Starting with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Republican Party became the Irresponsible Party. Republicans in and out of government laid siege to the Clinton presidency, pursuing him with an endless series of shamelessly partisan investigations, law suits, and court decisions, finally impeaching him for lying about cheating on his wife, after having been carefully harassed and bullied into doing so on entirely specious grounds. Republicans followed that with the Great Constitutional Holdup of the Year 2000, when a 5-4 Republican majority on the Supreme Court steamrollered both the Constitution and the good faith of the American people in order to drive a stake through the heart of that damned Bill Clinton once and for all.
George Bush burned through the massive budgetary surpluses Clinton had achieved via politically motivated tax cuts, along with, of course, the disgraceful Iraqi War, perhaps the greatest unforced error in American history, and massive domestic spending programs, entirely unfunded, designed to prevent nosy congressfolks from wondering what the fuck we were getting for our $200 billion a year Excellent Iraqi Adventure, besides more terrorists.
George left the economy in tatters, of course—a greater crisis, really, than 9/11. Instead of supporting President Obama, the Republicans sought to destroy him, in large part by trying to blow up the U.S. economy. Throughout Obama’s time in office, the Republican motto has been “the worse, the better.”
Now, finally, the Republicans have met someone as unscrupulous as they are, who will match their lies with bigger ones. They deserve it. They deserve every bit of it.
