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DON'T HATE JAMES INHOFE FOR HIS HONESTY.
There's a tendency to treat Senator James Inhofe as the Republican Party's crazy uncle. You invite him to dinner. You listen to him rant about global warming. You wait out his stories about asking Michael Crichton to testify before his committee as a climate expert. You try not to look away from your peas.
But there's a case for taking Inhofe much more seriously than that. He's not the party's crazy uncle. He's it's unrestrained id. What makes him different from other Republicans is that there's little distance between rhetoric and action. But it's his rhetoric, and not theirs, that's actually a useful guide to Republican Party behavior. Take his curious response to Arlen Specter's defection:
There is no evidence more visible that the American people are already rebelling against the far-left agenda than Senator Arlen Specter switching parties to become a Democrat. He did this for one reason, and that is his advisers told him he couldn’t retain his Senate seat as a Republican. In other words, the same people who supported Senator Specter six years ago have soundly rejected him today.
That, my friends, sounds like 1994. The extreme liberal agenda is not sellable to the American people. Just wait and see.
The comment is being widely mocked. "Hot-shit psychobabble," says Wonkette. But it's not a joke. The embedded lunacy in Inhofe's analysis is his conflation of the embattled rump of Pennsylvania's GOP base with "the American people." But it's also an excellent guide to how Republicans have been voting of late. Zero House Republicans voted for a popular president's popular stimulus bill. Zero House Republicans voted for a popular president's popular budget proposal. A policy of endless opposition to popular legislation is electorally suicidal. Unless, of course, you think that your base is somehow a leading indicator of the country at large.
And much the same goes for Inhofe's take on global warming. Inhofe has carved out a role as the political system's leading gobal warming denier. Sensible Republicans will assure you that his views are marginal. And it's certainly true that his hardline presentation of those views has fallen out of favor. But the legislative strategy that they permit has remained steady. Inhofe thinks global warming is not a problem and so efforts to address carbon emissions should be flatly opposed. A critical mass of the Republican Party thinks something slightly more sophisticated about global warming but believe efforts to address carbon emissions should be flatly opposed. It's actually Inhofe's objection, and not the slightly more nuanced spin on it, that explains why you'd decide to risk catastrophic climate change.
COMMENTS (13)
The nation is getting closer and closer to being able to observe the highly distilled essence of right-wing conservative 'thought'. It is like multiple distillation, actally. First the raw material is fractionated and all but the top percentage of wingnutty liquor is drawn off as slightly nuts GOPers are defeated in elections. Then the GOP to Dem party defections are drawn off. Then, all but the most strange states are lost to conservatives with delusions. Finally, the Club for Growth intimidates and opposes with gobs of cash and lies anyone in the GOP with a hint of moderation in their behavior.
The remainder is so purified, and volatile that it must be kept in pressurized vessels (places like OK, SC, AL and AK) which ward off the forces of nature that lead to volatile liquids 'gassing off' to become air polutants. (Think chlorofluorocarbons, like refrigerants of old, which destroy the ozone protective layer).
At some point, all that's left is folks of 'character' like 1930's Ernst Rohm and his 3 million-man brownshirt SA. He was finally too extreme even for Hitler, for dog's sake. Rohm's SA was anti-capitalist, pro-worker, anti-Reichswehr, and gay in the middle. It was too much even for Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, and Göring.
Today's GOP leadership: The SA of the 21st century, minus the 3 million man armed stormtroopers and minus any meaningful set of thoughts that could be called a platform.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 5, 2009 11:05 AM
Reminds me of this post of Ezra refuting the Edwards Affair.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=10&year=2007&base_name=kaus_and_affairs&37
Mickey Kaus' long post here about John Edwards' alleged affair with Rielle Hunter is almost self-refuting.
Just so folks are clear, this isn't the first time Mickey Kaus has fastened on an unproven, and likely untrue, story about a Democrat's infidelity and hyped it to high heaven.
Posted by: Paul L. | May 5, 2009 11:15 AM
Reminds me of this post of Ezra refuting the Edwards Affair
How? Please explain the similarities in detail. Are you saying that Sen. Inhofe is a trustworthy and rational source who can be counted on to analyze empirical data accurately, both with respect to trends in both the political environment and climate?
Kindly elaborate further, if you don't mind, because I'm not sure I see where you're going with this.
Posted by: Tyro | May 5, 2009 11:22 AM
It's clear where he's going. But aside from that, what will sour the American people on the liberal agenda is not the agenda per se, but the massive corruption it invites. The Murtha story (about which you are being discreetly silent), the millions Obey secured for his son, and other yet to be exposed stories by those daring enough to tell the truth, show that where there are these huge money pots collected for the public good, there you will find looting. It's not that the democrats are any more corrupt than the republicans. It's that they think they can get away with more. There were many bear paws in the stimulus money pot, you can be sure. More to be revealed as time goes on.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 5, 2009 11:58 AM
On behalf of the Oklahomans, we're sorry about him really. He doesn't speak for us all as a state, and we're truly trying to get him out of office.
Posted by: Lindsay | May 5, 2009 12:16 PM
Thank you Lindsay. We all know that this guy is bat-shit crazy and I can not believe he keeps getting returned to office.
Posted by: scott | May 5, 2009 12:28 PM
"It's actually Inhofe's objection, and not the slightly more nuanced spin on it, that explains why you'd decide to risk catastrophic climate change."
Uh Ez, you lost me there...
Inhofe is clearly delusional.
Are you suggesting that even the "thinking republicans" are just as crazy?
Posted by: disdaniel | May 5, 2009 2:35 PM
Unfortunately, global warming denialism is gaining ground. The Inhofe's of the world are having an impact on the low-information public.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/issues2/articles/44_say_global_warming_due_to_planetary_trends_not_people
Posted by: Bloix | May 5, 2009 5:15 PM
well, Imhofe is one of the spokesman of that embattled rump
Posted by: Jamie | May 5, 2009 6:20 PM
You misunderstand. Inhofe and the rest sincerely believe that their confederate rump are the only REAL AMERICANS. Palin made that abundantly clear. So, the rest of us don't count. No matter that they would rather secede now that a black man is in the White House, they are the heartland, the real America.
Posted by: RuthAlice | May 5, 2009 8:01 PM
RuthAlice is an example of "bad faith", a term coined by Sartre to describe a person who lies disgustingly about the other side. Yes, smear everyone who disagrees with Obama's actions as a racist, you disgusting p.o.s.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 5, 2009 10:09 PM
the popular stimulus plan?
the popular budget?
wow, you really are great with making completely unsupported and delusional assertions aren't you?
but wait, you have an afl-cio funded study on how there is no worker intimidation by unions? consider me sold
Posted by: anonymous | May 6, 2009 1:50 PM
yeah RuthAlice
we're all just bitter americans clinging to our guns and god on our way to our Klan rallies
give robert byrd jr. my regards by the way
Posted by: anonymous | May 6, 2009 1:57 PM