And, ironically, that "army" is now the Tea Party the late and sorely-missed Mr. Breitbart helped midwife into existence. Something I take no pleasure in having to say, because we are ideologically simpatico, but I have to conclude that from the story the media empire he left behind ran last night:
The Hill and Politico, both of which report on congressional activity, failed to mention the happiness with which the $1.1 trillion budget deal was greeted by Democrats – most notably California-12 Representative Nancy Pelosi who said GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan "gave away the store," Breitbart News reports.
So now we're playing up the spin of that demented old hag?
Politico wrote that both Republicans and Democrats were able to claims wins, suggesting both sides got something in the compromise.
Which, in reality, is the truth.
The Hill reported the story as a Ryan win.
In the context of avoiding a government shutdown that the GOP could never have "won," perhaps. Which is true as far as it goes. So what?
But Breitbart notes that it reported that Democrats were claiming almost total victory.
Yeah, I'm sure they did. Though the "victory" they "won" was entirely defensive - i.e. they retained the items, like Planned Parenthood funding, that TPers delusionally convinced themselves they were going to take away, which Mitch McConnell took off the table months ago, so this was absolutely no surprise and nothing TPers have any excuse not to have been already aware of - whereas Republicans gained several items, from tax cuts to the big-ticket item, the lifting of the forty-year oil export ban that will be a much-needed economic boost to the domestic energy industry.
As I said two weeks ago, and Speaker Ryan said last Sunday, this latest "omnibus," just like all that have preceded it, is parsecs from what we want to see. But it is the wages of divided government, and how John Boehner and Mitchie The Kid allowed the Democrats to subvert the budget process. Boehner has now exited and Paul Ryan will get his chance to fix that process. The Tea Party "report card" on his performance needs to wait a year before it can be fairly and accurately determined.
What I want to know vis-a-vie Breitbart is what the Hill and Politico would have to gain from shilling for a Republican House Speaker. When have either, or ANY, media outlet ever shilled for a Republican House Speaker? What do they gain from an action that can only help what is to them the opposition party? Wouldn't they logically be playing up the "WE WON!" propaganda from Pelosi and (G)Reid and their baying pack of jackals? Inflame and re-ignite the GOP civil war? Maybe even get Ryan sacked in turn and plunge the House into total, fiery intra-partisan gridlock and chaos and pave the way for the only realistic means by which a Democrat takeover of the House might be achieved - namely, that the GOP is incapable of governing and SOMEBODY has to "watch the store"?
And that brings us to the question of why Breitbart - an ostensibly conservative media outlet - is serving as the Dems' media megaphone, and why the former is refusing to realize that it is being played by that demented old hag. This at the same time that perhaps, just maybe, the Hill and Politico were actually coming within spitting distance, in "stopped clock right twice a day" fashion, of honest-to-goodness objective reporting.
This really is Bizarro World.
How bass-ackwards have things become? While Tea Partiers are now using Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry as their top sources, the despised GOP "establishment" is seeing through their transparent tactics like Saran Wrap:
GOP lawmakers are reportedly skeptical of Senate Minority Leader Harry [G]Reid's vow this week to embrace "a thoroughly bipartisan process" on appropriation bills that move through the upper chamber.
The Nevada Democrat even gave a "promise" of cooperation to GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Hill reports – a vow that was met with open laughter by his Republican colleagues.
There's nothing cynical about the GOP mistrust; the House passed six spending bills in 2015, and none of them got anywhere in the Senate, the Hill notes.
Raising the question of why Ryan is the target of insane Tea Party anger and not Senator McConnell.
"I have some doubts," Michigan-3 GOP Representative Justin Amash of the House Freedom Caucus tells the Hill. "We're talking about Harry [G]Reid. I think Harry [G]Reid is pretty clever and I would take anything he says with a grain of salt."
"Harry [G]Reid may be playing the game," Amash adds. "Ryan's new to the post. There's going to be some testing of each other. But I'll give Ryan the benefit of the doubt — he's the one who has to assess if Senator [G]Reid is being honest."
Is Congressman Amash to be excommunicated from the movement now and consigned to the "cockroach" outer darkness, my Tea Party friends?
Texas-31 GOP Representative John Carter, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, was more blunt.
"I personally don't trust Harry [G]Reid as far as I could throw him," he tells the Hill. [emphases added]
Elected Republicans primed for battle in 2016, and Tea Partiers hanging on every Democrats' word. I haven't suffered a vertigo attack of this magnitude since the Bazooka Barfing Vestibular Neuronitis Incident of early 2007.
I need to sit down for awhile....
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