Rahm Emanuel: It would be “dangerous” if the GOP held power in Washington

by Ben Hoffman

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s chief of staff is warning about what might happen if Republicans — who have defended BP over the Gulf oil spill — were to run Congress after the fall election.

Rahm Emanuel says the GOP philosophy is to paint BP as the victim, pointing to Rep. Joe Barton’s apology to BP for what the congressman called a White House “shakedown.”

“That’s not a political gaffe, those are prepared remarks. That is a philosophy. That is an approach to what they see. They see the aggrieved party here as BP, not the fishermen,” Emanuel said on ABC’s “This Week.”

It would be “dangerous” if the GOP held power in Washington, Emanuel said.

“I think what Joe Barton did was remind the American people, in case they forgot, how the Republicans would govern.”

Read more…

It IS dangerous to have the GOP in power. All we need to do is look back a few years at the disaster of the Bush administration and the Republican controlled Congress from 1995-2007. What we got was deregulation that resulted in the collapse of our banking/finance sector and sky-high oil prices, a housing boom and bust, the humongous media conglomerates, two disaster wars (not to mention our country being attacked on 9/11), the explosion of our national debt, the worst recession since the 30s, The Bush/Cheney administration allowed oil companies to write the rules, and as a result we now we have the worst environmental disaster in our history. We had President Bush congratulating the head of FEMA for doing a “heck of a job” while people went for days without food or water.

Right-wingers believe the government can’t do anything and everything should be privatized. Reagan once said, “The ten most dangerous words in the English language are ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.'”

It’s insanity to expect competence from a political party that believes it is incompetent.

19 Comments to “Rahm Emanuel: It would be “dangerous” if the GOP held power in Washington”

  1. That last line is hilarious. I’ve wondered why people, mostly Republicans, have come to the conclusion that they want a government, but they don’t want the government to do anything. Of course, their argument is always “all the government needs to do is protect our borders and property,” but is not the point of a government to maintain the well-being of a country? Instead of calling for less and less government, why don’t we call for a more functional government?

    http://myperfectgovernment.wordpress.com

  2. Barton’s public remarks were obviously a kiss-ass to his buddies in the oil industry, but I don’t think they were any more representative of the view of the Republican Party or that of its constituents than Maxine Waters’ comments about socializing oil companies.

    [Right-wingers believe the government can’t do anything and everything should be privatized.]
    I think you’re painting that brush pretty wide again, Ben.

  3. Mr. Hoffman,

    What should the Federal Government do? In a moment, but first lets see where you got your facts wrong, again about what Republicans stand for.

    ” Right-wingers believe the government can’t do anything and everything should be privatized. ”

    That is not even your typical Democrat half truth. Maybe a 1% truth. The 1% would be to take Nancy Pelosi’s Government provided broomstick and make her fly coach on a commercial airline.

    There is national defense. Republicans never said they did not want the Federal Government to defend us. Printing our currency. Now there the Government could be a little less efficient .

    Secure the borders. Since the Government has it’s dirty fingers in so many pies, doing so many jobs, it can’t do any of it’s jobs very well.

    Regulating deep water drilling oil drilling safety. It’s been slipping in that department for about a year and a half. Before that they were relatively good. Can’t figure out what happened since January of 09.

  4. Oh yeah! Rahm Emanuel, now he’s a piece of work…or to Obama, a ‘piece’ of work. 😉

  5. Sen. Jon Kyl over the weekend:
    Here’s what the president said, ‘The problem is, if we secure the border, then you all won’t have a reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.’ In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform. I explained that, ‘you and I, Mr. President, have an obligation to secure the border. That’s an obligation. It also has potentially positive benefits. You don’t have to have comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you have to secure the border to get comprehensive reform.’ I said, ‘you would be surprised maybe you don’t think there wouldn’t be no incentive for comprehensive reform, but I’m not so sure that’s true. In any event, it doesn’t matter. We’re supposed to secure the border.’

    But that’s why it’s being done. They frankly don’t want to do it. They want to get something in return for doing their duty.”

    • Joh Kyl is a liar. From SourceWatch:

      In February 2006, Kyl and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cited a conversation regarding the Detainee Treatment Act in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. The conversation, however, had never actually taken place. Rather, it was inserted into the official Congressional Record after the debate had concluded.

      Source

      • What does your “source” have to do with the Arizona thing? Just to remind everyone, this is 2010. Jeez. If it was pointed out the lies from Obama and his group of freaks, there wouldn’t be enough room on WordPress to hold it all. Typical liberal b.s. Anything to distract from the truth.
        To even suggest Obama and Rahm Emanuel are not liars is quite disingenuous.

  6. What a surprise…. the Rushster comes out in support of Barton.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/21/limbaugh-bashes-gop-for-barton-response/?fbid=V7YsSdqqQoD

    I just don’t get this “shakedown” meme. The Exxon Valdez is still in litigation. Is that what we want – a long drawn out legal process in which BP sits there and pays nothing for years – because you know that is what would happen….

  7. Oops – that last anonymous comment was from me – WordPress logged me out for some reason.

    Any, Alan said: Mr. Hoffman

    You are so formal, but I feel left out. From now on I insist on being called “Dr. Hippie” or “Professor Hippie.”

    😉

  8. Jon Stewart is nailing the Republicans now on the The Daily Show and would be worth watching once they’ve posted on Youtube.

    BTW,

    “Barton’s biggest single corporate contributor, Anadarko Petroleum, is a 25 percent stakeholder in the Macondo Prospect, site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Individuals and PACs associated with Anadarko have given Barton’s campaigns $146,500 since the 1990 election cycle.

    and

    Additional Center for Responsive Politics analysis shows that Barton’s candidate committee and leadership PAC combined have received $1.67 million from the oil and gas industry since the 1990 election cycle.”

    http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/06/barton-likes-bp-and-they-like-him-b-1.html

    We KNOW exactly how the Republicans would govern!!!!

  9. Gracie,

    ” We KNOW exactly how the Republicans would govern!!!!”

    Imagine, in an alternative Universe that Bush was still President and the oil spill happened after he had received $77,000 in contributions from BP. You people would be saying that Bush was paid off to let his oil buddies at BP pollute the Gulf of Mexico.

    Wait Barak HUSSEIN Obama is president and he was paid off to let HIS oil buddies pollute the Gulf of Mexico.

    • Imagine, in an alternative Universe that Bush was still President and the oil spill happened after he had received $77,000 in contributions from BP

      Oh come on Alan.

      Bush had a Vice President with the middle name “Halliburton.” Damned right we would be complaining because policies of the Bush administration were virtually always pro Big Oil.

      Ever wonder why BP gave money to Obama? It wasn’t because they saw him as pro-oil. No – it is because they (rightly) saw him as AGAINST Big Oil and they were trying to influence him to change his position.

      Sheesh.

    • [Imagine, in an alternative Universe that Bush was still President and the oil spill happened after he had received $77,000 in contributions from BP.]

      If Bush was still president, he would declare war on another sovereign nation. He would create a $20 billion dollar account to help BP recover from its losses. He would declare Marshall Law to prevent any of the Gulf coast residents from collecting oil off the beaches. He would grant a multi-million dollar contract to Halliburton to clean up the oil.

      And then he would go clear brush on his ranch.

      • The Halliburton contract would most likely be true. The rest is funny.

      • The Halliburton contract would most likely be true. The rest is funny.

        Hmmm…. I am only dubious about the declare war part. Not that he wouldn’t want to – but the military is already stretched too thin and the National Guard can’t shoulder this additional burden. I suppose he could go to a draft, but I suspect that even Bush would realize that is a political loser….. or maybe not.

  10. But Liberals never use Fear tactics! 🙂

  11. I love this post. One thing it reminds me of is some local on tv last night, in commenting about Sarah Palin being in town, said he was Republican and would vote republican because of our spending and debt issues. He was adamant about it being the Democrats fault for all of our woes, particularly Obama’s. I wanted to scream at him, the reason we are in all this mess with BP, the Housing Marketing and the like is because of deregulation and other snafus by Bush/Cheney admin and the GOP. Of course, let me say this, there are a number of Dems without backbones that need to be blamed as well.

    Just my thoughts.

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