Look for Morrisey to be expelled from the party shortly.

All Vitter is doing is following the GOP playbook as established in 2009. If you oppose a piece of legislation, you do not debate any of the merits or substantive points in the bill. Instead, you make up something truly outrageous (i.e., "death panels," "rationed care," "FEMA internment camps," etc.) that does not exist, and then rail against that.

The fact that this strategy has consistently failed makes not difference. Like conservatism itself, dishonesty in opposition cannot fail--it can only be failed by its adherents.

The bill is pending. The powers that Vitter is warning of could still be slipped in as an amendment. Vigilance is still necessary.

Republican senators from oil states like Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas are so predictable -- when facts are lacking to support their arguments they invent them.

At this point the GOP has cried "Socialism" and "Fascism" and "Threat to Freedom" and "Dictatorial" and "End of America As We Know It" so many times people are ignoring them.

The "The Lathe of Heaven" that examined a man whose dreams were the next days reality . Political panic imitates art ?

Vitter needs to keep his diapers on to keep this stuff from leaking out.

I agree with Domage. The Republicans have adopted a media strategy not based in facts. Apparently they have asked fact free focus groups about their concerns on a variety of topics and have been told that they worry about the government killing granny, congress shutting down medicare or the President becoming a dictator. The Republican leadership has decided to oppose whatever Luntz says tests well whether the fear is fact based or not. The fears they have run with both here in climate change and in health care haven't been fact based, but they have been focus grouped.

If you think about it, the current Republican positions are exactly what happens when you let media consultants and radio personalities establish a policy agenda. Government by MadMen

Like many Americans, I am too busy trying to keep my head above water to do any thinking about healthcare, climate, wars, etc.

So I trust Sen Vitter to do my thinking for me. . .

Mass hallucination is considered thought in some marriage ceremonies .

..... chief among them that it will kill jobs to solve a problem that doesn't exist, rather than generate false hysteria to answer false hysteria.-Morrissey

But at least Morrissey believes the debate should be about what's actually in the bill.-Benen

Umm.....Steve, I fail to see the difference Between Morrissey And Vitter. One pretends to see legislative language that doesn't exist, the other pretends that near unanimous scientific agreement doesn't exist. How is one better than the other? This whole mess that is the Republican party, is just turning into Kabuki theater in which far-right winger's play good cop to even further right winger's bad cop.

Fuck them both. The debate shouldn't be about make believe whether scientific, legislative, or otherwise. The debate should be how to best solve the problem while creating as many jobs as are lost and lowering the expense of this new green technology.

I am pretty sure it won't create more jobs than it will lose, but I don't care. It's that serious.

Vitter is actually smarter than Morrissey. The fundamentals of Vitter's argument (that Obama seeks to accrue Chavez-like power) have already been embraced by the tea party-addled GOP base and Fox News. I'm not sure what Morrissey is trying to accomplish by debating science and job creation from a GOP perspective (the post-Eisenhower party is a dismal failure on both fronts). Vitter understands that he must simply come up with some good catch-phrases, accuse the Obama administration of trying to take over the economy, and call it a day.

In order to ensure passage of climate change legislation Dems need to figure out a way to enforce party discipline, to continue to degrade the GOP base with the young, and to break the stranglehold that the GOP has on conventional wisdom among the villagers. Remember that the GOP hates Al Franken not because of his positions on the issues but because he successfully mocks the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement.

Al 8:05 AM

Al are you and Vitter being serviced by the same ladies?

Ted, 11:11 AM

Al is either a troll or a spoof (perhaps both), and has been playing that game here for a long time. There's no point in wasting your time on him/her/it.

Oh noes! Climate change death panels!

Shade Tail 11:18

Good idea, just stop reading Al's tripe.

With Vitter everything is fast and loose. That's why he wears diapers.

Vitter's not an idiot. Of course he knows what the bill says -- he was a Rhodes Scholar, for crying out loud. What he does know is how to pander to his base. They're not going to read the bill. They're going to believe whatever Glenn Beck and David Vitter tell them is in the bill. Capt'n Ed's attempt to steer the discourse on the far right back towards something resembling reality is just precious. Next he's going to point out some whopper Sarah Palin throws out at one of her tent revivals -- I mean book signings -- and he'll be toast.

You really can't blame Vitter for misreading the bill so badly. After all, how much can one really see when dressed up as a baby, diaper + all?

-Z

The only thing the right wing cares about these days is playing to an ever-shrinking base that believes the president is a commie/fascist/dictator/muslim/foreigner. These people would believe Obama sprung from an extraterrestrial pod if only some Republican Senator would stand on a podium and tell them so.

Conversation time is over - these folks need to be marginalized to the point where we can actually declare the Republican party dead with no hope of resurrection.