While reading Steve Benen’s commentary on Republicans use of the Watergate comparison, this rang a bell for me:
As regular readers know, for much of Barack Obama’s presidency, his detractors seemed annoyed by the lack of credible scandals surrounding his White House. The more the Democratic president stayed out of trouble, the more Obama’s critics searched for a new “Watergate.”
At one point, I counted at least 10 separate “controversies” that various observers labeled “Obama’s Watergate,” each of which turned out to be meaningless, further diluting an already over used cliche.
And I’ve noticed in my random readings in the conservative side of the line that this does continue, as Steve elsewhere notes[1]. And I think it has to do with a GOP sense of inferiority. President Clinton had several scandals, and while most proved to be nothing, the Lewinsky affair, as silly and trivial as it started out being, morphed into a big old anchor around President Clinton’s neck.
But the disaster that was the Bush Presidency, between inciting at least one unnecessary war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and pushed the Middle East towards instability, through a GOP-controlled Congress that was spending money like a drunken sailor, the Great Recession, and finally the horrendous blot on our honor of actually promoting torture as a legitimate interrogation technique, made Clinton look like his worst crime was wearing cheap makeup.
Then Obama came along and managed to run a scandal free Administration for 8 years, led the way out of the Great Recession, and, well, let’s just call it a successful two terms.
Now we have Trump, who seems to specialize in daily scandals, ranging from rank incompetence, through deliberate attempts to destroy important institutions of our democracy, to possible treacherous collusion with the Kremlin to contaminate the last Presidential election.
As the GOP appears to be swirling around the toxic shithole that comes from toadying up to President Trump, there must be a consciousness that they are not measuring up to the standard set by the last two Presidents hailing from the Democratic Party. Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that the last two Republican Presidents have effectively repudiated President Trump, and by extension the GOP itself.
Inferiority complex? All the makings are there, aren’t they? All the GOP has at this point is a superior marketing machine, consisting of their “talking points” psychological approach to manipulating voters, and the right-wing talk radio hosts who make it happen. Governance? Good policies? A fucking clue on how to conduct themselves? They’re hardly doing more than mumbling incoherently through their fingers when they’re not frantically retreating from one position to another. I’m looking at you, Senators Rubio and Graham.
The question is whether or not the wheels will fall off the Republican machine before the Republic is irretrievably broken by the pack of second- and third-raters currently packing the GOP side of the aisle.
1For that matter, Andy McCarthy once called the JFK Administration “Caligula-like”, referencing a Roman emperor reputed to be insane and sadistic, but it was a passing remark on Andy’s part, presented with no evidence – which could be construed as another dishonest attempt to stain the left side of the political spectrum.
