ANYTHING PEACEFUL

The Politics of Failure and Success

FEBRUARY 23, 2010 by MIKE VAN WINKLE

Do you remember when the left was up in arms of the Rush Limbaugh’s comment about wanting Barack Obama to fail? Well, now they are twisting the same idea to argue the GOP is “betting on failure”.

From the Hill:

Republicans have so poorly positioned their party that they have a huge political interest in the jobless rate rising and the economy falling. Good news for America becomes bad news for Republicans.

The problem for Republicans, and their great weakness going into the 2010 elections, is that they are so dominated by right-wing factions, and so obsessed with President Barack Obama failing, they are locked into politics that only succeed if America fails.

The rhetoric isn’t new–Limbaugh and others made similar arguments in the run up to the 2006 and 2008 elections–and as always, it is nothing more than arrogant sound and fury repeated by grotesquely partisan idiots.

If we’re going to have a reasonable political discourse in this country we have to acknowledge that success is in the eye of the beholder. A successful America for Democrats is far different from that of Republicans and Libertarians. So it makes no sense to talk about success and failure independent of the definition held by the respective parties and factions.