GOP Fearmongering

Remember those heady days after 9/11 when all the Republicans had to do to win an election was invoke Osama Bin Laden or the Twin Towers? Well, John Boehner certainly does.



This is Exhibit A in the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP. On the major questions of the day - the banking/economic crisis, the healthcare crisis, the energy/climate crisis - they have no answers. They quite literally have nothing to say except for no. Well, that's not entirely true: they still recycle their old talking points, insisting that cutting corporate and capital gains taxes will be an economic panacea; that every American has adequate healthcare since they can go the ER; and that despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, global warming is not man-made.

So what's left for the Republican party? Answer: trying to scare the crap out of people. Unfortunately for them, it's not 2002 anymore. Voters by and large rejected this type of crass fearmongering during the past election, when conservatives played on fears that Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim-terrorist-communist. But Boehner & Co. did not get the memo. Either did not notice that these scare tactics have lost their effectiveness, or it's simply all they know or have left at this point. It's a sad commentary on a pathetic political movement.