Doonesbury Say What?

[thewayne]

"Right now, we've had one party control all aspects of our government, and the result of that is that the American people have only gotten one side of a lot of issues...There are going to be a number of investigations or oversight committee actions, trying to get to the facts."
— Rep. Lamar Smith, of his intentions on becoming head of the House Judiciary Committee

Let's see. Since 1964, the administrations have been, starting with Nixon's first term: Republican, Republican, Democratic, R, R, R, D, D, R, R, D. That makes it 7 to 4, R over D, I'm not sure which party controlled Congress over those years or when it was split. All I can do is quote Dire Straits: When you point your finger 'cause your plans fell through, you got three more fingers, pointing back at you." People who live in grass huts shouldn't store thrones, or something like that.

Comments

[silveradept]

Mostly split, so one-party control hasn't been much of an issue anywhere, actually. But because the current Republican strategy is "delay, obfuscate, investigate, and do no work", we can expect to see all sorts of "justifications" on why this program or that decision has to be examined with an eye toward getting rid of it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I was reading a possible Republican strategy to prevent the implementation of Obama's health care bill by subpoenaing those whose job it is to implement said bill and keeping them tied up in Congressional hearings so they can't do the work they were hired for. My guess is that the Republicans expect to gain veto-proof control of Congress regardless of whether or not they get the White House, at which point they can run rampant. Personally, I think there is going to be a big flameout when the Tea Partiers realize that they just can't push a magic button and reset things to what they want.

The next two or three election cycles are going to be interesting.

[silveradept]

Shouldn't take two cycles - I think within the next two years, we'll get to see that flameout as the Tea Party realizes they've been had. I've heard more than a few ways the Republicans are thinking they can stop the actual implementation of the health care bill.