Deja Vu All Over Again

After being thrashed in the ’04 and ’08 elections by margins large enough to overcome their usual election fraud engineering ops, the Rethugs launched a website last May to receive new ideas from the public they said would be used to transform their policy agenda.

America Speaking Out quickly became a target for creative mischief, fielding everything from requests to build a genetically engineered dinosaur/robot army to fight terrorism to bringing back slavery.  A month after its launch, the top five entries in the “Liberty and Freedom” category were: ban handguns, “drop the idea that we’re a ‘Christian’ country,” declare abortion “none of the government’s business,” allow gays to serve openly in the military, and legalize marijuana.

Well, as of yesterday the results were tabulated (right!) and incorporated into the Rethugs’ latest attempt to con the voters. Called Pledge To America, this bold and sweeping document is supposed to erase their reputation as The Party of No. Announced in shirt sleeves at a hardware store in suburban Washington (chock a block with tools made in China), the Rethugs promised, among other things,  to extend tax cuts for the rich, create new jobs (for the Chinese), and to repeal the recent heath care reform bill, replacing it with their own version (by removing the most popular ideas and rebranding them as their own).

But choosing a name that invokes their previous Clinton era Contract With America is a curious choice since precisely none of that document’s provisions were ever adopted into law. Rather it is associated with their disastrous attempt to shut down the government, as well as the Rethugs’ debilitating non-stop investigations of all things Clinton ranging from Bill’s sex life (Lewinsky, Flowers), their real estate dealings (Whitewater), personnel decisions (Travelgate,Troopergate), and whackier accusations from alleged drug dealing in Mina, AK, to the death of Vince Foster, two allegations which got copious ink from what was then the still respected Wall Street Journal.

As Jon Stewart points out above in one of his trademarked side by side comparisons, it’s  the same old same old on the policy front. And if the Rethugs succeed in taking back the House, Rep. Darrell Issa promises to use his position as chair of the Judiciary Committee to launch another round of useless investigations of the Obama Administration, starting with “Climategate.” (Don’t know what he might have on Michelle— maybe an investigation of what kind of seeds she used to plant her organic garden on the White House grounds and whether they violated Monsanto‘s genetically engineered seed patents.)

Don’t know if I can stomach a re-run of the nineties. What’s that that Einstein said about insanity– doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

The Rethugs are living proof of that.