It is standard fare for the GOP to accuse Dems of doing exactly what it is the GOP does. That way, if Dems complain about the GOP doing whatever, they can come back with, "They do it, too."

The GOP is all about running the government for the short term benefit of the wealthy special interests. They are not interested in actually governing.

it gets harder and harder to explain the policies of the conservatives because they are BANKRUPT... as in the fact they have completely hollowed out the country's economy.

some folks will align themselves with the politics of selfish, hateful anger even while on a diet of cat food and oatmeal while living in a cardboard box -- but not a whole bunch...

This is just standard Republican politician behavior. The only things they really care about are power and money for themselves. They wil say anything, anything at all. Barefaced lies, no problem.

I suspect Boehner's comments were just a moment of self-pity. If Republicans are losing, it's not the result of failure, but rather, the inherent burdens of the GOP's message of frugality and budget discipline.

Boner is just like Phil Gramm, with his complaint about America being a "nation of whiners." When you're dealing with Faith-based economics, where THE TRUTH is revealed rather than arrived at by gathering and analyzing data, you don't have many options.

Saint Ronald gave Republicans The Message -- that government was the problem and that cutting taxes increases government revenue. So if privatizing, deregulating and cutting taxes don't work, then it must be the public's fault.

All we have to do is close our eyes, click our heels three times, and BELIEVE.

steve, don't you know that it's only a free lunch if government spends money on poor people? i'm being sarcastic.

"Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government.."

The fact is these words have no meaning left, that's what's "wrong" with the GOP. It's the same message from 2000, a phrase that has had every ounce of relevance burned out of it by the legacy of W.

Boehner and Rush are nothing but antique talking dolls with a pull string.

The GOPers threw whatever intellectual honesty they may have had overboard during the last 8 years, blindly following Bush and dissing science and expertise because they thought that was the road to power. Now he has been rejected, and they along with him. The only semi-honest one is Grover Norquist in his interview with TPM where he says they should have stood up to Bush. Well duh! But they didn't, and now people like Boehner just sound like whiners.

Plus most of them are really, really ignorant, especially about economics. Maybe there is something to that science and education stuff after all. Ya think?

"Democratic policies aren't better, they're just easier to market to the American people, "

That clearly explains the GOP 's problem. They are so convinced they have to market their policies and candidates and the way to do it is lie.

Maybe the Dem's policies are easier to "market" because they are based on truth and principles. Especially President Obama's

A couple years back you ran a piece by Alan Wolfe that accurately described the GOP problem:

"Contemporary conservatism is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission... is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of an attempt to solve real-world problems, .... It stems, ...from the libertarian conviction, repeated endlessly by George W. Bush, that the money government collects in order to carry out its business properly belongs to the people themselves. One thought, and one thought only, guided Bush and his Republican allies since they assumed power in the wake of Bush vs. Gore: taxes must be cut, and the more they are cut--especially in ways benefiting the rich--the better.

But like all politicians, conservatives, once in office, find themselves under constant pressure from constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts conservatives in the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions--indeed, whose very existence--they believe to be illegitimate. Contemporary conservatism is a walking contradiction. Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html

So if privatizing, deregulating and cutting taxes don't work, then it must be the public's fault.

Of course, it's also why the Republicans feel compelled to snipe-hunt the bogeyman of widespread election fraud. If they keep losing, surely it can't be because the American people understand and reject their policies, right? It must mean elections are being stolen...

As an aside am I the only person who still can't get the system to remember my info from one post to the next? For such a professional operation, this smacks of amateur hour.

Not only is it factually weird, it's also pretty weak tea for a criticism. "Democrats have been giving Americans what they want successfully. We have a tougher job because we don't want to give them what they want."

Uh... okay? That's a stupid thing to say.

Re: Boehner says it with a straight face. Except for his "tears" I have never seen him express an emotion.

I have always thought the exact opposite of Boehner's view was true. The republicans prosciribe taking care of yourself and the free market and the invisible hand will take care of everything else. Easy to explain and a nice rationalization for total self-interest. The democrats, on the other hand, have to persuade that we have an interest in the common good and long term community objectives. A much tougher sell.

OH, heh heh, Democrats are the party of the "free lunch" - Boner conveniently forgets the unforgivable Replutlican giveaways of lower capital gains tax rates (the only excuse would be, for genuine start up capital), whining about welfare but consistently supporting ever-greater dependent deductions and child tax credits (and against phasing them out above X), favors to house flippers and such, all those corporate tax loopholes, dirt-cheap privileges for mining companies, letting hedge mgrs able to treat income like cap gains, etc.

Then there's the indirect favors like suppressing rise in minimum wage, which effectively lets companies keep more profit and less money going to the people who do the work providing the companies' products and services.

The only softening of criticism of the Rs on this is, Democrats have too often participated in the same sort of crap. Stop it all, from both parties.

The only real surprise was that Boehner was able to say it with a straight face.

I was thinking along those same lines, but from a different emotional angle---Boehner's famous for cranking on the crocodile tears when he doesn't get his way. Maybe he's been hearing too many tiny violins in his nightmares recently....

Tax cuts without corresponding budget cuts are just as much of a free lunch as enacted programs without tax increases to pay for them. A party that wages a $3 trillion war, and places it off the PAYGO books, can't really claim to be making tough fiscal choices.

Is it just me, or is John Boehner of late looking strikingly like Willie Loman? -Kevo

That's insane, of course, but it's also a rather obvious example of ... wait for it ... a "free lunch."

The 400th time you repeat that lame Jon Stewart 'wait for it' bit, it stops being funny.

The republican version of a free lunch for the hoi polloi is a soup kitchen.

"Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government, we have a tougher time making our principles relevant to the American people. -- John Boehner

Virtue is its own reward, didn't you know? Stand up straight, wave your principles with pride, don't cheapen them by putting a price on them and peddling them to the ignorant masses.

How much time do you think Boehner spends in a tanning bed? All those gamma (or whatever they are)rays have just about fried his brain.

Or, if he doesn't actually get his facial coloring from a tanning bed, maybe he uses a devise I saw advertised in a London cab this week. I swear, there's a product in England where somehow your computer gets activated to produce tanning rays. You sit in front of your computer and you get that "just returned from holiday tan". Really, really weird.

"They've been offering Americans a free lunch for the last 80 years, rather successfully," he told reporters at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

This stuff writes itself. ROFLMAO

Note to Repukes: You've had 8 years. I didn't work out. Step aside (screaming if you must).

Actually it's the Republicans who have been serving up the entire country as a free lunch to their ultra-rich corporate cronies and financial backers, while everyone else begs for crumbs from the table and gets a kick in the teeth instead.

Democratic policies aren't better, they're just easier to market to the American people, House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said today. "We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle ..."

He is right about that.

It is harder to "market" government of corporate white-collar crooks, by corporate white-collar crooks, for corporate white-collar crooks, than to market government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Which is, of course, why Republicans have to lie, cheat, and steal elections to get in power.

Huh?

Wealthcare.

Last time I checked, the repugnacans had finangled

fuzzy-math type brazillions of bailouts during the waning days of the Bush era. Add 'em all up and you get Wealthcare, the single biggest governmental monumental taxpayer give away ever in the history of mankind.

Democratic policies aren't better, they're just easier to market to the American people, House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said today.

That's the problem with Boner and his ilk, they think that its all about good marketing. If they coud just come up with a catchy jingle or a slick slogan or catchphrase like "compasionate conservative" or "read my lips, no new taxes." everyone will see the light.

Reagonomics, Trickle down economics, supply-side economics, or voodoo economics, whatever you want to call it, it failed.

Come up with something else or consider the counterfactual.

Don't you know that President Bush made them do it?

They really, really wanted to have some fiscal restraint, but the President sent mean old Lord Cheney to the Hill and he threatened to break their puppies' legs if they didn't go along.

It's not their fault.

They didn't do it.

BTW, why is Boner's face so orange? Did he stay too long in the tanning bed or did he use too much spray-on?

If I were a hateful person, I'd wish both skin and lung cancer on him for his unhealthful ways -- unhealthy for both him and the country.

And another thing. You know how the ReThugs (and now a blue dog) say "Democrat Party"? I really think all of us need to start pronouncing his name "Boner." I mean those of us that go on TV, radio, or internet video.

And when someone "corrects" us that it's "Bayner" we can say, we'll say "Boner" until he says our name right: "Democratic Party."

To Bernard: You're not the only one. It has remembered my info in a year or so.

I suspect Boehner's comments were just a moment of self-pity...

The only real surprise was that Boehner was able to say it with a straight face.

come on, no one could believe that. republicans are psychotically delusional. Boehner believes in his heart everything he said.

Progressives need to stop projecting progressive values and personality traits onto republicans/conservatives. They don't possess such values as honesty, integrity, empathy - they just do not possess them. republicans/conservatives really, really are the demented, lying, indecent, delusional, self-absorbed scum of human flotsam that they come off as.

Zoot:

"Progressives need to stop projecting progressive values and personality traits onto republicans/conservatives. They don't possess such values as honesty, integrity, empathy - they just do not possess them. "Republicans/conservatives really, really are the demented, lying, indecent, delusional, self-absorbed scum of human flotsam that they come off as."

Some of them are as you describe. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the Repub pols are, especially the ones in the higher echelons of power.

But having grown up with a father who is a conservative Republican, I can testify that some of them, my father among them, genuinely believe that what the Repubs want is for the good of the country. My father was for many years a fiscal conservative rather than a social conservative. He always liked sex too much and with no guilt feelings about it, to be a social conservative. Except in his very latter years (he's 86 now).

He believes that "what's good for GM is good for the country", except make that business in general. Unfortunately, he's taken that to mean that NO criticism of business is possible, and he really does believe that capitalism is automatically better than government, regardless of the issue involved, except for the military, of course.

My father, and I believe this is true of a number of Repubs, doesn't generalize very well, nor is he able to imagine that others have adverse circumstances in their lives which might mean that they need temporary assistance. He is very willing to help someone whom he knows personally who is struggling, but he has some sort of empathy lack for people he doesn't know.

Case in point: a few years back we were talking about Mexicans coming over the border. Dad had just been to a Trunk and Tusk meeting (the Repubs have chapters of this group all over the country). A rancher from Douglas, AZ, had attended, and presented what is a real problem for ranchers in that area, that illegals sometimes will kill and eat one of their herd, or will break in if they are away and steal. SOME illegals. Not all. Not even most. But a few.

I said to my dad that on the other hand, consider the sheer desperation that motivates these people to walk for sometimes 1000s of miles, leaving behind families (in a family-oriented society), through extreme weather conditions, in hopes of finding scut work paying very little in this country, but which is still better than they can get at home, and at least some money for their families. I completely wasted my breath. It was as if my father didn't even hear me. This just wasn't on his radar screen. Therefore it didn't exist. All he could see was that a rancher complained about occasional stealing and trashing, so that meant the illegals had to be stopped, at whatever cost.

But if he met an actual person and came to know his story, he would help that person.

Bottom line: we must be careful not to ascribe nefarious motives to people with whom we disagree. I personally consider most hard righters these days to be clinically insane, given how far out of touch they are with reality as I understand it. But I don't know what their motives are, without knowing them as individuals.