Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me One Hundred Times….Call Me A Republican Senator
Monday, March 11, 2013 at 05:50AM 
The Sunday Union Leader has a staff editorial in which it comes to the defense of Senator Ayotte accepting and attending an invite to dinner with Mr. Obama and a number of other ‘Ranking’ (see also Rank) GOP Senators.
To suggest that there is no value in conveying that message to the President in person, in a casual setting in which a working relationship might develop, is to misunderstand the way politics works.
Last August, Sen. Tom Coburn (who attended last Wednesday’s dinner) came to the defense of the Tea Party during an interview on MSNBC. Among his points was that Tea Party activists “understand that you’ve got to have human relations to get along in this world.” It is amazing and disappointing that so many activists on both sides think that progress is made by refusing to work with anyone in the other camp.
This is the way politics works, except in the case of Mr. Obama’s politics, this only works for him.
Name one time in which President Obama has met with Republicans (ever) and then proposed an actual compromise, with truly Republican benefits, which he then used his supposed clout or executive might to enact by himself or through his own party machine? I can’t think of one.
I can however think of a number of occasions where Mr. Obama played at being bi-partisan so that he and his advocates could then use that as a hammer with which to pound their opponents into dust. I can also think of occasions where this sort of thing managed to get Republicans to agree to what Democrats wanted without Republicans walking away with anything they could call a victory unless not losing everything counts as a win.
Obama doesn’t even listen to the bi-partisan commissions of his own making.
Obama does not compromise. This is all stagecraft, slight of hand, smoke and mirrors. It is Darth Alinsky.
Mr. Obama and crew manipulate for press and narrative and rhetoric. They are so good at it that giving guns to drug lords who kill hundreds and letting US diplomats get slaughtered while doing next to nothing (Unless lying about it for weeks counts) roll off them like water on a duck. So why not leave Senator Paul and the other young guns in the US Senate to their principled 13 hour filibuster and join the old dogs for an attaboy, a scratch behind the ear, and free meal at a swanky DC restaurant so that Obama can ‘listen’ and then use that as yet another left wing weapon of mass public relations destruction on the party he has sworn to destroy?
Senator Ayotte, despite her good intentions, just joined hands with the professional surrender monkeys of the US Senate to hand Mr. Obama weeks or even months of fresh fodder to wield against them. And in this, I suspect, we can declare her truly a Republican US Senator. A real ambassador for the party. Someone who is deluded by the notion that Democrats want Republicans for anything more than cover.
And until the hopeful and well-meaning Ayotte’s and Union Leader’s of the world accept that there is nothing genuine about this dinner, the bi-partisan commissions, committees, breakout groups, or listening sessions, there will be no change, just compromise; that is to say Republicans giving Obama what he wants–another club to beat them with until they are as incapable of stopping him as he requires.
Which brings us to the ‘Tea Party.’
The Original Tea Party saw the compromise of their day as well connected politicians bartering the terms of the peoples surrender. The modern Tea Party understands this as well. And do not misunderstand. They’d be happy to talk to Democrats about the best way to roll back the debt and deficit as painlessly as possible before the entire thing collapses and throws the truly needy and everyone else into the fire, but for the well-heeled ruling class. They came out, exercised their vote, tried to make a difference, and got crapped on for the effort.
They got crapped on because that is not what the left wants to talk about and all threats must be neutralized. But they are happy to use us, wherever possible, as enemies of the statist, to break us if they can, and at the very least to encourage us to reveal what our plans are so they can strategize against it. Obama and the Democrats only meets with people if it will help him advance their agenda. And anything we say can and will be used against us.
And we know this to be true, and not just from Democrats. In exchange for wanting to prevent that economic collapse the Tea Party was turned into some evil cabal of bigots, racists, and haters. And if that were not bad enough, the same establishment Republicans who want to give Obama more rope to hang themselves with picked up the lefts narrative about the Tea Party and use it with enthusiasm to protect their own asses. (They do it nationally. They do it right here in New Hampshire.)
So to the Union Leader’s point–I understand how Obama politics works. How modern Democrat party politics work. That is why I am less than enthusiastic about freshman Senator Ayotte being moved like a pawn by the blind-fold wearing, aisle-crossing, appeasement Republicans in the US Senate. Or less than enthusiastic about the union Leader coming to Senator Ayotte’s defense, marveling at the potential of the Potemkin Obama Dinner, convinced that it could be anything other than what I have just described.
You are reading "Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me One Hundred Times….Call Me A Republican Senator" by Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)
Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012
