The Charge of the Retrograde

Slurs to the left of him

Snarls to the right of him

Into the valley of dearth goes Barack Obama

It’s been a bad week or two for our president. Or to put it another way: it’s been a great week for the knuckle-heads, gun-lovers, anti-government zealots and racists. Ever at the ready to pounce on any issue that has legs and smells of scandal, Fox Noose and Karl Rove are gloating over the recent disclosures and seem to have regained the narrative.

Just as the non-issue of Benghazi was wearing thin other non-issues have reared their heads. I expect the Republicans will have a pocketful of Benghazis for the next election. Unemployment is slowly easing, the deficit is shrinking, the stock market is booming, inflation is deflating, fracking is gushing. The administration is not vulnerable on these fronts. Obama is even challenging the court order to allow Plan B morning-after pills to market, a move unfathomable to his progressive wing. So what can the Republicans do to rally their troops?

For the while they can act as the aggrieved party but who doesn’t recognize political theater when they see it. Not the homeless of New Jersey and Staten Island, victims of hurricane Sandy. Not homeowners under water (figuratively) nor graduates carrying immense student loans. Not the undocumented or the truly aggrieved parents of gunned-down children. Real issues go unattended in Washington; I don’t think this Congress will go unremembered come election time. The political carnival, as in carnivorous, goes on with its posturing, fear-mongering and over-blown rhetoric.

There’s not to reason why / There’s but to do or die / Into the Valley  etc….

Reasoning is not their department. Republicans are too busy reveling. Of the three hot potatoes on the platter, Benghazi, IRS over-reach and wire-tapping the Associated Press the latter will get a pass from Conservatives because it comes right out of Dick Cheney’s playbook. Shame on the Dept. of Justice rendering themselves indistinguishable from the Bush administration. So spooked are they by the prospect of a homeland act of terror that the Bill of Rights seems to have been subverted.

The IRS fiasco calls attention to the proliferation of quasi non-profit organizations. Language defining their tax-exempt status has been muddled beyond comprehension, and needs to be rewritten. Every right-wing group, in fact, did receive an eventual OK from the IRS; only a progressive one was denied. Ironically, after all the fuss, the correct call may be instituted which would disqualify all these Tea Party outfits as political fronts whose purpose is not educational or social welfare but legislative. The omission of Obama’s name in their attack ads should not confer impunity.

The question remains whether voters in 2016 will have reached their threshold of bluster and throw the rascals out.