A good analysis of a Republican Party that is so busy thwarting a Democratic president that, in nearly five years, they can't seem to name one positive action they have taken that can be said to have moved this country forward.
The final two paragraphs provide a lesson new-blood Republicans need to learn and a summary of their non-accomplishments. (Any underlines are mine.)
"Bob Dole no longer recognizes the Republican Party that he helped lead for years. Speaking over the weekend on Fox News Sunday, he said his party should hang a 'closed for repairs' sign on its doors until it comes up with a few positive ideas...
...'I mean, we weren't perfect by a long shot, but at least we got our work done.'...
...When the time came to actually govern, Republicans used to set aside their grandstanding, recognize that a two-party system requires compromise and (making) deals to keep the government working on the people's behalf.
The current generation refuses to do that. Its members want to dismantle government, using whatever crowbar happens to be handy, and they don't particularly care what traditions of mutual respect get smashed at the same time. 'I'm not all that interested in the way things have always been done around here,' Senator Marco Rubio of Florida told The Times last week.
This corrosive mentality has been standard procedure in the House since 2011, but now it has seeped over to the Senate. Mr. Rubio is one of several senators who have blocked a basic function of government: a conference committee to work out budget differences between the House and Senate so that Congress can start passing appropriation bills...
...At long last, this is finally drawing the rancor of (some Senators). Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said that negotiating on a budget was an 'issue of integrity.' Roy Blunt, Lamar Alexander and...others have encouraged talks, and Mr. McCain...now says the Tea Partiers are 'absolutely out of line'...
'We're here to vote, not here to block things,' he said last week. 'We're here to articulate our positions on the issues and do what we can for the good of the country and then let the process move forward.'
Already, the mulish behavior of Congressional Republicans has led to the creation of the sequester, blocked action on economic growth and climate change, prevented reasonable checks on gun purchases and threatens to blow up a hard-fought compromise on immigration. Mr. Dole's words should remind his party that it is not only abandoning its past, but damaging the country's future."
What will it take for the rabid branch of the Republican Party to realize that you can't govern with your foot on the brake pedal all the time? Let's hope it happens before the rest of the world realizes how ineffectual we have become.
What will it take? An electorate capable of thought.
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