Remember the Eunuch Caucus?

Remember the Eunuch Caucus?

by digby

They're still kicking. After promising all day to produce enough Republicans to shut down this farce and pass a clean CR without all the Obamacare bullshit, Peter King made a fool of himself.
Amazing to me how many House Rs sound like Dent and King behind scenes, yet when rule vote rally builds, they get cold feet and duck away
— Robert Costa (@robertcostaNRO) September 30, 2013
It's an old story. Republicans are rarely (ever?) profiles in courage:

Wednesday, July 18, 2007


The Ongoing Adventures Of The Eunuch Caucus

by digby

Greg Sargent calls them WINO's. Harold Meyerson dubs them Spineless Sages. I'm fond of my own moniker from back in 2006, the Eunuch Caucus. They all add up to the same thing --- congressional GOP jellyfish who wring their hands and rend their garments about the war and other failures of the Bush administration and yet can never seem to actually vote against anything the administration wants or for anything they don't. The worst cases, like McCain, Graham and Warner make a big show of being "elder statesmen" or "mavericks" and then turn around and engineer legislative atrocities like the Military Commissions Act.

This is one reason why I really hate calling the Democrats spineless. It's true that they sometimes are, but compared to their single cell invertebrate comrades on the other side they are super-heroes. The Republicans laid down for Dick Cheney's Unitary executive like a bunch of cheap hookers during fleet week with nary a thought for the constitution or even their own prerogatives. As I wrote back in '06:

I am dumbstruck by the totality of the Republicans' abdication of their duty. These men who spent years running on Madisonian principles ("The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse") now argue without any sense of irony or embarrassment that Republican Senators are nothing more than eunuchs in President Bush's political harem. They have voluntarily rendered the congress of the United States impotent to his power.

I've watched this invertebrate GOP caucus since 2000 as they submitted themselves to this lawless administration again and again, shredding every bit of self respect, every figment of institutional pride, every duty to the constitution. The look in their eyes, which is somehow interpreted as strong and defiant by the equally servile media, is actually a window to empty little men who have given up their manhood to oblige their master. The only reward they seek is unfettered access to the taxpayers money for their own use.

We are looking at fifty-five of the most powerful people in the country. Collectively the Republican Senators represent almost a hundred and fifty million citizens. And they have allowed a callow little boy like George W. Bush along with his grey eminineces Karl Rove and Dick Cheney to strip them of their consciences, their principles and their constitutional obligations. What sad little creatures, cowardly and subservient, unctuously bowing and scraping before Karl Rove the man who holds their (purse) strings and dances them around the halls of congress singing tributes to their own irrelevance at the top of their lungs. How pathetic they are.

And it continues to this day, even as their great leader has nearly destroyed their party and ruined the country.

Never make a bet that Republicans will do the right thing. You can't even count on them to act in their own self-interest --- witness their just tanking the immigration bill that will probably sink their chances of a real majority for many years to come. Their only purpose in government is to steal from the taxpayers, help their rich friends, cover up their leaders' crimes and destroy Democrats. That's it. That's all they do. 
Now even Karl Rove is rendered impotent by the Frankenstein monster he created. The mere threat of a Tea Party challenge (funded by the Kochs) has the little beggars cowering in their little boots. It's always something with them that keeps them from standing up to absurdity, wherever it's coming from. Peter King could only muster himself and Charlie Dent and four fringe dwellers upset that it didn't go far enough.

Meanwhile, lest Democrats get it in their head that a clean vote will be Big Victory and we can all start dancing around like a bunch of drunk kids on prom night like we always do when the wingnuts pull one over:

That's a real winner isn't it? But hey, if we're lucky we'll get this "clear CR" and then the White House can start negotiating on the debt ceiling and we can cut all the "entitlements" too.


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