Republican circus

Are the Republicans under some kind of evil spell cast by Rush Limbaugh?

In the face of a vast panorama of lost jobs, lost homes, decrepit schools, padlocked factories, crumbling bridges and sick and hungry families, the GOP in Congress pulled together (with the exception of three Senators) and soundly earned a new name, coined by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: the GRAND OBSTRUCTIONIST PARTY. No, no, no. No stimulus bill for them. It's socialism! We can't afford it! (Yes, this from the folks who stood at attention while George Bush blew a trillion dollars on an immoral and illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.)

And the show goes on: Some GOP governors are bragging about the benefits their states will now receive, even though they voted against the stimulus bill. Four southern governors even want to refuse stiumulus dollars, among them the governor of still-battered Louisiana.

This pathetic circus also has a sideshow. Alan Keyes, who ran against Barack Obama for the Senate in 2004 and only last year bolted from the GOP to start his own party, has just said this: “Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.”

Limbaugh surely must be casting spells.

Prosecuting the Decider

President Obama seems to be against prosecuting George W. Bush for war crimes. But if we are really a country of laws, how can Bush, Cheney and their accomplices not be prosecuted?

Bush and Cheney misled the country and Congress to attack Iraq, spied on US citizens without authorization, broke US and international law by torturing prisoners and denied the right of Habeas Corpus.

In the absence of a US prosecution, might Bush be prosecuted for war crimes (specifically for torture and "extraordinary rendition") by the International Criminal Court at The Hague? The ICC is backed by a treaty signed by 108 countries (the US is not one of them.) As president, Bush obviously wanted nothing to do with the ICC. But Obama has shown signs of backing it, specifically with regard to indicting Sudanese President Al Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.

For details on the International Criminal Court, go to this site:

http://www2.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Home

Idiocy

What is with all but a handful of Republicans in Congress? Is all this yelling and virtually stomping their feet the only way they can express their dismay in the wake of their thorough defeat on November 4? Or are they just hypnotized by listening too long to Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson?

While President Obama urgently calls for rapid economic stimulus and restoration, his raving opponents are branding everything that's not a tax cut as "SOCIALISM!"

Bob Herbert put it very succinctly in the NY Times on Saturday: "It’s been clear for years that the G.O.P. is a party without a heart. But its pointless obstructionism, its overall lack of any serious response to what is a clear national economic emergency, seems to indicate it’s also a party without a brain."

Amen, Bob.