Republicans

Republicans were (minimally) asleep at the wheel during America’s most severe domestic military attack in history, and are surprised that we might find that troubling.

They identify an enemy and claim that this person and his movement attacked the country, then they fail to come close to defeating this enemy in six years of war. Who’s ready to sign-up for that?

They bring us another war, based on lies, which turns into a quagmire based on lies, and which has nothing remotely to do with American security other than to radically diminish it. Then they belittle us as disloyal for opposing the moral, fiscal and humanitarian disasters they’ve made.

They polarize the country economically in the name of their radical (supposed) free market ideas, which turn out to have a lot more to do with privileging certain elites than with privileging nobody, as per the theory. Then, as we are being gouged paying for gas, food and mortgages, they are astonished that we don’t give them credit for the wonderful state of the economy. Hey, the Dow’s up! What’s wrong with you people?

They offer us record-setting deficits in place of record-setting surpluses, and are shocked that we aren’t interested in such a golden opportunity to go broke.

They create a giant new government benefit structured to enrich insurance and pharmaceutical industries, while maybe incidentally also helping seniors once in a while, and they wonder why we’re not enthusiastic.

They attempt to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs of all time, in order to further enrich the already fabulously wealthy, and can’t imagine that we wouldn’t be all over that.

They allow us to suffer and die from diseases which might well have been cured by now, were it not for the fact that the religious radicals to which they cater have imposed their extreme fundamentalist views on the entire country. Then they’re astonished that we choose health and longevity over blastocysts in petri dishes.

They legislate by an act of Congress intervention into a personal family tragedy, and are amazed that we aren’t all clamoring to be treated like the Terri Schiavo family.

They block health care for children while uninhibitedly enriching crony contractors in Iraq and wonder why we don’t celebrate their twisted values.

They demonize gays and minorities and immigrants and liberals in order to divert attention from their real kleptocracy agenda, and we’re supposed to feel good about how they’ve restored dignity to American politics.

They imagine that good governance involves poor preparation before a natural disaster, criminal negligence during it, and shameful disinterest afterwards, and can’t quite fathom why even an embarrassingly intimidated American press can no longer withhold its criticisms.

They not only stand by and do nothing about the planet’s most serious environmental crisis ever, but they actually block other countries from rescuing themselves, all in order to maintain fossil fuel industry profits. And they wonder why we don’t beg for more of that.

They turn our country into a hated international bully, proud to be an aggressor, a torturer and a hypocrite, and then they’re shocked that we don’t find that a compelling self-image.

They trample the Constitution in every way imaginable, from checks and balances to separation of church and state to due process to illegal search and seizure to stealing elections. After constantly telling us how much we should revere the Founders, they are somehow surprised that we don’t approve of seeing their creation being trashed.

And this is just for starters...