Idiot Watch

I know I'm supposed to be post-partisan and all that, but the Republicans did so much damage on their greedy binge, and they're so laughable now, that I just have to share a couple of snippets. From Krugman:

One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years.

But it’s now clear that the party’s commitment to deep voodoo — enforced, in part, by pressure groups that stand ready to run primary challengers against heretics — is as strong as ever. In both the House and the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans rallied behind the idea that the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts.

And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.

It’s “generational theft,” said Senator John McCain, just a few days after voting for tax cuts that would, over the next decade, have cost about four times as much.

I tell ya, set your own government up as your enemy, or as the wonderful Ronald Reagan put it, "The Problem", and not paying taxes sounds downright patriotic, doesn't it? How convenient!

And this snippet from a commenter on Andrew Tobias's blog goes right to the heart of Republican absurdity:

My favorite Republican tax cut proposal is the one to lower the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%. Boy, now there's a real job generator! Can’t you just hear the boardroom conversation? "People are losing jobs by the millions! Demand is in the toilet! But now we have a real chance to hire workers we don’t need to produce goods we can’t sell, all because of the lower taxes on the profits we won’t have!"

And just yesterday I heard Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty saying, with a straight face, that we needed more tax cuts to spur the recovery. These guys are pathetic.

Disclaimer: I've used a picture similar to the one above to illustrate a post before, and explained that they're not real Republicans, but are good people dressed as Republicans. In fairness to them, I think I need to repeat that disclaimer.