By: Gene Lyons
The GOP’s larger problem is that following upon the 2008 financial crisis, Barack Obama’s election stunned and frightened a significant fraction of the GOP base. Psychologists call it “projection,” the habit of attributing one’s own darkest motives and fears to others. Rather than govern, Republican leaders went with it.

Pardon me if I fail to join the crowd handicapping this week’s Iowa GOP caucuses like race track touts peddling betting tips on the Kentucky Derby.

To begin with, I have no clue. Except on the sports page, I normally skip articles speculating about what might happen tomorrow. Damned if I’m going to start writing them.

Also, who cares? History teaches that Iowa Republicans have a particularly poor record of supporting the eventual presidential winner. In six contested GOP primaries dating back to 1976, Iowans have gotten it right exactly once. They chose George W. Bush in 2000 — definitely nothing to brag about.

In essence, the Iowa caucuses amount to a marketing device for cable TV news channels; it’s “American Idol” for the politically obsessed. Their secondary function is to introduce cosmopolitan news correspondents to the homespun wisdom of Real Americans in places like Ankeny, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb where John Deere tractors are manufactured.

A Washington Post reporter found a grandmother there he thought epitomized Iowa voters’ inability to make up their minds. First, she liked Texas Gov. Rick Perry on account of his advertised piety. Then she watched Perry’s hilarious impersonation of a stoned cowboy during the umpty-seven GOP debates, and switched to The Girl With the Faraway Eyes, as Esquire’s Charles Pierce calls her, also due to her religiosity.

Alas, Michele Bachmann “has kind of an annoying voice,” so grandma changed to Newt for a few days before seeing a TV report of U.S. troops pulling out of Iraq, taking no casualties as they went. God, she believed, had protected them in spite of gay marriage, abortion, consumerism and greed. And if God hadn’t given up on America, how could she? So she dropped “the smart one” (Newt) in favor of the holiest candidate of all.

“It was just this big epiphany,” she said. “We’ve got to vote for Santorum! That’s all there is to it.”

If Santorum’s lucky, his newest supporter won’t learn that he has bitterly criticized President Obama on the grounds that very far from following God’s plan, by leaving Iraq the U.S. has “lost the war.” He’s also keen on attacking Iran, a nearby country several times larger than Iraq.

Anyway, who knows? Maybe the nice lady in Ankeny — whose vote counts every bit as much as yours, mine and Lady Gaga’s — would be down with that, although in my experience it’s the rare grandmother who’s enthused about preemptive bombing strikes.

Besides, what’s alarming about the GOP contest isn’t the indecisiveness or poor reasoning processes of Iowa voters. It’s the dismal quality of the choices they’re offered. Is this the best that one of America’s two major political parties can do? You’ve got to wonder what would happen if they put “None of the Above” on the ballot.

With the possible exception of Mitt Romney, there’s not one among them you’d hire to run a WalMart — a difficult job requiring mastery of a million details and an ability to manage people. Of course, if you did hire Romney, you might wake up to find he’d fired all the employees, spun off the grocery operation, and sold the building to Dollar General for a fraction of its value and a player to be named later.

Even the former Massachusetts governor appears only intermittently in touch with the visible world. Recently he described himself as an advocate of “the opportunity society” and his putative opponent as follows:

“President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”

In short, Obama’s a communist. And the evidence for this preposterous claim? Certainly nothing the president has ever said or done. Obama favors a return to Clinton-era tax rates, a time of balanced budgets and growing prosperity. A multimillionaire like Romney would find his marginal tax rate on income over $1 million had risen from 35 to 39.6 percent. I believe he can afford it. True, Obama’s healthcare reform is mildly redistributive, but then so is Romney’s Massachusetts insurance plan it so closely resembles.

For that matter, Social Security’s mildly progressive too. But then candidate Romney wants to privatize that. And, oh yeah, bomb Iran. Or he pretends to believe these things, anyway, and none too convincingly. Hence, the confusion we observe.

The GOP’s larger problem is that following upon the 2008 financial crisis, Barack Obama’s election stunned and frightened a significant fraction of the GOP base. Psychologists call it “projection,” the habit of attributing one’s own darkest motives and fears to others. Rather than govern, Republican leaders went with it.

This dreadful spectacle is exactly what they deserve.

Reference: Top 10 Most Ridiculous GOP Moments of 2011 — http://youtu.be/PMLlNySviZI

About The Author: Gene Lyons — is a liberal political columnist and co-author with Joe Conason of “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton“, a documentary book published in 2000, with a supporting film. The book outlines a purported right wing campaign waged against President of the United States Bill Clinton leading eventually to the president’s impeachment. It extends the discussion in Lyons’ 1996 book Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater. Lyons is a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers in 1965, and earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia in 1969. He taught at the University of Massachusetts, University of Arkansas and University of Texas before becoming a full-time writer in 1976. He has written hundreds of articles, essays and reviews for such magazines as Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Esquire, Slate, and Salon. A winner of the 1980 National Magazine Award for Public Service for the Texas Monthly article “Why Teachers Can’t Teach,” he was an Associate Editor at Texas Monthly in 1981, and General Editor at Newsweek from 1982-86. His other books include The Higher Illiteracy (University of Arkansas, 1988), Widow’s Web (Simon & Schuster, 1993). Lyons writes a column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that is syndicated nationally by United Media. He lives on a cattle farm in Perry County, Arkansas.

May 05, 2011: Media conservatives are insisting that George W. Bush deserves as much credit as President Obama for the death of Osama Bin Laden, if not more. However, making this argument means ignoring what the Bush administration itself reportedly called its “gravest error” — not capturing bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001 — and Bush’s 2002 statement that he was “not concerned” about bin Laden. [ READ MORE ]

This is also in stark contrast to their usual attacks that Obama is responsible for things that are happening during his presidency, including those tied to Bush-era policies like the Gulf oil spill, the weak economy, and the nation’s deficit problems. [ READ MORE ]

Dishonest Crook Sean Hannity Says Bush Not Obama Deserves Credit For Bin Laden Killing!

Hannity: We Got Osama Bin Laden “Thanks To George Bush“

Brent Bozell: Bush Gets All The Credit, None Of The Blame

Donald ‘Birther’ Trump: Obama is Getting Too Much Credit on Osama Bin Laden

Obama To GOP ‘Appeasement‘ Critics: ‘Ask Osama Bin Laden’

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Osama Bin Laden: Obama Reminds GOP He Won’t Be Underestimated

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Other Lies, Distortions, Mis-information and Outright Racism From Fox and Other Right-Wing Political Whore Houses [ WorldNetDaily: Obama "Wants To Import Homosexuals" ]
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Fox Sees “Black Reparations” In UN Climate Deal in Durban, South Africa

“Fuzzy Math“: Fox’s Latest Attempt To Obscure The Current Unemployment Figures — Ever since the Department of Labor released the November unemployment numbers, which showed that the unemployment rate had dropped to 8.6 percent from 9 percent, Fox News has had trouble accurately presenting the data. [ READ MORE ] [ DISHONEST FOX NEWS CHARTS ]

Debating Government Involvement In Health Care, O’Reilly Tries To Claim The Military Is Not Government-Controlled

Limbaugh Plays “First Family Early Kwanzaa Celebration” Parody That Features Jeremiah Wright

Limbaugh Congratulates Himself For Hoping Obama Fails

Limbaugh: Obama “Sabotaged” And “Tried To Undermine” The Iraq War

Limbaugh: Democrats “Can’t Win Unless There Is Vote Fraud” And “Signature Fraud“

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The Big Picture: December 9, 2011

   By: Harold Meyerson
Like Poe’s purloined letter, the Republican plan to heist the 2012 presidential election sits before us in plain view. And going Poe one better, it is perfectly legal. Rigging the already anti-democratic electoral college should not become the way to win the White House, says Harold Meyerson

The first part of the strategy has been unfolding for months. Since the 2010 elections brought Republicans to power in numerous swing states, officials in many of those states have made it harder for minority, poor and young voters to cast their ballots. GOP governments have been curtailing early voting (in Ohio and Florida) and requiring voters to produce official photo-identification cards (in Wisconsin). In South Carolina, the poll tax lives again: Voters who want an official photo-ID card must present a passport or a birth certificate, neither of which can be obtained for free.

Recently a new ploy has emerged, focused on the electoral college. In Pennsylvania, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R) has proposed changing the way the state’s electoral votes are tallied in presidential elections. (A state’s electoral votes reflect the number of its U.S. congressional districts, plus two more for its Senate seats.) Instead of having all of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes go to the candidate who carries the state’s popular vote, as is the long-standing practice in Pennsylvania and 47 other states, Pileggi wants to apportion those votes by congressional district.

Since Bill Clinton carried Pennsylvania in 1992, the state has gone Democratic in every presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama carried Pennsylvania with 55 percent of its popular vote, thereby winning its 21 electoral votes. But if Pileggi’s plan had been in place, John McCain would have been given 10 electoral votes by virtue of winning 10 congressional districts. Obama would have been awarded nine for the nine congressional districts he carried, plus two for carrying the state’s popular vote.

The 2010 Census reduced Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation from 19 to 18, and the Republican legislature and governor have drawn new lines intended to create GOP majorities in 12 of the 18 districts. Under Pileggi’s plan, Obama could carry the state in 2012 — by winning huge majorities in heavily Democratic Philadelphia — and still lose the majority of its electoral votes.

Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s Republican governor, has said he’ll support the Pileggi plan. Other swing states that came under GOP control after 2010 could adopt their own versions: Thus Obama could carry Michigan, thanks to strong support in Detroit, or Ohio, as a result of big numbers in Cleveland and Columbus, and still lose most of those states’ electoral votes.

Ultimately, what Pileggi’s plan does is extend to the states the electoral college’s bias against popular-vote majorities. The electoral college, after all, was created out of a compromise so that Southern whites wouldn’t be outvoted by Northerners in the House of Representatives or in presidential elections. The compromise was to tally slaves in apportioning congressional districts among the states, and then award the presidency to the winner of the states’ electoral vote, not of the nationwide popular count. In 2000, Al Gore won half a million more votes than George W. Bush, but through the magic of electoral-college apportionment and a Republican Supreme Court, Bush won the White House. Under this new Republican scheme, candidates who win a state’s popular votes could still lose the majority of its electoral votes.

Considered in tandem with the drive to reduce voting among minorities and low-income citizens, the emerging Republican opposition to popular-vote democracy makes long-term strategic sense. With each year, the nation’s population and electorate become less white, even as the Republican Party becomes more and more a white folks’ party. As minorities and the poor tend to cluster in cities, in heavily Democratic congressional districts, apportioning a state’s electoral votes by congressional district creates an opportunity for GOP electoral gains even though the party’s share of the popular vote is waning. By contrast, a number of states controlled by Democrats (most recently, California) are trying to scrap the electoral college by conditionally pledging their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote; the shift would take effect if and when enough states to elect a president go this route.

It may be that the 2012 presidential election ends in a landslide victory, no matter how the electoral votes are apportioned. But suppose a Republican wins only by virtue of vote suppression and plans such as Pileggi’s. There would be no basis to challenge the legality of the winner’s claim. The same cannot be said of his legitimacy. And if Rick Perry or Mitt Romney takes office solely by virtue of such anti-majoritarian chicanery, Democrats should not hesitate to challenge his presidency — based as it is on flouting majority rule — at every turn. They should refuse, for starters, to confirm his Cabinet appointments.

Rigging the already anti-democratic electoral college should not become the way to win the White House.

PLAYLIST: Republican Election Fraud — How They Steal Elections

PLAYLIST: Republican Voter Suppression

It seems like the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the race for the White House in 2012 — has energized right-wing media, especially the hardcore right.

They are pooping all over the airwaves:

Yesterday, on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh described a new Oreo that will have both chocolate and vanilla cream as a “biracial” cookie and said that “it isn’t going to be long before it’s going to be called the Or-Bam-eo or something like this.” Limbaugh later called it the “Or-Bam-eo” himself. [ READ MORE ]

Limbaugh: Oreo Has A New “Biracial” Cookie That Will Be “Called The Or-Bam-eo“

Limbaugh Christens Obama’s Bus Tour “The White Like Me Tour“

PREVIOUSLY: Limbaugh Says Obama’s Economic “Role Model” Is Robert Mugabe, Who “Took The White People’s Farms“ [ READ MORE ]

On Tuesday, Fox’s Syphilitic Sean Hannity offered a simple — and spectacularly ignorant — explanation for the mortgage crisis: Obama’s “policies”; Obama’s “fault.”

MMFA: In July 2005 — nearly four years before Obama was inaugurated — Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, put together a fact sheet on the housing bubble, warning that its collapse would “throw the economy into a recession.” Then there is The Economist from June 2005.

MSBNC’s Ed Schultz Calls Out Hannity And Limbuagh For “Flat Out Lie About The Unemployment Level“

Fox’s Laura Ingraham: Obama Re-election Bumper Sticker Should Be “Food Stamps For Everyone“

Fox’s Andrew Napolitano Predicts Obama’s Jobs Plan Will Be A “Giveaway To Select Groups That He And His Folks Favor”

Fox’s Greg Gutfeld Proposes A “Food Stamp Wallet” As A Souvenir That Would “Fit Obama“

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The stupid children at Fixed News (Fox News) got up early yesterday with lots of homework in their backpacks — talking points supplied by Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch’s chief henchman at Fox.

Other than the usual Obama bashing propaganda, the ridiculous Fox and Friends vigorously promoted: “Drinking With Guns.”

   Filipino “Anchor Baby” Michele Malkin at Fox & Friends [ File Photo ]

“Grab your gun and get a drink and go drink in Virginia” does not sound like wise advice but that’s how Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade is interpreting the latest news about Virginia’s law allowing concealed guns to be brought into bars. [ READ MORE ]

Gretchen Carlson: “We Don’t Know If Gov. Perry Would Even Want To Fly On Air Force One … Maybe He’d Ride His Horse”

Fox’s Monica Crowley Calls President Obama’s Bus Tour “Derivative” Of Palin’s, Adding “He Ripped Her Off”

Fox’s Andrea Tantaros: Obama’s “Violent Rhetoric, The Class Warfare Rhetoric, Causes These Flash Mobs”

Sean ‘Syphilis’ Hannity Hammers Obama For Focusing On Jobs [ After Insisting Debt Was "Issue Number One," Fox Slams Obama For "Pivoting" To Jobs ]

Fox’s Opportunist KLANSman Eric Bolling Dons Perry/Romney Button And Calls It “The Perfect Ticket”

Hannity Still Pushing Dubious Claim That Obama “Sprung” 1967 Borders To Israeli PM Netanyahu

Rush Limbaugh [ The Man Who Ate The GOP ] Asks Why No Obama Ex-Girlfriends Have Surfaced, Claims He Has “Not Been Vetted”

Limbaugh: Middle Class Is In A “Chokehold,” Is “Struggling In This Country Purely Because Obama Is President”

Limbaugh Revives Falsehood That “If We Don’t Buy Health Insurance, They Can Put Us In Jail”

The Sane Pundits:

Current TV’s David Shuster Blasts Fox For “Unhinged” Attacks On Secret Service Buses

The Real Rick Perry; The Higher The Monkey Climbs, The More You See Its Ugly Side

Tea-Publican Rick Perry Proposes Attacking Mexican Immigrants With Predator Drones at The Border

How Texas ‘Hangman’ Rick Perry is Trying To ‘Swift-Boat’ President Barack Obama

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