Cornyn revives the hostile French connection

To hear Sen John Cornyn, the Texas Republican,  tell  it, the French are back to haunt America's way of life, both in war and peace. He says he has informed by a "guy" that French-speaking people were among the illegal immigrants crossing the border into Texas.  (Some  of the others were heard "speaking Chinese or basically all of the languages in the world...") But specific mention of the French  took us back to a decade ago when the  offended patriots in the U.S.House of Representatives boldly changed the name of French fries to "Freedom fries" in  the House cafeterias in a blunt reprisal for France's  refusal to join us in invading Iraq. Not one of democracy's finer hours.

Two Republicans who led  the demolition of Gallic fries were Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Bob Ney of Ohio , the latter moving on to still greater heights by pleading guilty to corruption charges and spending some time in prison for his inexcusable  bad judgment.

Sacre bleu! (Update: French fries have regained their original name and are again being served  in the cafeteria.)

P.S. For all of his partisan concern about lax border security, surely the senator must know that border crossings  are now down to where they were under President Nixon.

* * * * *

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative Great White Whale, has conducted his own probe of the same-sex marriage issue and identified the homosexual perps as the "Gay Mafia".  We're not sure where he would cast the blame for his own four marriages.

* * * * *

Proving once against that even crackpots can earn fortunes in America, Glenn Beck is now "reporting" that Rep. Michele Bachmann is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics because it has been infiltrated by radical Muslims.   "We have been sold to radical Islam", he warned.  "It has been infiltrated and we have documented it."
Bachmann supposedly provoked the blowback last year by asserting that important aides in the Obama Administration were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.  

I can't make this up, but Beck can - and often does.

An earmark is an earmark is an earmark

WHO IS SO partisan that one cannot sympathize with Sen. John Cornyn's memory lapse when he is accused so mightily of seeking earmarks while opposing them. Or maybe it's the other way around. There is so much to crowd the mind these days.

The Texas Republican, who is an anti-pork barreler as the trendy thing to do on Capitol Hill, has had to explain things that are quite difficult to explain. Hey, the senator says he knows folks on the Hill who don't think his earmarks are earmarks. You'd think that would be enough to satisfy his critics. But life among the pols who want their country back, is never that simple. To help him recall his path to pork, the Dallas Morning News turned up 48 Cornyn earmarks for his state that totaled $103 million. Planet Earth to Cornyn: Sorry, John. No conservative merit badge for you this time.

GOP: A party in need of a party

ALTHOUGH THE national polls told us that President Obama's first address to the joint session of congress  was a grand slam, one needed only to look last night at the Republican faces on the cadaverous side of the aisle to see how those who now represent the  other 30 pct. were living these days. The party's leaders, Sen. Mitch  McConnell and Rep. John Boehner, were gloweringly  stone-faced. And Sen. McCain, who wants to be the GOP's pater familias,  offered us nothing more than a fleeting simpering smile.  On windy days, there is more action on the sculpted  faces of Mt. Rushmore.  

As Mike Maslansky, the CEO of a conservative research group, said:  "The Democrats loved almost everything Obama had to say.  The Republicans hated almost everything that Obama had to say." Sorry, guys and gals on the Hill:  Obama may be around longer than some of you who face reelection in 2010.  So get on the bus and lend a new idea, if possible.

To make matters worse, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Republicans' latest heart throb to fill the vacuum left by Sarah Palin, laid a dinosaur egg in his response to Obama.  Democrats probably didn't regard it important enough to seriously evaluate it,  but conservative analysts were clearly troubled by the emptiness of Jindal's message. David Brooks grumbled, "I thought it (Jindal's speech) was poorly drafted  - but to come up at this point in history with a stale 'government is the problem...we can't trust government'...It's just a disaster for the Republican Party.  The country is in a  panic now."  Brooks said Jindal laid out a plan that was "a form of nihilism" and added that the current direction of the Republican Party toward a deeper ideological trench was "insane."  

There's more:  Brit Hume, the Fox News guru-emeritus, lamented that it was not "Jindal's greatest oratorical moment."    Others referred to Jindal's remarks as "simplistic"...."almost childish." Who is in charge of the GOP's central casting office anyway?  

Meanwhile, back on the Hill, McCain has accused the Republican National Committee of choosing a song for a presidential campaign ad, without his knowledge,  that is now in court for copyright infringement. And there are reprisals being mentioned by a  prominent member of the Bush family  against Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist for aupporting the stimulus. And Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who has been in trouble before, is threatening to sue the Republican National Committee, accusing it of trying to recruit another candidate to oppose Bunning in the primary.  Sen. John Cornyn , Texas Republican and chairman of the RNC's Senatorial Committee, denies it.  But listen to Bunning: "I don't believe anything that Cornyn says." 

Might it be time for the Republican Party to declare bankruptcy and start all over again with a whole new cast of characters?