NYT Drama Queens Hate GOP ‘Theatrics’
An editorial so snide and uninformed that it could only come from the pages of the New York Times:
Pomp, and Little Circumstance
January 4, 2011A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress.
Mind you, this is coming from a newspaper whose motto is: ‘all the news that’s fit to print.’ An operation that calls itself the ‘newspaper of record.’
A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution.
What is wrong with this? And never mind that it could be argued that this is already an implicit requirement of legislation? Certainly it is supported by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution. (If it is still allowed to cite such things.)
A bill will be introduced to repeal the health care law.
Oh, the outrage of ‘representatives’ actually doing the bidding of the people who elected them to office. And doing what 2/3rds of the American public wants.
On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber.
This clearly is what has given the editors at Times the vapors.
And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arranged to have his office staff “sworn in” on Tuesday by the chief justice of the United States.
It is "self-important" to try to impress upon your staff that they too have to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our country? Who knew? (Certainly not Nancy Pelosi’s staff, who had no such qualms.)
Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification. Then, they may find time for governing.
Lest we forget, the 111th Congress did not even pass a budget last year. Which it is actually required by the Constitution to do.
But The Times chides this new Congress for squandering all of its time in self-glorification (by reading the Constitution) and not finding the time to govern. When they have been in office for how long? One day?
The empty gestures are officially intended to set a new tone in Washington, to demonstrate — presumably to the Republicans’ Tea Party supporters — that things are about to be done very differently.
Note that reading the Constitution is deemed to be an ‘empty gesture.’ Likewise trying to repeal one of the most costly and most despised pieces of legislation in our nation’s history.
But it is far from clear what message is being sent by, for instance, reading aloud the nation’s foundational document. Is this group of Republicans really trying to suggest that they care more deeply about the Constitution than anyone else and will follow it more closely?
So what if they are suggesting that? Let the other side prove them wrong. Let the Democrats stop trampling on the Constitution and passing un-Constitutional legislations – like Obama-care.
In any case, it is a presumptuous and self-righteous act, suggesting that they alone understand the true meaning of a text that the founders wisely left open to generations of reinterpretation. Certainly the Republican leadership is not trying to suggest that African-Americans still be counted as three-fifths of a person.
This last sentence alone should be enough to discredit the editorial board of the New York Times forever. Are they really unaware that the 14th Amendment is currently part of the Constitution?
This abject ignorance shows the crying need to have the Constitution read aloud as often as possible. Since even the Solons at The Times are woefully unaware about what it says.
There is a similar air of vacuous fundamentalism in requiring that every bill cite the Constitutional power given to Congress to enact it.
Then the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution are "vacuous" also. Or are these two more Amendments that the editors of The Times are pig-ignorant about?
The new House leadership says this is necessary because the health care law and other measures that Republicans do not like have veered from the Constitution. But it is the judiciary that ultimately decides when a law is unconstitutional, not the transitory occupant of the speaker’s chair.
So the Congress should never be concerned as to whether their legislation is Constitutional or not? They should just pass whatever they want and let the courts sort it out, if somebody eventually decides to take the law to court. What a novel approach to legislation.
By the way, The Times also railed against the lawsuits brought against Obama-care by the states. Perhaps they have already forgotten that.
All of this, though, is simply eyewash — the equivalent of a flag-draped background to a speech — compared with the actual legislation the Republicans plan to pass. And though much of that has no possibility of being enacted, it does suggest the depth of the struggle to come.
Funny how the New York Times is suddenly against symbolic gestures. They normally call efforts to pass doomed legislation — such as surrendering in Iraq — heroic and noble. But that is only if these futile gestures are for a cause that they approve.
The bill tauntingly titled the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” has nothing to do with increasing employment and will never reach the Senate floor, but shows that the leadership is willing to threaten the hard-fought access to health care for millions of the uninsured, just to make a political point.
Really? Requiring businesses to provide government decreed levels of healthcare insurance for their employees or face a stiff fine is not a job killing bill? Then why have more than 222 businesses (and unions) already gotten waivers?
Is the New York Times really this un-informed, or is advancing Democrat propaganda that much more important to them than the facts?
On budgetary issues, the House Republicans’ new rules bypass the chamber and even their own Budget Committee to give all power to set spending levels to the committee’s new chairman, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It is hard to imagine how long such an aggrandizement of power will last in a contentious body like the House.The plans by Mr. Ryan and his colleagues to simply cut all spending back to 2008 levels also have no chance of being enacted.
Then what is the problem?
The one good thing about these meaningless rules and bills is that they finally seem to be prodding House Democrats into standing up for their own programs as they enter the minority. Democrats have begun to remind Americans of what is at stake in repealing health care: popular provisions like the elimination of lifetime coverage limits, insurance under parents’ policies up to age 26, and coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The Democrats and their lickspittle minions like The Times have been reminding Americans of these so-called benefits for many months now. And Obama-care is more unpopular than ever.
Perhaps The Times slept through the November elections.
The Republicans’ antics are a ghastly waste of time at a moment when the nation is expecting real leadership from Congress, and suggest that the new House leadership is still unable to make tough choices.
"The new House leadership is still unable…" Yes, they have been unable to make touch choices for almost a day now.
Besides, trying to repeal Obama-care and trying to cut spending back to 2008 are not tough choices? This isn’t leadership?
Voters, no less than drama critics, prefer substance to overblown theatrics.
That is rich, coming from the substance-less drama queens of the New York Times. — Frank Rich.
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