"Do Not Ask What Good We Do" -- stranger than fiction
“This must be a fiction.” That’s my first reaction after reading “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives” by Robert Draper.
— That these people met on the evening of the 2009 inauguration day plotting to collectively obstruct and handicap the new president,
—That they were motivated by a feeling that is nothing less than a deep hatred for the nation’s first black president on his first day of the white house
—That the “respectful” senior GOP members planned to block every move of the president over next four years so that there would not be a second term for this president
—That they trashed the interests of the nation for their hidden agenda
—That these gentleman looking guys —Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions, Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl, Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz — engaged in something similar to a conspiracy…
Party above country? More morbid than that. Now we have the answer to the dramatic showdowns or deadlocks or near standstills that have accompanied this president since that secret gathering.
Somebody must be a good story teller or I must be a true kool-Aid drinker to believe all these. Stranger than fiction indeed.
Mark Hastert
1 year agoConspiracy? It may not rise to that level but the GOP was loud and clear and on record. They have obfuscated and obstructed at every level on every initiative. O-Romney care with it’s mandate first proposed by the Heritage foundation and supported by prominent Republican? Against! Cap and Trade, another GOP idea? Against! So, if all the reasons they criticize Big-O for are actually conservative ideas to begin with what could be the real reason they hate him so much? Hmmmm, what’s different about him?
Kent Mueller
1 year agoObama could have passed anything he wanted to pass IF, he would have been able to get enough of his fellow Democrats to agree. He had a majority in the House and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. If his own party doesn’t support him, why should the Republicans? And besides, the opposition party, by definition, opposes. Where was your outrage when the Democrats opposed Bush at every turn?
Mark, you blast Republicans for changing their mind on cap and trade. I’m waiting for your rant about the Democrats changed their mind on cap and trade. If the Democrats had gone alone in the 80’s, you just might have cap and trade now.
Phil Cardarella
1 year agoNot much of a conspiracy, given that those clowns openly announced every intention.
I guess it makes folks feel better to be shocked that the GOP did exactly what it said it would do: Obstruct the nation’s agenda for their political one. Like the folks who were shocked that Hitler did exactly what he wrote that he would do. (No, the GOPers are NOT Nazis, and I am not calling them that.)
Politics is nothing new. The level of spite and obstruction is.
Kent Mueller
1 year agoYanwen, Mark and Phil,
It is amusing to see how you see the Democrats as supporting the “nation’s agenda” when they vote for what the want and vote against what they don’t want. But when Republicans vote for what they want and against what they don’t want, then it is a political issue.
And Phil, please, please don’t insult my intelligence by saying what you call “spite and obstruction” is new. I lived through the “spite and obstruction” of the Democrats during Bush’s Administration. You didn’t notice?
George Hunsucker
Northland
1 year agoPhil is a consumer of the lib kool-aid Kent.. He notices nothing ….
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
1 year agoKent, thanks for your civility. For the record, I did not vote for healthcare reform and some other Obama’s bills.
To me, the book reveals the root cause of GOP’s unanimous constant opposition to whatever the President proposes, that is, opposition for the sake of opposition. This is not the behavior of a responsible politician.
Kent Mueller
1 year agoYanwen, and I thank you for your civility. However, I do ask this. Were/are you as angry at the Democrats for their opposition for the sake of opposition? We lived that for most of the Bush Administration. Harry Reid was the poster child for that.
It is fine that you write what you write, because this is an opinion page. But when you only castigate one party, doesn’t that morph opinion over to partisanship? And isn’t partisanship exemplified by “opposition for the sake of opposition”?
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
1 year agoGentlemen, Thanks for the discourse.
(1) When I said I didn’t vote for healthcare, I think it is known to all that no ordinary citizen is in the position to directly vote for or against any bill. I did not support the fight for it at the moment when the need to get us out of recession surpassed that for reform. Still, I see it as originating from good intention but wrong timing.
(2) I have tried to free my mind from the chain of any ideology and prejudice, but obviously have not succeeded yet. On being partisanship, I was very outspoken when Bill Clinton got messy with Lewinsky, when Obama used the word “stupid” on Cambridge police, when I learned of Anthony Weiner’s morbid behavior, when Obama did not show up immediately upon learning the BP oil spill and the death of several citizens, when Obama applauds over the firing of the whole teaching staff at Central Falls high school in RI, and when Obama failed to attack the root cause of many social problems that plague the country — poverty, crime, poor school performance, that is, the culture of individual irresponsibility, and when nobody but he is in the position to address this issue. And I also questioned the ethics and legality of Obama’s Bin Laden killing without due process and transparency. In the case of instant killing of Bin Laden, Obama does not even have the decency of Bush who at least respected the law of the land by holding them as prisoners and let the judge do the rest. Obama, a law professor, deliberately did the outlaw killing. This is one of Obama’s behavior that cannot be rationalized.
Honestly, I’d like to see someone who can solve the problems that we are facing now: deficit, unemployment, low education scores, be he a dem or GOP. And I am interested to see the contents of Romney’s safety net without big government.
Brian Mundell
1 year agoso yanwen, should we highlight a book that says in a secret meeting the o and dems said they want a collapse to further socialism? It seems fine to you the other way around. I always enjoy when there are books or reports about a “secret” meeting. The sheen family believes President Bush brought down the twin towers, where are you on that?
Context is the key to all discussions, something phil and mark leave out. A good point you make is that neither party has a complete solution, but is there such a thing in a country this size? My problem is that no one is proposing to shrink the govt enough and all the libs see reductions as a zero sum game. If the govt doesn’t do it no one will. This is a shock seeing as how long we have lived on this earth.