Trapped in the House of the Perpetual Sucker

Via Drum, Alex Seitz-Wald takes apart John Cornyn and Pete Sessions...well, actually, David Gregory on Meet the Press took them apart on Meet the Press...well, come to think of it, they melted down all on their own, but Seitz-Wald does a good job of pointing out the highlights.  My favorite, however, is this disaster of a quote from Sessions.  What's the GOP agenda?

It’s quite simple that the American people do understand the agendas that are before us. They understand what the president and the speaker stand for, and they understand what Republicans stand for. Republicans, and especially our candidates who are all over this country, very strong standing with the American people back home, we need to live within our own means. And certainly the projections that are ahead including health care and the projections for unemployment for a long time and debt for as far as we can see is staggering. We need to live within our own means. Secondly, we need to make sure that we read the bills. These bills are so bad, which is why we don’t have a budget that is being looked at now. The 2011 budget is staggering in terms of taxes, and the, the discipline that is lacking from this House Democratic leadership to even debate and bring the bill for the budget and appropriations to the floor is a lack of leadership. And lastly…

That's your GOP agenda, ladies and germs: they're going to read the bills.  

Of course, only a very foolish Member of Congress would waste his or her time reading bills, and anyone who repeats this obvious focus-group-driven drivel is either ill-informed about Congress or pretending to be.  What puzzles me, however is exactly what we're meant to believe.  Is the idea that the problems of the nation are the result of lawmakers being careless?   So, Democratic lawmakers are well-meaning, but since they're too lazy or irresponsible to read bills, they've accidentally ruined the country -- but Republicans will read the bills and avoid further errors?  Or: Democratic lawmakers are innocent dupes of a handful of leaders who write nefarious legislation that the rest of Congress just doesn't realize is evil?  Is that really what people are supposed to think?

Never mind.  We all know the answer; it tests well.  Just, you know, it's really, deeply, astonishingly, stupid.  Hey, primary voters: if one of the candidates runs on this, please realize that he or she is either not very bright, or thinks that you're not very bright.