To Obama: Tell the Republicans to Go to The Eighth Circle

Mr. President, it’s time to tell the Republicans you have been trying to romance with bipartisanship what’s really in the buckwheat. Dante in his “Inferno” described Hell as being a place of nine circles with a place for every sinner. There are ten categories of miscreants in the Eighth Circle: panders and seducers, flatterers, simonists, divinists, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent counsellors, workers of discord, and falsifiers.

You have been trying to work with all of them. Forget it.

Just look at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his seven snowy-white dwarfs dressed in their political uniforms of dark blue suits, the latest ties on the elite free market and the patriotic made-in-China lapel flag pins, as they try to dismember the “wise” Latina Sonia Sotomayor before she can get on the Supreme Court. They certainly are “workers of discord.”

After listening to the seven dwarfs discuss her speeches, temper and emotions rather than her court decisions for three days because they couldn’t pin anything else on her, I decided to label them with some of the 50 names Walt Disney considered before naming his admirers of Snow White. I think the adjective I have selected for each generally fits his mood and style of questioning.

So, the workers of discord are Senators Jeff “Sappy” Sessions, Orrin “Hotsy” Hatch, John “Crabby” Kyl, Lindsey “Gabby” Graham, Charles “Grumpy” Grassley, John “Cranky” Cornyn and Tom “Daffy” Coburn.

If we had listened to the strict constructionists of the Supreme Court, Rosa Parks’ grandchildren would be riding in the back of the bus, states would allow slavery, schools would be totally segregated in the South, abortion would be by coat hanger, lye, and sharp stick, separate but equal facilities would be distinguished by wooden-shack schools for blacks and brick schools for whites, gays would be attacked on the streets with impunity, vegetable and fruit pickers would be treated as animals and women couldn’t vote.

Alas, we still have Supreme Court justices who believe gun laws should be based on the musket instead of assault rifles that can fire 700 rounds a minute. Of course, we also have citizens who believe they have the right not to wear seatbelts because it interferes with their personal freedoms. In case of an accident they want to be free to sing “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder” as they go through the windshield.

Mr. President: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t give a damn about bipartisanship. He didn’t try to get the Hooverites on his side. After all, they had built Hoovervilles around the country. Roosevelt knew the secret of bipartisanship. You get it only when you beat the other guy into the ground. FDR always remembered how the House Republicans had voted against Social Security in 1935.

Why Suck Up To This Bunch?

The majority of Republicans will celebrate if Obama and America fails so they can regain power to loot the Washington Buffet. The dittoheads following Trash Limbo say it’s so – so it must be true.

Trash stated emphatically: “I do not hide from it. I do want and still want Obama to fail.” Here’s another one of Trash’s gems. He said the Obama administration was hyping the fears about the spread of swine flu so they would get Americans into the habit of following government orders!

We finally have a president after eight years who uses English as a first language instead of a second and a mind as a resource instead of a brick. But Obama has to be careful about “bipartising” with a group which has no respect for him. Witness this statement on a Republican-leaning blog: “I’ve never had a fire burning inside me like I do for that mongrel thug.” From another: “I hate Obama.”

The following comments are from placards held at Republican-sponsored “Tea Party” anti-tax protests held on April 15 around the country: “The American Taxpayers Are The Jews for Obama’s Ovens,” “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,” “Barack Hussein Obama. The New Face of Hitler,” and many others of that ilk. Another had no words, but the cartoon showed Obama grabbing Uncle Sam from behind and slitting his throat.

Ed Anger of the Weekly World News called Obama “the Communist-in-Chief” when a government agency called on General Mills to quit making false health claims about how effective Cheerios was in reducing heart problems. Such Republican stalwarts as Michelle Bachmann (who believes we are running out of the rich!), Sean Hannity (who tries to top Trash each day in political obscenities) and Michelle Malkin (a constant practitioner of political acupuncture), all instant critics of the Department of Homeland Security’s report on the divisive activities of the right wing, may have created the emotions and set the stage for the shooting of the guard at the Holocaust Museum.

Cliff May is another member of Republican administrations who often appears on talk shows to spread the gospel of “No.” He loves to argue that torture of Muslims is justified because – well, they’re Muslims! When Frank Rich, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a column critical of Sarah Palin, she immediately responded with an e-mail wishing him a long bout with cancer.

Happy Glenn Beck, the latest star in Fox New’s anti-Obama campaign, was so frothing at the mouth one day he put forth the idea that Obama was building concentration camps to jail right-wing dissenters. He keeps repeating the “fact” that “the pot in America is boiling.”

Pray tell, what does that mean? Oh, and you must remember, Obama is not eligible to be president because he is not a naturally born citizen! I would think dropping the state of Hawaii from state rolls goes beyond revision of history. Beck is also way over his head by comparing Obama’s policy on stem-cell research with Nazi eugenics that led to the search for a master race – and the final solution for the Jews.

How About More “Bipartisan” Comments?

A Fox News host asked this question after the murder of Dr. George Tiller: “If you’re one who believes that abortion is murder, at what point do you go out and kill someone who’s performing abortions? If you are one who believes these sorts of things about the president of the United States…” He left the rest unsaid. Was that an invitation to murder?

Bill O’Reilly, the paragon of virtue at Fox News, still refers to Dr. Tiller as “the baby killer.” There just isn’t any relief for right-wing nuts who might choose that route in their insanity.

So Obama feels he can achieve “bipartisanship” with those who yelled “terrorist” and “treason” whenever his name was mentioned at McCain-Palin rallies. How can a guy who was “palling around with terrorists” ever have a meeting of the minds with these nuts? A Minnesota right-winger called candidate Obama an “Arab.” If you can “bipartisan” with her, you are the greatest community organizer in the world.

I don’t think Obama will be able to “bipartisan” with a fill-in for Trash who told a joke one day about how any U.S. soldier who found himself with two bullets had awful choices if he found himself on a hotel elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden. The fill-in said he would shoot Pelosi twice to make sure, then strangle Reid and bin Laden with his bare hands.

Former presidential long-shot Republican candidate Tom Tancredo called Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court a member of the “Latino KKK.” It reveals why he was a long-shot candidate.

Frank Gaffaney, one of Ronald Reagan’s Defense Department hot shots, went nuts after Obama’s Cairo speech and gave Obama many reasons for not even trying for bipartisanship: “Obama engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain.”

Gaffaney also claimed Obama may still be a Muslim (Geez, a member of a “sleeper cell?”) and could be “a member of the global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.” Warming up to his task, Gaffaney added that Obama may be linked to Islamic charities that “have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.”

Actor Jon Voight went over the line while addressing a GOP fundraiser with this chilling line: “(I wish) to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.”

What Happened In Vegas Also Happened In Argentina And Dozens Of Other Cities

The Republicans also seem to have a lock on the “panders and seducers” circle in Dante’s version of Hell in “The Divine Comedy.” Do you think these guys with fast zippers are good candidates for bipartisanship? How about Republican Senator John Ensign seducing the wife of his chief of staff Doug Hampton while they were both his guests at his home during the Christmas holidays in 2007?

That’s real class and a splendid example of family values that serves as bedrock in Republican political platforms. I guess Ensign is a real slow learner. Evidently he learned nothing when he lived in Washington with other Christian bible thumpers in a unit known as the “Prayer House.” Being a veterinarian doesn’t make him a specialist in human relationships, but the skills learned in watching animals certainly must have helped him in establishing animal relationships with Cindy Hampton.

“Daffy” Dr. and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, a fellow “Christian,” took it upon himself to make the Hamptons “whole” by arranging cash contributions from friends for them. Ensign’s parents, drowning in casino money, gave the Hamptons $96,000 “out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time.” Someone please analyze this “stays in Vegas” situation where a chief of staff serves two completely different “staff” functions.

And then we have the extra-marital and extra-curricular functions of Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, the wide-stance problem of Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig, the checks signed by Republican Bob Livingston of Louisana to support his illegitimate son, the D.C. Madam’s connection with Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisana, the perfidy of Nuke Grinch presenting his wife divorce papers while she is in her hospital bed while he is porking one of his aides and while he is castigating President Bill Clinton for doing the same thing to Monica Lewinsky!

At least Bill Clinton was no raging Christian hypocrite and never pretended to be. He was just an opportunity seducer. Nuke has now done his penance. He recently turned Roman Catholic. There are many other “family values” guys I could record here, but it’s hard on the neurons. Calvin Trilling put it best in short poem:

Conservatives seem somehow ill equipped / To govern and still keep their trousers zipped.

After listening to the four days of the seven white dwarfs inquisitioning Sonia Sotomayor about her speeches and a few court cases, I’ll take the “wise Latina” over those arrogant politicos any time. I hope Obama has concluded there is no way he can “bipartisan” with that crew. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama set the tone early: “Our system will only be further corrupted as a result of President Obama’s views that the critical ingredient for a judge is the ‘depth and breadth of one’s empathy.’” Here’s a bunch of partisans who only have empathy for corporations and bottom lines, not people.

President Obama called himself a mutt instead of a purebred a few months ago. Perhaps purebreds are genetically incapable of having empathy for mutts.