senate have all but re-organized into a new Vichy Occupation Party (VOP), and found new ways of surrendering their principles.

The handwriting was on the wall with the Senate Finance Committee vote on Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary – with half of the Committee Republicans endorsing (or, in Orrin Hatch’s case, swooning over) a man whose feet are firmly mired in the bank meltdowns, and who cannot competently file his own taxes. That’s like naming a French Ministre de Sauces who eats daily at McDonald’s, sacre ewww!

But the defenders of conservative principle are already finding new ways to surrender. Last night, 9 Senate Republicans joined the Democrats to approve the latest padded out version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This bill essentially expands a once-modest health insurance assistance program for children of destitute families into a pre-cursor of Universal Health Care. Gone are the income limits to ensure the assistance goes to those truly needy, or identity checks to ensure they are actually American citizens.

Vichy was a government in name only, a puppet of the occupier. The VOP appears to be an opposition in name only, a puppet of the new Democrat-dominated regime. In the grand tradition of puppets, these Republican Senators have learned to nod on cue at even the most outrageous propaganda of their handlers.

House Republicans, admirably but perhaps too late, have found their spines. Unable to extract the astonishing amount of pork from the economic stimulus bill, House Republicans unanimously voted against it, joined by several Democrats. These are people who did not buy Nancy Pelosi’s line that fewer children will help the economy, or that voter fraud by ACORN should be rewarded with billions in public funding. But will this principled rejection be matched in the Senate?

It’s propaganda that keeps puppet regimes in line, and the VOP is being well-supplied. President Obama intones that we need to conserve energy and turn down thermostats, while his staff notes that the Oval Office is “hot enough to grow orchids.” (So much for that Chicago toughness in winter weather…). Nancy Pelosi growls that “we wrote the Bill” because “we won the election,”, then turns around and declares herself to be bi-partisan and merely misunderstood. Television ads now warn that supporters of conservative principles (reminder: that includes smaller government, lower taxes, and individual responsibility) are suspect, merely mimicking Rush Limbaugh.

What is one to believe? Well, one thought might be that the tide is actually beginning to turn. Two months ago, the press would have never pointed out the hypocrisy that Obama warmed up for scorching the Wall Street fat cats by dining on $100 per serving beef with the supporters of the stimulus bill. Even Dana Millbank, of the Washington Post, had a field day ridiculing Al “the Goreacle” Gore’s Congressional testimony this week. The national mood is shifting, and glib promises, slick lines, and larded-up legislation are beginning to smell like Marie Antoinette’s pastries to a lot of people.

The action of the House Republicans was not merely a demonstration of partisanship – it was the first action directe by the new political partisans, what the French once called La Resistance. The House vote on the stimulus sham was a warning, not only to the party-in-power, but to their Vichy collaborators, that surrender of principle is not an option. For all of the noise the Senate Republicans have made about being the “loyal opposition”, it’s time that they proved it. The American people have not, after all, chosen to live under one-Party rule, and it falls to the loyal opposition to keep the dominant party honest.

Vive la Resistance.

[ontap]

I was disheartened to find out one of my senators, Kay Baily Hutchinson has finally outed herself as a sudo socialist by supporting that atrocious socialized medicine bill.

[ClearCase_guy]

The action of the House Republicans was not merely a demonstration of partisanship – it was the first action directe by the new political partisans, what the French once called La Resistance.

Not really disagreeing with this sentiment. But I will say (as others have pointed out) that the resistance to the bail-out was bipartisan -- both Republicans and some Democrats opposed it. The support for the bailout was strictly partisan -- 100% Democrat and no one else.

The Democrats are claiming the mantle of bipartisanship, but it is not so.

[dforest]

This post begs one question for me. Was Bush duped by Paulson or was Bush setting the stage for Obama
? It has to be one or the other.

I really don’t know. At this point, I would rather believe the first...but I have large doubts.

[CowboyJay]

Kay Bailey outed herself when she killed the funding for the Secure Fence Act after it had been signed into law.

Not sure exactly what her deal is. Closet Dem, maybe.