GOP trying to scare seniors

GOP national chairman Michael Steele and the RNC is out with a new advertisement pushing a 'seniors bill of rights' in which he pushes for among other things, 'zero cuts' in medicare. He also brings up the discredited 'death panel' charge and tries to scare seniors that way.

Funny, but I and most Democrats support 'zero cuts' in medicare. Only there are 137 Republicans in the house who earlier this year voted to cut medicare. So which is it? Is the GOP suddenly suggesting that we preserve all funding for medicare and not cut it? If so then hallelujah, we have agreement.

Of course the Democratic plan does not make any cuts in medicare so it is clearly a moot point in the context of the present health care debate. In fact the last party to make wholesale changes in medicare was the GOP, which in 2004 gave us the 'medicare prescription drug benefit' which was mainly a trillion dollar sop to the pharmaceutical industry and really hasn't done much to improve the access of seniors to prescription drugs over what it had been.

What this is, is a cynical attempt by the GOP to scare and stampede seniors against health insurance reform. Again, medicare is already a 'government option' and there are no plans to cut it.

Let's also not forget that the last time the 'scaring seniors' card was played, it was by Democrats-- suggesting during the 2004 campaign that Bush would try to privatize Social Security if he won. Only that time it turned out to be accurate. After the 2004 election, President Bush did try to privatize social security. And he failed (thank God.)

So one party, the GOP, is now trying to scare seniors over something that isn't even in the bill, and pushing a policy of guaranteed spending levels on medicare which they themselves have opposed and did oppose earlier this year. The other party in effect wants to extend the good health care provided by medicare to other people, by way of a public option. And the other party, the Democrats, has only accused the first party, the Republicans of doing something to endanger a program seniors depend on when, in fact, it turned out that they were absolutely right in making that charge.

Which party would you trust, under the circumstances?

Neither

Back when Michael Steele, who once had a reputation as a moderate was elected as the chair of the RNC, I predicted that one of two things would happen, and then settled on the second as being the more likely.

The first possibility would be that he would actually try to lead the GOP in the direction that it needs to go-- to stop heading straight over the cliff of failed conservatism and irrelevance and move the party back towards a relevant position in American policy-making by supporting candidates who were willing to break with party orthodoxy. In this vision Steele would have the courage to take bold and perhaps unpopular, but necessary positions that would make the Republican party more appealing to Americans who have been repelled by the narrow focus of the party fixated on tax cuts and a twentieth century social agenda that is increasingly stale and outdated. In other words, it was my hope that Michael Steele, the man who in 2006 as a candidate for Governor of Maryland described the 'scarlet letter R' next to his name on the ballot, would understand the problems facing the modern GOP and have the boldness to take on the establishment in the party.

The second possiblity, which I predicted was that he would put all that aside and kowtow to the party komissariat and become just another conservative mouthpiece.

Well, it certainly was not the first possiblity, I was right about that (unfortunately). If anyone has any doubts about that, see his recent kissing up where he paid tribute to Rush Limbaugh and apologized profusely for saying that what Limbaugh says on the air is often 'ugly and incendiary.' So much for any hope that Micheal Steele will actually provide any steel to the GOP.

But now, he's also made one gaffe too many, and let his inner moderate come out-- not in the controlled and deliberate manner that would have served the GOP well, but in an accidental slip of the tongue that he had to take back right away. Michael Steele said in a Feb. 24th interview with GQ that abortion is an 'individual choice,' and that he therefore opposes a Constitutional amendment to ban it.

He quickly reversed himself and said that in fact he does favor such an amendment in a statement he issued today.

But already the hotheads in the GOP are all over him for it, and some are demanding his resignation. Failed Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has appointed himself the guardian of all things socially conservative, threated that because of Steele's comments the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support. The fact that the reason the GOP is in the shape it is now is because of the members it's already lost that Huckabee has no plans to get back notwithstanding, the message is clear, that Steele is hurting the party.

Here is the sad thing: I actually believe that Michael Steele probably does believe that what Limbaugh says is ugly, and that abortion is an individual choice. He said those things because he believes them. But he has not the strength of conviction he would need to stand behind those statements, i.e. to stand up to the powers inside the Republican Party, and so he is in no man's land-- trying to be another GOP mouthpiece but not quite as suited for it as someone who actually believes what they are saying.

So in the end he is neither the leader the GOP needs nor the illusion of a leader the GOP wants.