early and often

The GOP Intend to Take Down ‘One of the Most Corrupt Administrations in Modern Times’

Republican lawmakers, start your symbolic attacks on the Obama administration. The GOP-led 112th Congress will get things rolling with a reading of the Constitution before moving on to repealing the president’s health-care-reform law. Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, told Fox News Sunday that the GOP has 242 votes in favor of repeal, and that “there will be a significant number of Democrats who will join us” in a vote sometime before Obama’s State of the Union address. Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, said: “It’s important that we repeal Obamacare as soon as possible because it is already harming the economy and killing jobs.” Bachmann is the queen of prompt health-care-reform repeals: She introduced a repeal bill a day before the law was even signed.

A repeal has a zero percent chance of clearing the Senate or securing Obama’s signature, but it does give GOP congressmen a legitimate reason to blast Carrie Underwood from their office computer speakers: The Times reports that many have latched onto her hit “Undo It” as “the refrain for their planned attack.” The song’s chorus, which states “you stole my happy / you made me cry,” is seen as having a special resonance for incoming House Speaker John Boehner.

And then there’s the noted corruption of the Obama administration. Wait, what? Following the elections in November, incoming House Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa dubbed President Obama “One of the most corrupt presidents in modern times,” and then obviously felt so bad that he had to “explain.” During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, Issa said: “What I meant to say — you know, on live radio, with Rush going back and forth — is this is one of the most corrupt administrations … When you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect. The sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we’ll be.”

And here we thought Wednesday would be filled with bi-partisan kickoff soirées.

New Congress Set its Eyes on Oversights [CNN]
GOPer calls Obama administration ‘corrupt’ [Political Ticker/CNN]
GOP Newcomers Set Out to Undo Obama Victories [NYT]

The GOP Intend to Take Down ‘One of the Most Corrupt Administrations in Modern Times’