Some days, I’m frustrated by Republican intransigence on obstructionism. Other days, though, I find myself frustrated because it seems as if Republicans don’t even care enough to appear to be trying. I can handle that Republicans might see and define things differently than those of us on the left; that’s to be expected. But would it be too much to expect that someone as ostensibly intelligent and capable as Sen. Lindsay Graham would at least have some idea of what he’s talking about? If he’s going to stand in opposition to something, shouldn’t we be able to expect that he would be knowledgeable about the substance and form of what it is that’s he opposes?
I find myself wondering at times if Republicans are so lazy and intransigent that merely saying “NO!!” is what passes as legitimate debate for them.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that an agency established to protect consumers from financial fraud “is something out of the Stalinist era.”
Graham, speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” was asked why Senate Republicans had filibustered President Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created as part of 2010’s Wall Street reform.
Graham spoke as if the bureau had yet to be created and debate was over how to shape it, rather than discussing the nominee, Richard Cordray, the former attorney general in Ohio.
The CFPB is a reality that was passed into law in 2010. Perhaps Graham slept through that part of the class, but the form and format of the CFPB is not up for debate. The issue at hand is Cordray, and Republicans appear to have decided that they’ll oppose any nominee with a pulse. They know that the CFPB cannot perform the functions assigned to it by law until it has a confirmed head. Graham appears to be merely doing his part to drag out the proceedings until Cordray removes his name from consideration in frustration and Obama is forced to find a new sacrificial lamb.
Either Graham is being willfully manipulative and disingenuous, or he just can’t be bothered to actually get his facts straight. Given that Graham is no one’s fool, I have to believe that Graham is a willing foot soldier in the GOP’s effort to kill the CFPB through delay, obfuscation, and obstruction.
How’s that for some principled leadership, eh? Then again, given that the financial industry benefits every day that the CFPB is hobbled, what else could you expect from the Senator from Wall Street?
Oh, and by the way, don’tcha think that comparing the CFPB to an inhuman dictator who killed 10,000,000 of his countrymen is the worst sort of inappropriate hyperbole??
Just a thought….
