It's back to stalemate on Capitol Hill :

ON THE DAY AFTER President Obama's State of the Union speech, I decided not to watch the Project Runway politicians step up to the TV cameras for their 3 minutes of spin. But having seen some of the comments on the Internet, I've concluded that the Republicans are not seriously opposed to some of the recovery programs, but they are deliberately out to destroy Obama, no matter what he proposes. It's personal, and ugly. The vote today on Obama's call for pay-as-you-go programs passed the Senate by, yep, a straight 60-40 party line vote. Some Republicans who had supported PAYGO voted against it. Among them , Ohio's Sen. George Voinovich. "Moderate" George, who will be retiring from the Senate this year, once defended PAYGO as the necessary defense against deficit spending, saying: "I don't understand how we can continue to go this way. We're living in a dream world. This deficit continues to grow." (As quoted from Think Progress.) That was then. This is now. Dream world be damned.

And how about John McCain's chest-pounding dismissal of Obama's proposals? McCain, who is in a primary fight as his popularity among Arizonans is ambling in the low 40s, boasted to his constituents that he would fearlessly "stand up and speak out against Democratic leadership". As McCain was passing the responsibility to the other side, the city manager of Phoenix, David Cavazos, announced plans to cut 500 police and fire positions , six library branches and five senior centers to balance the budget. The city council will act on it March 2. Meantime, the state's unemployment rate rose above 9.1 pct. According to the Arizona Republic, the city will be eliminating 1,385 jobs. A friend who covers Capitol Hill says seasoned reporters are astonished by the changes that have taken place in McCain since his loss to Obama. He remains a bitter man these days with no desire to follow his one pledge to reach across the aisle. Some courage, I'd say.

Other Republican senators immediately had meltdowns, with Oklahoma's James Inhofe, who seldom lends confidence of his mental agility, suggesting that Obama was nothing more than a liar. During the speech, he and the other GOPers with fixed stares resembled the figures in Madame Toussoud's wax museum.

What all of this says is that there will be no truce in the months leading to this year's election. None. In the meantime, the nation watches and waits as its economy drifts into oblivion. As for health reform, shouldn't we ask the pols to give up a half-year of their own health coverage for every month that they delay passage? Of course it's fair.

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They were against it before they were against it

MIDWEEK MUSINGS:

The current tossed salad of congressional Republicans has done more to debase the party's name than any in the 40 years that I was a paid witness to political hijinks by people engaged in that line of work. What else are we to think of a gang on the fringes of human intelligence that is attempting to scare the hell out of senior citizens by warning that current health insurance reform initiatives will reduce Medicare benefits? Whaaah? And what party has tried harder over the years to denigrate, scandalize, block and cut the benefits of Medicare and Social Security than the GOP? But its soldiers continue to plod on, confirming that ignorance is bliss in the wake of a recent New York Times/CBS news poll that President Obama is leading the Republicans 52-27 on who has the better ideas about health care reform, and that two-thirds of the public want a public option. Up and down the line in this and other polls Republicans are trailing with dismal public support. Sail on, o ship of hate!

The recent discovery of mini-Tyrannosaurus rex in northeastern China reportedly has drawn great interest from paleontologists who might have to reconsider their theories about the evolution of giant T rex, the so-called king of dinosaurs. But they could have saved the expense of going all the way to the Orient to find mini-T. A passing glance at the Senate Finance Committee., which rejected a public option yesterday, would have easily turned up several more recent examples of paleontological-friendly existence.

SIGNS OF OUR TIMES: Having just added a new Verizon land-line telephone to my home office desk, I hustled it to one of those shopping center kiosks to inquire about a problem.

"I have have a question" I said, holding up the phone to a young man at the Verizon kiosk.

"What's that?' he asked, staring at the phone.

"It's a telephone," I said. "You call people with it and they call you."

"I never saw one of those. I don't know what it is."

"But you have a big Verizon sign over your kiosk."

"True but we're a different company. We only deal with wireless."

"Do you have a telephone number that I can call?"

"No, we're a different company"

I backed off in defeat, wondering whether I was actually holding a telephone.

So I drove a greater distance to OfficeMax, where I had purchased the phone and mentioned my problem to a slight young girl.

"Oh, " she said cheerfully, "you just have to press this button."

It worked. I felt dumber than usual.

FINALLY: The Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award goes to our old friend Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican, who responded to a constituent's doubts about global warming thusly:'

"I think he's right. I think what he's saying is God's still up there. We're going through these cycles....I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science isn't there."

Ahhhh.... Oklahoma. Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain.

Inhofe the captain of GOP's Ship of Fools.

THROUGHOUT HISTORY there have been crackpots, religious zealots and boobs, some of whom were either dangerous or plainly stupid. Figures like Torquemada, Savanarola, Caligula and Praise-God Barebone come quickly to mind. So I have to remind myself that we are not the only generation of fools every time Jim Inhofe's name pops up in the news, which has been happening with more than normal frequency for a politician of his trifling worth since President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme court.

Inhofe is the Republican senator from Oklahoma who spends a lot of his time preaching about wholesome American conduct when he isn't hanging out with bulging-pocketed oil interests. He's also been extraordinarily open about whom he considers worthy of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He doesn't exactly say so, but you easily get the feeling that he prefers to seat white guys on the bench rather than women of Puerto Rican lineage that would serve America more efficiently in the kitchens of Manhattan restaurants. Of course, he doesn't get it. Boobs seldom do.

Inhofe's latest expression of protecting the long-held turf of upwardly mobile Caucasian males was his refusal this week to meet with Sotomayor as she made the rounds of senators' offices before heading for her committee hearings. Having decided 11 years ago that she was unworthy to be seated as a federal appellate judge (he voted against her at that time, but she got the job. Great memory, that guy!), he decided that nothing could have happened in more than a decade to change his mind about her judicial qualifications. He may have noticed that she was still a woman as well as one still retaining her Puerto Rican ancestry.

In 2009, we should all be embarrassed by the actions of the senator from the Okie state. But if Inhofe's fellow-Republicans on Capitol Hill are embarrassed as they are reeling from the John Ensign affair, they aren't saying so. Instead they have rehearsed their talking points well about Sotomayor. Four GPO senators have been recorded saying virtually the same thing: Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, Charles Grassley and John Cornyn want everyone to know that the high court job should not be about "personal feelings, politics or preferences".

Read: personal feelings (women), politics (liberal) and preferences (Puerto Ricans and others who worked their way up from lean childhoods.)

Before the GOP can get serious about returning to power with the votes of women and minorities it might consider giving up its addiction to Kool-Aid. It might also work out a cash- for-clunkers deal for Inhofe.