McClatchy Rob: Mean ol’ Tea Party broke DC

During the current drama over the “government shutdown,” we are peppered with a lot of moaning and groaning about GRIDLOCK.  Lefties and their lapdogs in the remnants of the legacy media pine for the days when their agenda — “gems” like The New Deal and The Great Society — simply got ramrodded through Congress.

Our country was founded by — and continues to be populated by — immigrants fleeing totalitarianism around the world.  England’s King George didn’t have to worry about gridlock.  Germany’s Hitler didn’t have to sweat gridlock.  Russia’s Stalin wasn’t bothered by that silly old gridlock thing.  Neither were Cambodia’s Pol Pot, China’s Mao, nor North Korea’s Kim Il Sung. 

Our Founding Fathers — with memories of totalitarianism still fresh — cobbled together a new country and system of government designed to thwart the rise of totalitarianism on our shores.  Things like checks and balances.  An executive and legislators elected by the people separately. 

The Clinton presidency — and its era of economic growth — is touted by the left and their media lapdogs as a shining example of how their agenda can produce positive results.  In all honesty — the economic growth in the Clinton area had more to do with having a GOP majority on The Hill and a Democrat president.  Very little actually got done inside the beltway.  As a result, the economy –and the nation — breathed a sigh of relief and moved forward to do positive things.

Today, McClatchy’s Rob Christensen — aka “Mr. Politics” — holds up congresswoman Renee Ellmers, and the pressure she is getting from The Tea Party, as a prime example of why Washington is “broken.”

Ellmers campaigned as a Tea Party loyalist in 2010 in her fight against Bobby “boom boom” Etheridge.  She basically promised us that she would be Ted Cruz in a skirt.  Tea Partiers helped her eke out a tight victory and move on to DC.

Just seven months after being sworn in as a Tea Party freedom fighter, Renee was being praised by The New York Times for leading John Boehner’s fight to raise the debt ceiling.  Wait.  Didn’t she just finish telling us she was going to DC to get our debt under control and cut spending?

Then there’s this gem from The Times article:

[…] Her willingness to join the leadership, rather than beat up on it, is something that Tea Party groups in her state have begun to notice. Mrs. Ellmers understands their chagrin because she has been there.

“There is just a lot of mistrust Americans have for ‘those people in Washington,’ ” she said, adding with a laugh, “and now I am one of those people in Washington.”[…]

Et tu, Renee?

On this site, I wrote about my first face-to-face encounter with Ellmers — shortly after Moore County was shifted in to her district.   Without blinking an eye, she dismissed suggestions of ever bucking the House leadership:

The congresswoman was told that people want to see more video of her getting in the faces of Barney Frank and Henry Waxman, and less footage of her at the right hand of House leadership.   Ellmers denied accusations that she had deserted The Tea Party for the warm embrace of Speaker Boehner:

“Look.  He’s my boss.  How successful am I going to be at work if I am always causing problems for the boss?”

Upon seeing our looks of disbelief, she quickly corrected herself:

“Actually, you folks are my boss. Still — we have a lot of important issues facing the country.  How are we going to get ANYTHING done in Washington without working together?”

Ellmers also offered up a baffling defense of her support for raising the debt ceiling — a direct contradiction of her 2010 campaign rhetoric:

[…] Ellmers has taken some grief for her vote to raise the federal debt ceiling.  She said the final legislation she voted for — one she said was strongly promoted by Tea Party favorite and U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) — included important provisions like Cut, Cap and Balance as well as a weakening of ObamaCare:

“Sure we added to the deficit …  But that vote was all about getting our bills paid.” […]

 

Liberal doyen David Price (D-NC-4) was elected to Congress during the Reagan administration.  Price campaigned as a liberal.  Imagine that Price went to Washington and started voting for things Reagan wanted – like tax cuts and spending reductions.  McClatchy Rob and his fan club in Chapel Hill-Carrboro would have gone bananas.  Price would have had a primary challenger or two in the next election cycle.  It’s apparently OK for leftists to demand their people actually act on their campaign rhetoric.

There is nothing wrong in demanding that politicians actually DO what they tell you they plan to do.  There are an awful lot of us outside The DC Beltway and The Raleigh beltline who actually DON’T MIND when government can’t get stuff done.