The New and Improved GOP

Rick Davis says the GOP was born 4 days ago, a whole new GOP. This is the new and improved GOP. You've seen that blurb on packaging, stuff like wash powder and cereals; you open the box and what's inside looks the same, smells the same, seems to be the same old stuff, then you realize that what is new and improved is the label. If the GOP is new, why am I hearing the same things I've heard from them since St Ronnie?

Now I'm serious, the Palin rhetoric isn't new, it isn't different, the Republicans have been running on this same junk for a very long time. We're Christians, the Democrats are heathens and gutter tramps, killers of the Christian nation, debasers of youth, baby murdering... How old is that? It predates Rove by a long ways. I say and do exactly the same thing as every moss back Republican, get wildly cheered at the RNC and I'm different? How, exactly - gender? Her administrative experience is marked by wholesale pursuit of earmarks, the silencing of dissent, the use of executive power for personal ends and the stonewalling of legitimate inquiry. This is the Alaskan reformer, a Bush clone with female genitalia.

McPOW running as a 'change' candidate is a little too rich, twenty six years in DC with the last seven as Bushbootlick signifies what change? Trickle down economics that has not done any such thing in recorded history, re-winning Vietnam with today's kids, a social agenda from the less kind and uncompassionate BushCo agenda, and a lackey to any plutocratic interest shows a Bush Premium Plus rather than anything reflective of change at all. If this seems harsh, look at what he proposes, a health care tax credit of $2500 is meaningless to the uninsured, if their federal taxes were $2500 after deductions they would still find themselves thousands of dollars short of paying for insurance. With the other hand he proposes to tax employer provided insurance. This is the person who claims Obama will hurt the working person, as he hands out tax relief to those most benefiting from the system and lays the costs on those supporting it. The Republican double game plays on, economic rape of the worker with family values as a palliative and war and terror as the whip. This is the experience that is touted by the GOP and its surrogates.

Today's economy is the handy work of Republican control of the White House and both Houses of the Congress, all remedial action proposed by Democrats short of minimum wage have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since the 2006 elections. These same Republicans threatened in the early years of BushCo to use the "nuclear option" of stripping filibusters being so outraged by Democratic usage, in considerably smaller numbers. This is the Party of Change that McPOW and his shills propose exists, these are the people the RNC supports, you are to believe that on the one hand the New and Improved GOP is all about changing itself as it acts to re-elect the very people responsible for the mess they propose they're ready to change. Their disrespect for the electorate could not be more blatant.

John McCain claims that Washington changed them from cleanup gang they entered as, something from the extinct swamps perhaps, or miasma vapors drifting from K St, certainly nothing to do with their basic ideology. Perhaps that explains Chuck Keating and McPOW, some intangible got him, certainly not the ideology of better-than and greed and power.

Finally there is one change that disgusts me, I am the child, nephew, and cousin to World War II combat veterans, men deeply and intimately experienced in warfare, they never reference it. Their levels of involvement wait for the post mortem sorting of papers, their families ignorant until death claimed the soldiers. My classmates and friends served in "the 'Nam" and they were combat troops, their silence about their experiences is deafening, the funny anecdote about a leave or chance encounter, but nothing regarding their actual business. That is for them, alone. I am a trusted friend and compatriot because I understand, without pretence of knowing. The constant references of McPOW offend them and I am offended for them. I do not question what they did or why and they ask only my understanding and respect, which I freely give. But they do not dine out on it or seek POW celebrity or veteran celebrity unlike a certain POW celebrity from Arizona with an entire political career based on and protected by getting shot down.

I do not care if Obama cannot do everything he says he wants to, I do not care if the ideas of change are exaggerated, they at least exist, they are not figments - however limited. I'll take that over the New and Improved on the box.