A frustrated LaTourette passes baton to Joyce

When former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette  arrived in Akron recently for a luncheon talk sponsored by the Akron Press Club and Bliss Instititute he recounted his frustration with trying to get anything done against the right-wing Tea Party fringe contrrolling the fate of most legislation.

They represent 40  or more House members  who come to the office each day, vote no, and go home praising themselves for a job well done.  It was left to  the memory of Groucho Marx to describe such heinous resistance:   "Whatever it is, I'm against it."

LaTourette faulted the Republican Party for failing to invite minorities, women, gays and others to come aboard. And as a reputed moderate Republican from Lake County, he decided to  give up his seat in 2012 after 18 years in the House.  He is now pacing a group, Main Street Partnership, which is supporting GOP moderates against the sweep of Tea Party insanity.  While a noble cause, it does seem to be an attempt to build a sand castle in a windstorm.

LaTourette has also had nice things to say about his Republican successor, Rep. David Joyce, who is being challenged in the GOP primary.  Here, we have shadings of where moderation ends and the ancient GOP texts arise again.  For example, Joyce has put out campaign ads saying he wants to cut taxes and repeal Obamacare.   And ,of course, he  wants the voters to know that he opposes abortion while favoring family, guns and prayers. the Plain Dealer noted in endorsing him.

The  paper had little choice  against Joyce's Tea Party primary opponent, State Rep. Matt Lynch.  It described  Joyce, the former Geauga County Prosecutor,  as "less combative."

But there's nothing in Joyce's campaign spiel to suggest that he is a...um... moderate..

Eliminate Lynch from the equation, and you still have a garden variety version of a modern Republican conservative that's not likely change much of the resistance movement in Congress.

The week's wash , with a surprise or two

Imagine my mild surprise when I read in my hometown paper this morning that a fellow who is the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, a national Tea Party enterprise, was the campaign manager of Bryan Willams' futile effort  to unseat Mayor Don Plusquellic in 2003. The name Adam Brandon was a faint memory, although I did recall that Plusquellic swamped Williams with 71 pct. of the vote.

Brandon, bred in the Akron area and now living in Washington, was  slated to speak at the Portage County Tea Party dinner on Thursday and told the Beacon Journal that the national group's priority was to take over the Republican Party!   That's hardly a stretch because the Teeps have already lassoed  much of the GOP today, scaring the hell out of people like John Boehner that if he's naughty and not nice, they will challenge him and other similarly situated Republicans in next year's primaries.

Williams has already made a name for himself, if not as a wannabe mayor, then as a Ohio Education Board member  influencing public education policy while lobbying for a non-union construction group operating a private charter school.

But in  promising a takeover by the Tea Party, Brandon is a tad late in Summit County, where all signs of the GOP under Chairfman Alex Arshinkoff have been shifting rightward beyond the margins of the page. If you need  confirmation, check the list of the Summit "Republican" party's dinner speakers...Well???

* * * * *

Now this one is sort of a surprise:  E. Gordon Gee heading to the Mountaineer state to serve as interim president of West Virginia University. Frankly, with his golden parachute upon leaving Ohio State University, he can afford to buy the entire state.  The real challenge for him is whether he can convert his new campus into the bow tie capital of America!    From the experience of growing up in a coal town just north of the WVA line, I don't remember the area  as being that fashion conscious.

* * * * *

There's not much more I dare add to the soaring global tributes to Nelson Mandela other than to yearn for somebody in the upper class of the Republican Party on Capital Hill to be as thoughtful in healing the problems of the less privileged in America.  The contrast, say, to John Boehner,  who defines leadership as being an obstructionist, is vividly merciless.

A hopeful sign from Howard Tolley!

In a world of daily horror stories  along with a bizarre group that has taken over the U.S.House and crippled a nation, it was good to hear from a friend who got a glimpse of the upside of human behavior the other night.  So here is Howard Tolley's report from his experience:

More than 500 people attended on October 2 the "Finding the Path of Peace" program sponsored by the Akron Area Interfaith Council and The Akron Peace Project.  The featured speaker was renowned cardiologist Dr. Terry Gordon, who moderated a discussion by panelists representing the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faiths.

Hosted by First Congregational Church of Akron, the event graphically demonstrated how people of good will from diverse backgrounds and beliefs can live together, dialog together, respect and accept one another and work together in peace and harmony to make the area, state, nation and the world a much better place.

Too bad the Tea Party extremists of the Republican Party weren't in attendance.  They might have been moved to some serious introspection about their devisive actions that are damaging the country and our representative form of government that is based  on mutual respect and compromise. Then again, they probably would have labeled it a Communist plot!

A liveried John Boehner doing his thing for Tea Party

It hasn't been a good week for John Boehner, the Tea Party's liveried delivery man in its   stable.  In fact, it has been an awful week for the in-name-only House speaker. He has become the poster child for subservience  to a modern political scourge.

This has been coming on for some time since Mitch McConnell declared five years ago that his first order of business was to make Barack Obama a one-term president.  We all know how that turned out, leaving Obama's (hence, Obamacare) enemies to explain to the white guys how an African-American got into the White House without breaking a lock.

Not that Boehner  will admit his  obsequious dead-end role in the service of the brutal right-wing House caucus.  He needs his old title, and the perks, even if he is forced to blackmail the sane folks with a threat to take down the whole government with him. (He really can't - but at least it will be  shabby performance art that might warrant his survival a bit longer.)

Columnist Dana Milbank refers to the speaker's  abject surrender  to the loonies as "followership" and he is a lot closer to the scene than I  am.  Boehner, southwest Ohio's gift to Tea Party-style governance, is obsessed with killing Obamacare, which he calls a train wreck. In this respect, he's fully supported by the 80 or so Tea Partyers in the House who have the finest health  insurance that they could enact for themselves.

How could Boehner be so obtuse to judge an act that has yet to be tried?  He's not dumb, which means he wants all of us to fear the fictional Wabash Cannonball roaring down the tracks.   As hyperbole, train wreck conjures up bloody messes.

Trouble is, neither Boehner nor  the Tea Party's other minions on Capitol Hill give much of a damn about how history will judge them after their duties in the stable finally come to an end.  In other words, you can't insult, ridicule, blaspheme nor mention how their grandchildren might have to explain them someday. They are short-term historical figures.

But for those hundreds of millions of us who must live in their midst, a government shutdown would be the real train wreck. And that ain't fiction, folks.

Robart boasts of his Cuyahoga Falls mission in ...Fairlawn!

The oddest entry in  Fairlawn's  Fourth of July parade was a  big truck with an accordion billboard promoting Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart.  It told us that the long serving Republican was "always putting  Cuyahoga Falls  first".

A rather strange boast, don't you think,  in a Fairlawn event where the local mayor, Bill Roth, is a low-key Republican  in a well-managed town.

In recent years, Robart, who is seeking his 8th term in November, has swung  over to the Tea Party wing, if not as a card-carrying member, then as a kindred  spirit.  He showed up at the teabaggers Rescue America Tax Day Rally in the Falls last year (Another of those events with a do-gooder  name) to praise the GOP insurgents as the conscience of America. Still, he's not been  reluctant to take federal money for his own projects.

He also stonewalled giving a wounded Iraqi veteran  and his male partner family rates at the Falls Natatorium. In this instance,  the mayor decided that gay couples  come second to putting his city first. So it  seems fair` to ask:  First in what?

Now after three decades in City Hall, he's being challenged by a popular Democratic councilman, Don Walters. It won't be surprising to see more of those Robart Falls-first trucks in the Labor Day parade in Barberton.  Maybe even Canton.

Hey, Republicans finally claim a minority

It occurs to me that the Republicans have achieved a major break-through in their ancient mission to broaden their  base  by engaging minorities.  They are now, in fact, reeking with Tea Partyers - a minority that polls tells us  is hardly more than 30 pct. of the electorate.  Way to go, GOP.  Persistence finally paid off.

In Ohio,Tea Partiers say they are ready to strike

Mid-week wash:

Interesting, don't you think?,  how a politician's self-serving decision  can come back to haunt him three years later. In 2010, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff bucked the State GOP by endorsing Tea Party favorite and then-State Rep. Seth Morgan in the Republican primary for Ohio auditor.

The news broke something like this:

Arshinkoff: Morgan is a certified public accountant and has a fresh face and bold ideas. (Read: It was really a bowing concession to the Tea Party much like the ones that other Republicans are handing out these days.)

Morgan: "Alex is a longstanding, respected leader with the Republican establishment...and to gain his endorsement is truly  exciting for this campaign."

Short-term excitement, that is.  Morgan lost to the state party's choice, David Yost.

But his right-wing credentials were impeccable enough for the uber-rich Koch
brothers to take him on as the policy director of Americans for Prosperity, the outfit founded by the Kochs.

Joe Hallett of the Columbus Dispatch lately quoted Morgan as saying the Tea Partiers  now have several options to form a new party, create an "insurrection" within the GOP and "everything in between."

Connect the dots:  Arshinkoff, long an Establishment Republican, now finds the  party facing a serious threat from a guy that he endorsed more for personal political reasons than the  relative merits of the two primary candidates.

* * * *  *

Speaking of the Tea Party, how about this notion  from former State Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine when he spoke to the Akron Press Club in  April 2010:  The Republican Party and the Tea Party have much in common and he (DeWine) would welcome them into the party. At the time  Grumpy Abe  wrote: "It may be more accurate to wonder whether the Tea Partiers would ever welcome Republicans into their ranks"  The answer is clear enough.

* * * * *
Now that former South  Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has won a special election for a  congressional seat,  can we forever erase the idea of a superior moral compass in the hearts of southern Republicans?

Next GOP chief: blessed or not a dime's difference?

THURSDAY'S WASH:

Today's book-length profile of Tea  Partyer Tom Zawistowski in the Beacon Journal even overwhelmed the return of Mike Brown to the Cavaliers, who merited no more than a front-page blip directing the readers to the sports page.

The latest threat to the GOP establishment, Zawistowski has decided to offer himself up as a candidate for the chairmanship in a showdown with Matt Borges, whom the party's front office had projected as a replacement for Bob Bennett.  But new concerns about Borges arose among the Party's moral compasses when it was learned that their man owed more than $161,000 in federal taxes.

On the other hand, his challenger, who is from Portage County, said he was urged by local party officials to rescue  the older party from its certain fate.  He has the typical Tea Party profile, including his expressed opposition to the bailout of General Motors.

Enough of that.  I was more interested in the skittish responses to BJ inquiries from two  of the most prominent GOP locals regarding their preference in this historic clash.  County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff said he wants whatever Gov. Kasich and the four state officeholders want, whomever that may be.(Guess!)  And then Lauren LaRose, a Republican central committeewoman and wife of State Sen. Frank LaRose, offered still more perspective on the party's untidy situation.  She thought  the party was "blessed to have two good candidates for chaiman".   But she  thought the better of the blessed  would be Borges as "the best fit to lead our party".  Even with the tax lien.  

* * * * *

Speaking of Mike Brown, he was replaced by Byron Scott a couple of years ago for not winning a championship with LeBron James on the floor.   So now we have more to add to the Cleveland athletic teams' revolving doors, through which an endless number of coaches and managers come and go.  Mike Brown is now back to replace a fired coach (who replaced him when he was fired.)  Owner Dan Gilbert , however, says Brown, a former Coach of the Year  winner,  should not have been fired in the first place.   Go figure.

* * * * *

The fallout from some Republican senators who voted against the background check law is getting serious.  Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has seen her approval rating drop 15 points.  And Sen. Rob Portman is drawing a lot of heat in  the letters I've seen from his hometown area of Cincinnati..  Some of this miscalculation by the Ayottes and Portmans has the taint of  the Iraq invasion apologists like Dick Cheney , who declared the U.S. would  be recognized as saviors in a war that might not last more than a few monthe.  Portman, a positive thinker, says background checks are useless, which is what the NRA says,which is not what 90 pct. of the public says.

Brown and Portman: A tale of two senators

As we continue to plumb the depths of fear among Tea Party-NRA-bullied Republicans, you'll find no better contrast than in your Ohio.

Sen.  Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat, has cast the Tea Party and the NRA to the winds, twice winning his U.S.Senate seat against conservative Republicans - then incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine and again against Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who ran with King Midas, Karl Rove and Wayne LaPierre at this back.

Now we turn to Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, among the most fearful of a Tea Party challenge, who joined the cavemen in the Senate in voting against the background check bill.

Now I ask you , on a scale of one to ten, where do you rank each of these guys on profiles in courage facing the same Ohio voters?

Is Boehner headed for giving up his kingdom?

In the wake of the November election, did you ever think for a moment that President Obama would be spending a lot of his time dealing with  the shop foreman  of the Tea Party, namely Speaker John Boehner?  Folks, that's where we are today on the sequester with the assembly line at a dead standstill.

Under threats from the the Teabaggers, Boehner seems to be lip-syncing the talking points from the gang on the rigid right, fearful of a blowback that will lead him to race through the halls of Congress shouting, "the House, the House, my kingdom for the House!"

* * * * *

We're still trying to figure out Ann Romney's comments to Chris Wallace on Fox news that Mitt's defeat was a "crushing disappointment not for us, but for the country".  She explained that his problem was that people didn't get to know the real Mitt who now has no "anger or depression" even if his GOP critics believed he was too big to fail. (We, in fact, knew the real Mitt.  He was the fellow with a car elevator attached to his luxurious home.)

* * * * *

Italy's politics have long been the inexhaustible  treasury of comedy, and now the latest chapter has featured the real thing, comedian Beppe Grillo, who got  25 pct of the vote in the latest electoral free-for-all.  Soon the Italian brand will rival the U.S. House for the most laughs.

Rove returns to slay the vampires!

Good grief!  Karl Rove, one of the big losers in the November election, is unapologetically back to slay the GOP's no-longer-welcome intruders. He's prepared to offer  a daring new see-through Spring Collection for his winless lot of hapless candidates. Editorial writers would describe the plan as "bold". You could say that, too, as in "desperately bold". Everybody in the political world is talking about it.

Rove has  created a new Super PAC that he calls the modern Conservative Victory Project to halt the Tea Partyers in their tracks.  And if you think that will finally bring peace,  harmony  and a little sense to Rove's party, you haven't followed the modern saga of the more distressed right-wing crowd that finds something to hate in government every hour.

Rove has always been something of a behavioral therapist, leading  George W.Bush's through more reflective moments as "Bush's Brain."  But now, even though his money machine, American Crossroads, was unable to elect a single conservative candidate on his personal list, he's decided to charge into the deepest quarters of his natural habitat   for what he clearly intends to be a game changing moment on the national runway.

Simply put, if that's possible, he wants to protect moderately conservative candidates from primary challenges from the horrific people who call President Obama a socialist born in a rain forest and say profoundly stupid things about women who have been raped.

Not that a man of Rove's towering presence  in the GOP hasn't managed to open a new front in the political wars.  The right wing that has guided the party through four-plus years of Barack Obama  is flapping loudly.    Their gurus are assailing him as a turncoat feeding at the Potomac trough and have begun to re-enlist their battered forces from the past campaign.  The torpedoes from the Club for Growth, the treasure house for political rightists,  are making the rounds on Fox News  and other sympathetic outlets to condemn Rove's plan. Names are being called on all sides.

From FreedomWorks, where Dick Armey reigned until recently, comes this troubling thought:  The Republican Party would be sapped of the energy and wisdom of guys like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Pat Toomey and Mike Lee if Rove's designated hitters drive them from competitive races.

When they put it like that, I may find myself reluctantly agreeing with Rove on a one-time basis as he wanders into his familiar  divide-and-conquer comfort zone.  Do I really have a choice?

Terhar's Tea Party Links Overlooked in Media

The media reports I've seen  have overlooked an essential asterisk to Bebe Terhar's denial that she intended her reference to Adolf Hitler to point to President Obama in  her Facebook rant against gun control.  As you probably know by now Ohio Democratic Party leaders have called on Gov. Kasich to fire the president of the Ohio Board of Education.

In the wake of a Columbus Dispatch news story regarding her Facebook post, Terhar denied  that she was comparing Obama to Hitler. Still , as I mentioned in an earlier post, Terhar  has boasted of membership in  several Tea Party groups in southwestern Ohio.  Attacks on Obama with swastikas on placards have been common at Tea Party gatherings.  Could that be where she got the ugly idea that she now dismisses?

Ken Blackwell, now a Tea Party huckster

 Slate  Magazine reports that Ken Blackwell,  the former  Ohio Secretary of State who played  a less-than-illustrious official role in managing Ohio's elections, is appearing in a TV ad as the "titular head" of the  Tea Party Victory Fund.  Honest.

Blackwell's target is the so-called "Obama phone" video unearthed by the Drudge report.

According to Slate, Blackwell wrote the ad, which  once again rails at Democrats for literally buying off votes from people in need.

Rather than cherry-pick the message, here it is:

This is it --this is the October surprise.  We just need to get this ad on television today.  Will you help us?

This commercial  is a microcosm of the difference  between Republicans and Democrats.  Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue their dreams. President Obama and Democrats want to create a dependency on government that ensures that Americans will continue to rely on Washington from cradle to grave.  

What this lady said is so offensive because it's so blatant  -  she finally comes out and says what we all know that the Democrats really think.  That's why this ad is so damaging to the president in Ohio. 

Let me tell you something.   I'm from Ohio.  I was elected statewide as the Secretary of State and Ohio State Treasurer - the ad is effective.  If swing voters in this state see this ad, they simply will not support President Obama, and he will lose Ohio.

There are too many weird  assumptions to address in the ad, which is supposed to run in Summit, Lucas and Mahoning Counties. But if Blackwell has cast his lot as a Tea Party huckster, he obviously is blind to the sort of racist stuff  that turns up on some of the signs at the teabagger rallies.

P.S..   The only October surprise , Ken, is that you probably got paid to write this.  

A great cartoon worth ten thousand Tea Partyers

This cartoon is a classic microcosm of the Tea Party's influence on the  Republicans' presidential campaign.  It is by Clay Bennett, the Pulitizer Prize-winning cartoonist of the Chattanooga  Times Free Press and titled "The Republican Revolt".   It also is a profile in courage for a newspaper operating in the heart of Civil War country where the tourist attractions are Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.  If you scan the on-line responses to his work, you will quickly sense the right-wing   disdain for his work , though I doubt Bennett much cares.

 

Robart's photo: No, not what I first thought!

I hope you happened to see this photo in today's Beacon Journal capturing a triumphal Mayor Don Robart of Cuyahoga Falls with upraised arms  like a quarterback celebrating a a game-winning touchdown pass.

What, Dear Reader, could that be all about as he looked own  on his witnesses from a scissors hoist (crane?)?


Had this conservative Republican critic of Federal spending just received another half-million-dollar check from Uncle Sam to hire more firemen?


Was he announcing a new contract with Chick-fil-A to move its headquarters to Portage Crossing?

Had he been named the Mayor of the Year by the Tea Party for his rousing welcome to their members earlier this year  at the Riverfront Centre Mall?

Had he won a bet and tossed his buddy Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff into the Natatorium pool as a fund-raiser for his next campaign?


Or was the mayor thinking about his success in blocking a Natatorium  family rate for a wounded Iraqi veteran in a same-sex marriage?

Or had he just heard assurances from Mitt Romney that mayors are people, too,  even if the GOP candidate had once insisted that we don't need  more firemen.

Alas, none of that.  The mayor was lighting  the Municipal Flame heralding the opening of the Falls' Bicentennial Celebration.

For  progress at City Hall,  where the mayor has been known as a quasi-Olympian himself for his marathon  jogging,  the human side will have to wait.

Same-sex marriage: No kayakers at Falls City Hall

Cuyahoga Falls to tear down two dams next year; kayakers eager to tackle rapids unseen in 200 years  - Beacon Journal headline, December 11, 2011

Unfortunately, there aren't enough public  officials  in the Falls who are eager to tackle more meaningful  matters unseen in 200 years.

I refer to the defeat of a initiative to award a same-sex married couple a family rate at the Natatorium, a modest discount for the spouses, one of whom - if you can imagine that!  -  is a wounded Iraqi veteran
who was prepared to have his head shot off so that the Natatorium and other venues around America could live in peace.

The controversy  has plodded forward for months in what has become Republican Mayor Don Robart's Tea Party Central town somewhere just north of Akron.   It would have passed 6-5 on City Council , with all six Democrats supporting it.  But when the Mayor was heard to threaten a veto, it would have needed 8 votes to override his veto.  There was no hope of siphoning  two from the Republican side.

Tim Gorbach, the Democratic chairman of the Parks and Recreation Board, which oversees the Natatorium, tried various methods to create a compromise that would allow the couple to get the family rate.  But again, when the board met on Thursday, it was was defeated, 3-2, by the Republican majority opposing it.

I talked to two of the opponents on the board, Dick Sebastian and Debbie Ritzinger, both of whom insisted that neither  religion nor the mayor influenced their decisions, although both seemed less eager to preclude the mayor. They agreed that it was all about the money  the city would lose by extending the family rate to a same-sex couple.  But if they were a straight-sex couple, wouldn't the same cost factor apply at the family rate?  Would somebody please do the math for me?

Before your reach for you calculator, allow me to put it this way:  The only difference in the rates ($130 annually) was that one couple was gay.

In his haste to circle his own wagon, Robart first said the state's ban on same-sex marriages prevented the Falls from allowing the discount.  When his own law director said the discount would not be a problem under state law - Akron and Medina, for example would not prohibit equal rates - the mayor then switched to the cost factor.  But I wonder about that, particularly when he nearly soared off the stage at a recent Tea Party rally by praising the Teabaggers as the  "social, fiscal and moral conscience of America." Really,  Mayor?

There is further irony here in that the Falls is revving up for a bicentennial celebration in which there will be a lot of chest-pounding about the  whitewater beauties of the town's history.    Here's what the bicentennial commission has to say about it:

"The mission of the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Bicentennial celebration is to promote awareness to our rich heritage, encourage citizens and business leaders to plan, participate and sponsor events and activities, recognizing 200 years of the history and growth of  Cuyahoga Falls.

In view of the dismally regressive mentality at City Hall on the Natatorium , wouldn't it be more appropriate to call it a Centennial celebration instead and wait for the mayor's successor to bring the town forward to the 21st Century?  

Here we go again, from abortion to RTW

AS THE SULLEN SUPPORTERS of the anti-union Senate Bill 5 continue to reach for noble platitudes to launder their loss in the spin cycle, we learn that 2012 will bring us further mischief from the political and religious Right. Oh, my.

Shall we begin with a fellow named Patrick Johnston, a Tea Partying Ohio doctor with strong pulpiteering tendencies? He's leading a movement to put his version of the anti-abortion Personhood amendment on the Ohio ballot next year. He says he's not concerned in the least that Mississippi voters convincingly rejected it in Tuesday's election. Undismayed - zealots always are - Johnston says: "We have science and divine law on our side. With God's help we will win through."

(Historical note: the early Romans also believed that "no enterprise could be undertaken without divine sanction", and look what's happening to Italy today. )

Let's move on. There's the right-to-work thing. It is called the "Workplace Freedom Amendment" that would be added to the Ohio Constitution if approved by the voters next year. You wouldn't be shocked to learn that it is operating as the Liberty Council (!), a Tea Party Affiliate. One of the movement's organizers is Bryan Williams, one of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's favorites from the party's practice squad who was vanquished by Mayor Plusquellic several elections ago. Williams, a lobbyist for builders and contractors, was quoted in the Beacon Journal as saying the RTW amendment would "unleash an economic engine".

Or, on the other hand, the same union juggernaut that crushed Senate Bill 5 as it did RTW in 1958. Not only RTW but, as the late Ray Bliss had warned his party at the time, the statewide Republican ticket. I wonder if Arshinkoff, Bliss's alleged apostle, has reminded Williams of the scary odds against the GOP in 2012 with the avatar of RTW hanging around. No one , however, would appreciate another arousal of the Democratic/Labor folks more than President Obama.

I was working for the old Columbus Citizen when the right-to-workers went to the ballot in 1958 and were thrashed. The Scripps-Howard newspapers had strongly endorsed it. You should have seen the editors' faces the morning after. The first order of damage control from the editor: Start looking for positive feature stories about the city's labor leaders.

Jeez. The more I see of the GOP's political tactics, the less I understand, and it looks like we're going to have another awful year to figure them out.

Obama needs a lesson in 'Durocherism'

YOU CAN COUNT me as being among those who weren't happy about the cozy "deal" that President Obama handed the Republicans on the debt ceiling. He still doesn't accept Leo Durocher's warning that "nice guys don't win pennants." So the GOP stalwarts who remain servile to the outrageous agenda of the Tea Party anarchists - even if it means shutting down the government altogether - can be expected to crow for awhile. But the pundits who are already declaring Obama DOA in 2012 ought to be a little more prudent about their credibility.

With 15 months remaining before Election Day (an eternity, really) I will boldly offer my own prediction of what could happen:

Obama could win. Obama could lose. Nothing is set in stone today.

Until then, we will have to put up with the peacocks in our midst.

The debt limit bill; Boehner's hostage role:

Watching Tea Party hostage John Boehner strutting around with a grin and a victory thumb up blurs the record that he, in turn, held the nation hostage to protect his hide against threats of Tea Party opposition to his own reelection next year. Meantime, anybody who suggests that the winners are laughing all the way to the bank are overlooking an important point: Folks, they

ARE the bank.

Boehner, Jordan: the hermit crabs are back in the shell

THE LEADING VILLAIN in John Boehner's failed attempt to resolve the debt ceiling issue is one of the House speaker's Ohio Tea Party colleagues - Rep. Jim Jordan , a former national wrestling champion. As such, Jordan has maintained a death hold on any Boehner compromise by means of Jordan's chairmanship of the outlandishly conservative House Republican Study Committee. The Tea Party-inspired gang operates much like Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety in its rule over France's perceived enemies.

Jordan, who lives with his family on a farm near Urbana, Oh., has done nothing but issue ultimatums to anyone less sacred than he in matters of his preference. From much of what he's said, he wants government to be run with family values. And maybe no government at all with all of the chickens running wild in the coop.

But wait. As the Republican congressman from Ohio's rural Fourth District that abuts Boehner's Eighth District, Jordan's no-holds-barred behavior has irritated some Ohio Republican lawmakers who will be playing a decisive role in congressional redistricting. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Jordan's "disloyalty" to Boehner has put Jordan in "jeopardy of being zeroed out of a district."

The paper quotes one of its sources as putting it this way:; '"Jim Jordan's boneheadedness has kind of informed everybody's thinking." In wrestling terms, it would mean taking Jordan to the matt. It's technically called the "guillotine," and described as a "pinning move" that is a "combination of leg riding and an open side hook."

I'm not sure what all of that means, but an expert informs me that if executed properly, Jordan would be on his way back to his farm.