Gratuitous
Obstruction
Party

But will the US population learn about this? I'm doubtful.

To be serious... isn't the strategy pretty straight forward? The public--the source of the wild popularity of the president--aren't going to see or hear anything about this obstruction. Nothing. Republicans will lose nothing there.

Similarly, they gain nothing from the public if they let all of the nominees go through--there won't be any stories that most people will hear about the Senate's role in approving nominees.

On the flip side, they can spit out fundraising letters to their base about how they were the only ones able to say no to the ultra-hard-left-wing nominees of Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Tim Geitner, Lisa Jackson, Nancy Sutley.

It seems pretty straightforward... am I missing something?

You have to admire their indifference, if not disdain, even contempt, for what Dems, the media, the American public might say about their tactics.

If Dems ever tried something like this, we'd be cowering at what Limbaugh, McConnell, O'Reilly et al. would say and since we care so much about not offending our political opponents, we'd knock it right off the second they started bitching.

Or even better, we wouldn't do it in the first place.

Yeah, the Repubs are a-holes. But they're going down fighting. You got to admire their spirit. Even if it's finally an utterly pointless move.

They're doing what their constituency wants them to do...They simply have a small and shrinking constituency. If they're okay with that, so am I.

The public--the source of the wild popularity of the president--aren't going to see or hear anything about this obstruction. Nothing. Republicans will lose nothing there.

No, I think the just the opposite. They've put themselves in a position to lose big time.

If the GOP just swallowed and confirmed Holden, I'm betting nothing would have happened on the torture-investigation front. Obama wants to look forward, all that. And few would have noticed that relatively speaking.

But no. Instead the GOP grandstands, making an appointment about prosecuting torture. So they went with the least defensible option and the bragged about putting the administration in the position to uphold the law. Which they will now be forced to do -- which is what most of us want anyway.

They've fucked themselves.

And if they really had a strategy, the smart move would have been to confirm Holder (assuming he would have let sleeping dogs lie) and then attack him for not prosecuting people he thinks are criminals. It would have let them at least assume a veneer of giving a shit about the law while sticking the shiv into those do-gooders (attacking their strength!).

It now seems to me that if the Obama Administration wants Holder confirmed, they are going to have to go after the torture policy. And the Republicans forced them to do it! By accident!

They don't have any choice.

They realize, at least subconsciously, that no one outside a shrinking minority wants anything to do with what passes for "policy" in the GOP.

They can't abandon their right-wing authoritarian, war-mongering, hate-everybody, kill-all-non-whites, baby-seal-clubbing "ideals" because then nobody at all would vote for them.

If they weren't obstructionists, if they weren't knee-jerk opposing everything the dems want, if they weren't upholding the Smirky-Darth legacy of war crimes, torture and constitution-burning, they wouldn't be republicans any more.

They'd be Democrats.

But don't dismiss them. They are wounded, cornered, rabid wolverines and they will attack anyone who approaches.

Obama better realize fast that he's got to cage and isolate them, before they infect the whole place.

OT - MSNBC is now reporting that Caroline Kennedy dropped out because a nanny or former nanny turns out to be undocumented.

Wolverines!

Why are the Republcuns behaving this way? Simple. They can't masturbate in public. This is the next best thing.

One important possibility: these hard-core survivors actually BELIEVE their own rhetoric. They really do think that America will be destroyed if they don't fight back with every tool at hand, and they will not be polite about their resistance because they hold all their opponents to be contemptible phonies unworthy of the respect they expect from others.

Beyond that, of course, we have an entire poltical faction run by people who haven't grown up emotionally since they used to fight with their kid sister over the last cookie on the plate. Someone needs to call their mothers and straighten this out.

next, they'll filibuster the lunch order! (to prove their commitment to America, no doubt.)

I think it's mostly a play to their declining base. They know they can delay a nomination at best.

At this point only the Obama Administration or the nominee themselves can derail confirmation.

I think the best strategy is the one the Obama Adminisration is pursuing - let these Republicans have their say. Once confirmed, get on with the work to be done.

I've been paying attention to Obama's nominations and appointments and thinking to myself, "What serious people this man is tapping for service to this country." Listening to the Bush Admin obits and historical anecdotes, and looking at the GOP's future, I question:

Where are any of the serious actors in the Republican party? There doesn't even seem to be anyone to carry the water.

Grotesque
Obstructionist
Party

Some of this Senate crap is probably repubs posturing for a presidential run in 4 years. They need to get threir names out there to the base. Holding up hearings doesn't cost them any campaign funds, and it doesn't commit them to anything. This explains Kyl and DeMint. Vitter is just being a pain to distract from his previous accomplishments. Cornyn no doubt has heard voices telling him to do it. (He thinks it was god, but it was actually a nighttime phone call from DeLay.)

It's all they have to offer.

Bush came off as an idiot but he's not; he just had no imagination or creativity and so it is with Congressional Repubs. Fighting and confrontation is all they understand besides cronyism and sweetheart deals.

We have an unprecedented set of problems to tackle and they'll have no ideas to bring, no creative problem-solving. Just the same old government-is-not-the-solution mantra. Boehner was on NPR this morning saying it in so many words. So if they can obstruct, they can feel they've done their work for the day. Public service is not in their job description and I think enough people have noticed.

These post '08 election Congressional Republicans need to read a bit more Shakespeare as they are following in the foot steps of such tragic protagonists as Brutus and King Lear - blinded by ambition and suffering from no self-reflective ability.

All our Republican Congressional leaders need to study is how things turned out for the two above characters, because if they can't sober up to truly see the changed America they now live in they will no doubt fall on their swords and that will be the last we will see of any viable form of the Republican party!

Do our Republican leaders get the idea that the likes of Boehner and McConnell fit nicely into the characters of Brutus and a wannabe King Lear respectively?

Do they get the idea that their game is over and a new one has begun with different anticipations, expectations, rules and intended outcomes? Do they wish to die a cold death like the Federalists did say around 1816 of nation's history?

I sense that these Republicans who call themselves party leaders are in over their heads, and if they can't up-tick their efforts to offer us viable alternative policies and instead stick with their non-agenda obstructionism, they will see their share of Congressional representation contracted even more in 2010 than it was this last election cycle! -Kevo

Have you heard all the noise Limbaugh has been making over the past few days? The right's break with reality has gone from clear to astonishing. Reality is a speck in their collective rear-view, and all they can do is stomp harder on the gas.

@Cash, etal:

"I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." - Otter, Animal House

And the repubs are just the guys to do it . . .

CT: Why are the Republcuns behaving this way? Simple. They can't masturbate in public. This is the next best thing.

I'd say that this is their way of masturbating in public. But that's quibbling, isn't it? :)

Something occurred to me late in the Cabinet-making game, and I don't know the answer. The President sends nominations to the Senate, which can advise and consent, and then confirm their appointments. How does the President-elect get to send names to the Senate, and what happens if the Senate votes to confirm before the President-elect becomes President for Real?
I suppose the Senate can consider anything it wants, and could consider my Cabinet nominations if I sent some in, but can the Senate confirm nominations made by a person who is not, either at the time the nominations are sent or at the time of the confirmation vote, actually President? And could an obstreperous Senate controlled by the opposition party insist on waiting for an actual President before receiving, considering, and voting on nominations?

They will not change and in fact cannot change because modern Republicanism is a mental disease, not subject to rational thought processes. The faster they get professional help the better off we'll all be.

The only figures now capable of mobilizing Republican voters are give-no-quarter types like Rush Limbaugh. And the GOP congressional caucuses are so depleted of members in competitive seats that the survivors are less afraid of Democrats than they are of primary challengers labeling them RINOs. Now do you understand their legislative "strategy?"

With rpresentatives like these, who needs Terrorists? At least the terrorists know how to get something done. I'd love to hear the outrage about my comparing repugnicants to terrorists! Come on Rush baby, put on your diaper, pop another Viagra and turn all flushed again!

You write: "Put aside the notion of soul-searching and introspection, and consider if the GOP has made any effort to change its tactics or direction in any meaningful way. If so, I don't see it."

Me either. And we won't -- as long as the Repubs listen to Rush Limbaugh and worship Sarah Palin. Dubya didn't do nuance. These folks don't do no introspecting.

A little perspective, please- over the last eight years wasn't it the progressives who were demanding Dems stand up for liberal values, oppose nominations they had no chance of stopping, show some back bone and not let themselves get steam-rollered, etc.

And it was conservatives who were saying that the liberals hadn't realized how out of touch they were and how their ideas had been rejected etc.

On the Holder thing in particular, imagine there is a terrorist strike sometime down the road, and it turns out that someone in custody once knew somebody who knew one of the terrorists uncle's neighbor's brother-in-law's cousin. The Repubs get to shriek "We Told You So" at the top of their lungs.

And remember to watch out for that main stream media keyword, "Congress" to mean "Republicans."

As in, 'Congress delays on appointees' instead of 'Republicans delay on appointees'.

don't overreact y'all.
they are just stupid.
it'll be over soon enough.

They are running out the 100 day clock, so the press can vilify President Obama for not achieving anything.

These are the 27%ers. All ready to elect Bush/Cheney again and believing the last 8yrs was a complete success except for what they couldn't control.

POP (THE PEOPLE'S OBSTRUCTIONIST PARTY) who all praise Rush Limbaugh as their adviser. Makes ya wanna' puke.

They believe in America...just not this one.