We have seen how the Republican rhetoric surrounding Ebola is not about Ebola but about Obama, in the same way that Republican hysteria over ISIL is not about ISIL but about Obama, Republican hysteria over the IRS is not about the IRS but about Obama, and Republican hysteria over Benghazi is not about Benghazi but about Obama. Each of these is merely a tool with which our president is being attacked.
Now former HVAC repairman Rep. Randy Weber, brought to you by the same state that brought you Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Rick Perry, George W. Bush, and Ron Paul (whose seat he took) combines those GOP-manufactured threads into one, by telling Tony Perkins,
I don’t want to sound alarmist and we don’t want people to get cast into a panic but this administration, as you well know, has a real serious credibility gap on a whole lot of things when it comes to taking things serious. Whether it’s ISIL or ISIS, whether it’s IRS, Benghazi, you can go right down the list and so it doesn’t foment faith in people to think that our administration’s on top of things when they’ve got such an abysmal track record.
In other words, we’ve manufactured all these “scandals” surrounded the Obama administration, but they haven’t been enough to bring down the administration so now we’re going to start tying them all together and say Obama’s record on invented scandals is so bad that he can’t possibly be on top of another invented scandal.
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He’s right in a sense, because, really, who can keep up?
Which brings us to another Weber gripe. The Republicans have not met a topic they will not politicize. Just to run down a few:
- In2012, Mitt Romney instantly politicized the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi;
- Allegedly pro-life Christians politicized the death of 24-year-old woman to attack funding for Planned Parenthood;
- Back in 2010, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer politicized border violence in Arizona;
- In the same year, the Virginia GOP politicized a snow storm to argue against climate change;
- And just last month, the 9/11 Panel ripped Republicans In Congress for politicizing ISIS terror threat.
Yet Weber told Perkins that,
This guy has a record of doing things from a political standpoint, whether it’s putting off the amnesty order he wants to do after the election, there’s a lot of things he does from a political standpoint.
And Weber…
- who once called Obama a “socialistic dictator” and a “Kommandant-In-Chef” (the Dallas Morning News quipped that “presumably he meant ‘chief’); and,
- who once tried to sound like Reagan by telling Obama, “Mr. President. Build up this wall” in the same breath he called immigrants “takers”; and,
- who once introduced a bill “requiring that the Federal Government defer to the laws of a person’s state of legal residence in determining marital status”;
- who once “introduced a bill that would halt aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras until the countries act to curtail the flow of children across the border,”
…told Perkins the day will come “when [Obama] finally wakes up and realizes he’s not the smartest man in the room on every topic of interest there is and he should listen.”
Listen to people who are so horrified by facts that they invent their own? Listen to those people, Randy Weber?
Like you, for example? Or Sarah Palin, who wants to bring “truth to 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue”? Why does Sarah Palin want to bring truth to The Willard Hotel? Is there something we don’t know about the Willard Hotel that we should?
Because the White House stands at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
You really want to say, Randy Weber, that Obama is not the smartest man in the room?
Because a guy like Randy Weber, whose byline is, as he told the National Journal…
“I’m so Republican, my first name starts with ‘R.’ I’m so right-wing – well, Randy Weber. You do the math.”
…is really the guy we want to listen to when it comes to judging smarts?
Yes, by all means, do the math.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
