Sen. John Boozman confronted Sen.
Ted Cruz of Texas, cheerleader-in-chief for defunding, in a closeddoor meeting of Republican Senate members on Tuesday.
“Staring at Cruz, Boozman said he hasn’t been bullied since the seventh grade and he wouldn’t be bullied now,” a witness related in a story on Politico.com.
Boozman is famously soft-spoken - until he’s been pushed too far. He isn’t talking about Tuesday’s face-off, characteristically. “I really don’t comment about closed-door meetings,” was his only direct quote in the news account.
When things within the Republican Party are so bad John Boozman declares he’s had enough, things are bad.
Republicans have an uphill fight in their eff ort to undo health care reform. Boozman has said choosing fi ghts they’re bound to lose won’t help.
He’s argued defunding a government with Obamacare in it wouldn’t stop health spending and would backfi re badly. Republican Senate leadership agrees.
Therefore, Boozman’s oftce has been deluged with calls from “out-ofstate activists attacking the senator over the issue of defunding Obamacare,” according to Politico’s story.
That’s what led to Tuesday’s clash.
Think what you will of Cruz’s goal and motives; His approach leaves President Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment in tatters.
“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican” is forgotten. So is Abraham’s Lincoln warning: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Even in Arkansas, we’ve had Republicans comparing other Republicans to Judas. Cruz, on the Senate floor, compared people who oppose defunding as “appeasers” to the Nazis “of the 1940s.” The history nerd in me can’t let that one pass.
Appeasement of the Nazis was British policy - in the 1930s. The Second World War broke out in September 1939, after appeasement failed.
Another example: “This is the first time I’ve seen when Republican leadership is actively whipping the Republican conference to support Harry Reid and give him the power to enact his agenda. I’m quite confi dent this is not what Texans expect of me,” Cruz said.
The Republican Party’s Senate minority whip is fellow Texan John Cornyn, who’s up for re-election.
Closer to home: What other thing could the Republican Party do to improve Democratic Sen.
Mark Pryor’s re-election chances than ensure a shutdown of the government or a default on the debt?
Remember Republicans are in complete agreement health care reform should be stopped. All they’re really arguing over is tactics. So - how alarming is it such a bitter, open rift comes from what’s really just a disagreement about how todo a thing? Like an unhappy marriage, a huge fi ght can come from what amounts to an disagreement on how to cook the pot roast.
Today’s front pages should be covered up with horror stories about the halting, troubled start of Obamacare. Instead, they’re full of accounts of this GOP food fight. Don’t blame the media for that one. Fights are always more interesting reading and viewing than real problems.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: There are real problems.
“All military personnel will continue to serve and accruepay but will not actually be paid until appropriations are available” if a shutdown happens, warned U.S. Rep.
C.W. “Bill” Young, R-Fla.
Young happens to be the longest-serving Republican member of Congress.
That’s just one example, but think about it. Men and women defending this country at the risk of their lives will get their Oct. 1 paychecks on time. Oct. 15 paychecks, however, wouldn’t be cut until there’s money available.
But let’s get back to the fight, which is all that seems to matter in D.C. Thosepushing for defunding argue the president will or could get the blame. I suspect any chance of that slipped by when fellow Republicans started calling Cruz things such as, for example, “kamikaze pilot” and “fraud.”
If you believe Cruz is right on principle and a great man for standing for it, let me quote Lincoln some more. In the same “house divided” speech, he had this to say of another “great man,” Sen. Stephen Douglas, D-Illinois:
“They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very smallones. Let this be granted. But a living dog is better than a dead lion. Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one.”
If you believe your cause is advanced by someone prattling on for 21 hours, quoting “Green Eggs and Ham” and getting basic history wrong by a decade, then enjoy the sound of your caged lion roaring through his gums. I’d look for a dog if I were you.
DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 12 on 09/29/2013