or, Sober Analysis from Drunken Lunatics:
Today, Byron York writes a superficially rational analysis of the current state of Republican Confederate politics and the internal fractures within the GOP. [emphasis added]
GOP internal debate: Is party repeating mistakes of 1998? Byron York / Washington Examiner BARACK OBAMA BILL CLINTON JOHN BOEHNER 2014 ELECTIONS — For anyone who was around, it’s hard to compare 1998 — the year of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Starr Report, and Bill Clinton’s impeachment — with any other year. Yet there are reasons both Republicans and Democrats are thinking about 1998 as they head into this fall’s elections.
It’s the second midterm of a two-term Democratic president. Republicans scored a big victory in the president’s first midterm but failed to stop his re-election bid. Now, the GOP is increasingly frustrated by the White House; there are accusations of lawlessness and rumors of impeachment.
There’s talk of making the midterms a referendum on the president. That’s what scares some Republican strategists….
Seriously? Seriously. The old computer term GIGO applies here: Garbage In; Garbage Out.
GIGO — Old School
The presumption that today’s schism-riven GOP bears any but superficial resemblance to the 1998 Gingrich GOP is bad analysis. In fact the two parties in question share only a spelling in common, just as the “Party of Lincoln,” and Teddy Roosevelt bears ZERO in common with this current claque of gun nuts, racists and religious fanatics.
So, THIS doesn’t factor into York’s analysis? Really?
The current GOP is riven with toxic factionalism, Tea Parties, Dominionists and other fantasies anathema to old “moderate” and Neo-conservative GOP base. (As I predicted with utter accuracy in 2009’s “Daddy Long Legs” — indicating that MY analysis has a track record of credibility that Mr. York is going to have a long slog to begin to catch up to. I knew more about the GOP’s internal divisions in 2009 than York has yet divined — pun intended.)
You can’t fundamentally misdiagnose the malady and expect to make any other than accidental progress in curing the disease.
Of course, Democrats would love to see Republicans blow their own chances. From the White House down to the party fundraising machine, Democrats have been trolling 24-7 in a transparent effort to goad Republicans into a self-destructive impeachment attempt.
“They are desperate to reprise ’98,” says the GOP veteran of his Democratic adversaries. “Not just impeachment, but this whole idea that we’re going to make it all about the president again.”
Classic projection: the Evil Democrats are behaving as GOPs, shamelessly raising money the way that the GOP is ACTUALLY attempting to turn their “scandals” into a cash machine. E.G. “Benghazi” Projecti0n, thy name be GOP.
The hilarious spectacle of a GOP fanatic telling anyone else not to lie.
The use of the term “impeachment” has spurred Mr. York and his Fellow Travelers to mistake 1998’s GOP for 2014’s GOP, just as they mistake 2014’s GOP for the GOP of 1864.
NOT the Current GOP
But York never ONCE mentions that the American people just MIGHT be pissed off at the most DO NOTHING Congress in American history with the lowest rating ever recorded, and the least work EVER done by said Congress — straight up the fault of House Republicans.
Seriously? This fact has ESCAPED our “analyst’s” analysis?
Voters might be less than enamored of the House GOPs. Seems ridiculous to ignore.
The only bit that seems to apply here is the portion of the word “analysis” not “ysis.”
York continues to pile absurdity upon absurdity until one anticipates his solution involving a cavalry of unicorns bearing Thundercats®:
The Republican majority barely survived the election. Some top party strategists expected a GOP pickup of 20 seats in the House. Instead, Democrats picked up five seats, leaving Republicans still in charge but by the thinnest of margins. Democrats had successfully argued that Republicans were so obsessed with getting Clinton that they weren’t paying enough attention to the concerns of the American people.
Now, 16 years later, Republicans are again arguing among themselves. Of course, some circumstances are different; among other things, 1998 was a time of general prosperity and growth, Clinton’s job approval rating was far higher than Obama’s is today, and Obama hasn’t had an independent counsel building an impeachment case against him.
Still, the GOP base is infuriated with Obama, particularly his abuse of executive power….
The last is not a ‘fact.’ It is, in fact, an hallucination.
Current GOP policy controversy
This citation begins with facts and quickly shifts gears to absurd hallucinations. But facts don’t matter to the modern GOP. See them squawk:
Erick Erickson / RedState: The Ridiculous Handwringing of the Overthinking GOP
After yesterday’s post, we appreciate how Erick Erickson would naturally eschew “thinking.”
Don’t ever w0rry about him singing “Roll over, Einstein! And tell Feynman the news.”
It’s just rather hilarious to watch a brew of nonsense and absurdity bubbling over as ‘rational analysis’: followed by analysis by attacking ‘analysis’ itself seems unselfconsciously oxymoronic. (But all-too-natural in this case.)
The only actual thing that can be added is my hope that no trees were sacrificed to this comic absurdity. GIGO.
More brilliant GOP analysis in action
Since there is no possible way that the Republicans Confederates will make any sense of what I am saying (but will cluelessly sneer ad hominems instead, as is their wont) let me emphasize: it is just as important to have the facts in hand, and a clear perspective ON said facts as it is to analyze them logically to arrive at a reasonable prediction with a higher degree of probability than, say, that Bigfoot will be the Keynote Speaker of the 2016 RNC.
Including nonsense and myth in his analysis makes Mr. York’s analysis pointless and worthless — an outcome that ALL political pundits need to take to heart in these days of information overload and factual paucity.
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.