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Three groups to blame for website crash; Jay Schmitt; Beaver County Times; January 11, 2012.
This appears to be Mr. Schmitt’s first politics-related letter.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“There are three groups to blame for the recent crash of John Boehner’s website:”
[RWC] It appears Mr. Schmitt’s idea of “recent” is nearly six months ago. Mr. Schmitt failed to note the websites of several reps/senators were affected after the back-to-back speeches of President Obama and Speaker Boehner in late-July 2011, including Democrats.
In summary, the purpose of this letter to blame Republicans for everything, all without a lick of supporting evidence.
“1. The Republican Tea Party for forcing Boehner to reject all good faith negotiations. Any person or political group who enters Congress with the unpatriotic intent of ‘no compromise’ is unfit to hold any elected office in a democracy like ours.”
[RWC] I don’t know Mr. Schmitt, but this letter leads me to suspect his definition of “good faith negotiations” is for Republicans to accept Democrat proposals without question. Given what happened during 2009-2010 when Democrats were the majority party in both houses of Congress (including a short time with a filibuster-proof Senate) and held the White House, it takes chutzpah for Mr. Schmitt to complain about “no compromise.”
Maybe it’s nitpicking, but the U.S. is a republic, not a “democracy.”
“2. The GOP for allowing the monster they created to kill our economy. After eight years of failed Republican economic policies we still struggle to recover from their two unfunded wars, record budget deficits, no energy policy, high and steadily rising unemployment and little job creation, decline in median incomes, big tax cuts favoring the rich, increasing poverty rates, no health care policy, and record home foreclosures. Considering the disastrous economic legacy of the Bush administration in addition to the obstructionism by congressional members beholden to the Tea Party it is unrealistic to expect the president and the Democrats should have had these messes straightened out yesterday.”
[RWC] Mr. Schmitt is just throwing stuff up against a wall and hoping some of it sticks. It’s not clear to me if Mr. Schmitt knows the facts. Rapid-fire listing is a tactic to disseminate a bunch of talking points while minimizing rebuttal. The blurter knows it’s a lot more work to rebut talking points than it is to spit them out, and also knows it’s unlikely his opponent will take the time to rebut every talking point. When you don’t rebut every talking point, some people assume you’re conceding the unaddressed talking points are true. At one time or another, I’ve addressed all of Mr. Schmitt’s items in previous critiques so I’ll deal with only a few of the items here.
As for “the monster … created to kill our economy,” the subprime mortgage mess was the result of leftist policies/programs.
You’ll note Mr. Schmitt didn’t describe the alleged “failed Republican economic policies.”
It appears Mr. Schmitt would like us to forget Democrats were the majority party in both houses of Congress for four years (including a short time with a filibuster-proof Senate) until January 2011 and held the White House for the last two of those years. Further, in the first six years of the Bush administration, Republicans never had anything close to a filibuster-proof Senate. This means Democrats could have killed anything they didn’t like, including all the stuff alleged in Mr. Schmitt’s list.
“3. Those who agree with both points but did not vote in the last election. All that is needed for evil to win is for decent people to do nothing. Get out and vote Democrat in the coming election.”
[RWC] Perhaps sometime Mr. Schmitt will tell us which Republican positions are “evil” and why.
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