Sykes to Batchelder: Time to apologize

REP. BILL BATCHELDER has become so full of himself since he became the Ohio House Speaker that he simply cannot restrain himself from saying questionable things to friendly audiences - even when he might argue that it was all in fun. Republican fun, that is, at the expense of President Obama. (If, indeed, it was intended to be a side-splitter.)

According to the Washington Post, Batchelder told last week's Summit County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner crowd that Obama ought to be jailed. Ha!.Ha! Here are the words of his stand-up routine:

"The liberals are asking us to give Obama more time. And I think 25-to-life would be a good start."

Among those who didn't think the veteran Speaker's remarks were funny was Rep. Vernon Sykes, Akron Democrat, who called them " absolutely deplorable. I call on the Speaker to apologize for such distasteful remarks immediately".

Sorry, Vern, but that's not at all likely. The current gang of Republicans often finds ways to show disrespect to the generic presidency with vitriol ranging from calling Obama a liar as he addressed Congress to the in-your-face finger-pointing outburst from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Or slamming him as a threat to American security. (How quickly they forgot Osama.)

You can expect a lot more of this sort of political porn in the months leading to the election from the party's hood ornaments operating in a distant universe. Unfortunately, gravitas is not one of the GOP's strong points.

Bill Batchelder's law of earned pay

ASIDE TO Bill Batchelder, the Ohio House speaker:

A report by the Associated Press quoted you as opposing the proposed 5 pct.pay cut for lawmakers because you believe they "earn" their pay. Does this mean that you don't believe that everyone who has been forced to accept pay cuts - some much greater than 5 pct. - during these hard times don't "earn" their pay?

The Movement Class

AT THE  1976 Republican convention, Bill Batchelder, the Republican state representative from Medina, Oh,  fashioned his signature wide grin as he snake-danced through the hotel corridor with a number of his conservative delegates. 

 "What are you doing?" I recall asking him. 

"It's the Movement," he exclaimed, joyously.   "The Movement!"

That was my first encounter with the word as a battle cry for conservative conservative Republicans.  And although Ronald Reagan was narrowly defeated by a sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford, he would be triumphantly back in 1980 as the godly icon of the Movement Class - a phenomenon that has again revealed itself from the ashes of last Tuesday's GOP disaster.  Op-Ed pages, talk show gurus and eager Movement politicians are now ganging up for their born-again opportunities to lead the party to righteous victory in 2012.  They'll all be at the Republican Governors Association in Miami beginning tomorrow to seek out the nearest TV camera to offer a Good Housekeeping remedy for the party's ills.  

I doubt that they will come up with a workable solution  as each wiggles  to find a special place of prominence on Olympus when  the great mentioning game begins to identify a format for what is now generally regarded as a regional party. And a racially and ethnically barren party.  Not a single African American in the Republican House and Senate delegations.  Only one Republican Jew in the U.S House, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who is somewhere to the right of  Rush Limbaugh and wants to be the minority leader.  At the same time, the president of the United States Conference  of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, has instructed  the bishops to confront Barack Obama on abortion, a conservative light switch.  

 The star attraction will be Gov. Sarah Palin, who hasn't convinced the Movement Class that controls the party that she is a political liability.  She'll be at the convention as a speaker and as a source of a number of national interviews.    But she isn't quite ready to announce her candidacy for president in 2012. In an interview with Fox News, she said she is awaiting word from God that He will open a door for her candidacy.  That should settle the commotion of where the party will go from here.  Conservatively speaking,  it's a start.