The Right Wing Media had been a co-conspirator and active participant in the attempt to obstruct and bring down the Obama Presidency since Inauguration Day, 2009.? It then gave support to the more seditious hostage taking of the Government, although the American people had the good sense to re-elect this President in 2012.? But now, the Right Wing Media is backing away and falsely proclaiming how much they opposed these tactics.
On February 25, 2011, the National Review Online published an article authored by Daniel J. Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, entitled:
??Winning The Government-Shutdown Fight”
This was a blueprint for how the Republicans could learn from the 1995 GOP induced Government Shutdown orchestrated by 2012 failed Presidential Candidate, Newt Gingrich.? Mitchell proposed the following four part strategy going forward:
?Republicans should keep passing bills to reopen the entire government.”
So this must be the reason for the repeated passage by the House of Continuing Resolutions with no funding for the ACA.
?Keep passing bills to reopen the parts of the government that voters actually care about, such as VA hospitals, the Social Security Administration, and national parks.”
So this must be the reason for staged Teabully rallies at places such as the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, and The WWII Memorial with prominent GOP/Teabully politicians at the ready to blame and abuse Federal employees for the damage that these politicians had done.
?Remember that a government shutdown generally puts more financial pressure on the Left. If there is a lengthy showdown, Democratic constituencies begin to squeal.
Except this is not really true as Government serves, employs, contracts with, and pays Americans across all party lines.
?Speaking of the establishment press, don’t let them define the issues. In 1995, Republicans had to deal with a very hostile press corps. There was no Fox News, no Internet as we know it today, and no cadre of talk-radio hosts to augment Rush Limbaugh. So while it is true that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post will regurgitate Democratic talking points, many voters will have access to conservative news sources, something that was not the case in 1995.”
With the new GOP/Teabully political propaganda cheerleading machine hard at work pushing the agenda, they believed there would be no way that the President and Democrats in Congress would stand up and exhibit the steely backbones that they exhibited throughout this crisis.
Mitchell believed that the strategy would help Republicans keep faith with the Teabully base and activists who sent them to Washington and to:
?…set a good tone for future budget battles [as] a?Republican surrender today, by contrast, would make it almost impossible to prevail in any subsequent fights.”
The article concludes with this admonition:
?To put it simply, Republicans need to hold firm and fight hard. There is no alternative?.
Just what is the Cato Institute?? It is a Conservative think tank created and funded by Edward Crane and Charles Koch in 1977. Here is its mission statement:
?The mission of the Cato Institute is to originate, disseminate, and increase understanding of public policies based on the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Our vision is to create free, open, and civil societies founded on libertarian principles?.
?The Cato Institute and the National Review Online went public with support for using the hostage taking tactic of bargaining for defunding Obamacare through the threat of the Government shutdown on July 31, 2013. An article authored by Cato Institute Senior Fellow, Michael Tanner, appeared in The National Review Online entitled?Defunding Obamacare: Worth a Try. Tanner said:
??The CR vote may be the last chance to stop Obamacare? and? ?At the very least, Republicans ought to try something?.
?The National Review Online played along with the plan, at all times knowing what it was, while trying to build a public case that if it were to happen, it would not be the fault of Republicans. ? On August 9, 2013, Robert Costa, the National Review’s Capitol Hill Correspondent wrote an article with the lead?Cantor: No One Is Advocating Shutdown.
Costa further quoted Congressman Eric Cantor as saying:
??Repealing Obamacare remains the goal”.
This was followed up by a National Review Online article on August 13, 2013, when Costa laid the groundwork for blaming the Teabully Caucus because a plan alleged to be floated:
?by a handful of conservative lawmakers, House Republican leaders have been wary of the tea-party plan to shut down the federal government this fall unless Obamacare is defunded.”
From 2011 going forward, the GOP/Teabully right wing has been hellbent on using the threat of a Government Shutdown as a negotiation ploy in order to extract concessions from the President and Democrats in Congress.? But they never really thought that if you take hostages, you have to be prepared to shoot the hostages. They are now, in essence blaming each other for keeping the faith with the cause while blaming the President and Democrats for calling their bluff.
The true authors of this failed and dangerous strategy have been exposed to the public. This is why we now see everyone from the Koch brothers, to the National Review, to the Wall Street Journal, to Rush Limbaugh running away from the very strategy that they previously supported.? Often, their support was stealthy and behind the scenes. Sometimes their support was gleeful and full throated.
In any case, the strategy was as flawed as it was dangerous and unpatriotic. And now they hypocritically and cowardly run away from their own plans for no reason other than they failed to win.? Americans do love winners, so take a bow Mr. President and you too, Congressional Democrats.? You earned this one.
Edited/Published by: SB
