They Read The Onion And Thought It Was A How-To Manual

by hilzoy

I thought the Republicans in Congress moved beyond parody a while back, but this truly takes the cake. From a Washington Post article headlined "Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens":

"It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?"

When I first read this, I thought it was a spoof of some kind. It isn't. 178 Republicans actually voted against Mothers' Day.

Apparently, this was part of a general attempt to prevent the House from getting anything done:

"Boehner has enough trouble to preoccupy him here in Washington, where House Democrats have been passing their agenda with little thought for Republican preferences. "The majority has taken, once again, their go-it-alone policy," Boehner lamented yesterday. "It's time for Democrats and Republicans to work together."

To induce this working together, Boehner decided to stop the House from working at all. As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a score of roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a "motion to rise.""

By voting against Mothers' Day?

Comments

[ral]

Next they'll be voting against pie? Fafnir, save us!

[Batocchio]

I just the same article about an hour ago, and I'm still bewildered. WTH is the political angle on this one? Or a better question might be, what is the possible political upside to this move?

[KCinDC]

The ads for the Democratic challengers write themselves. Is this really the best plan the Republicans can think of to get themselves out of their current electoral hole? Continuing to dig?

[baf]

Maybe it's the "goals and ideals of Mother's Day" part that they don't like. Mother's Day was originally an anti-war thing, after all. So maybe this resolution could be construed as a sneaky way of officially denouncing current military operations.

[harmfulguy]

Obviously, this was a principled stand against the floral-industrial complex.

[Sock Puppet of the Great Satan]

Let's not forget that when the Onion did it's famous "Bush to Nation: Our Long Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Over" on Bush II's inauguration, they turned out to be more on the money than all of the pundits in Washington.

[Ugh]

The majority has taken, once again, their go-it-alone policy," Boehner lamented yesterday. "It's time for Democrats and Republicans to work together."

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Or, to paraphrase Otter and Boone:

They can't do that to the House minority, only we can do that to the House minority.

[John Thullen]

It's not so much Motherhood the modern Republican Party is against as all of the naughty activity that leads to motherhood .... the wooing and the spooning and the foreplay and ... well .. use your imagination for crying out loud.

The other problem is that out-of-wedlock mothers are celebrated on Mother's Day by their misguided children.

We can't have it.

Odd though that they offered a "Motion to Rise", no doubt followed by seconding and thirding, huzzahs from the gallery, frantic gaveling, vigorous debate into the wee hours, and rebuttals.

I don't know about all of you, but along about 10 pm and after all of the arguing about the aforesaid motion to rise, I'm ready to forget the whole thing, having forgotten what all the fuss was about.

Besides, there's always the Pocket Veto.

Too bad the Motion To Rise was not offered by Dick Armey.

[Ugh]

Motion to rise? Rise to motion?

Motion to instruct? Instruct to motion?

[Gary Farber]

"From a Washington Post article headlined"

Well, no, it's Dana Milbank's humorous
Washington Sketch column, actually. It's not actually surprising when the political humor column that runs in the Style section has a funny title. Similarly, Art Buchwald also had humorously titled columns.

This is why the distinction between a column, an article, an op-ed, and an editorial, actually matter. (Also the differences in the sections of a newspaper.) They're actually all entirely different things. A humor column is not written by the news staff, and isn't a news article. Style pieces aren't hard news pieces. Etc. (This has come up before with bloggers confused as to what Robin Givhan's job is, for instance; clue: not a hard news reporter.)

/usual pedant

If you're unfamiliar with Dana Milbank in all the years he's been writing for the Style section since 2000, you have a lot of funny stuff to catch up to that I recommend, as I also recommend reading him each of the days of the week he writes Washington Sketch.

There's also his blog. Also the Weekly Sketch discussion.

[harmfulguy]

Sorry, guys, but on looking at this again, I don't see anybody voting against Mother's Day here. Everybody voted for a silly feel-good resolution that would have served no higher purpose than getting a mention of Mother's Day in the Congressional Record. The motion that zero Dems and almost all Repubs voted against was a bunch of bog-standard procedural nonsense, not anything to do with Mother's Day itself.

Many of the things that happen in the House chamber are only done for the sake of putting a note in the Congressional Record that representatives can quote when they write to their constituents. Or even to their mothers.

[Gary Farber]

"The motion that zero Dems and almost all Repubs voted against was a bunch of bog-standard procedural nonsense, not anything to do with Mother's Day itself."

House">http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-275">House Vote #275 (May 7, 2008) is a Motion To Reconsider H. Res. 1113: Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day.

"not anything to do with Mother's Day itself."

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

[harmfulguy]

Please read your own link. House Vote #275 was a motion to table reconsidering H.1113. In other words, a vote about whether or not to vote.

[harmfulguy]

OK, this may be even goofier than I thought. Somehow, I drew the impression that Vote #274 was a voice vote, and that Tiahrt had called for a roll call vote, which would have been fairly routine congressional process. Nevertheless, Vote #275 was a vote about whether to vote again, not a vote on whether to pass HR1113. Now it just looks like more of a deliberate time-waster. My apologies.

[Gary Farber]

"House Vote #275 was a motion to table reconsidering H.1113."

You're correct, and thank you for that correction. I believe it's perfectly correct, however, as well, to say that both votes had "[something] to do with Mother's Day itself," and that it's incorrect to say that either had "not anything to do with Mother's Day itself."

"anything to do with" is a fairly encompassing concept.

[harmfulguy]

OK. I see your point now. I still say nobody "voted against Mother's Day." The Republicans voted against not wasting any more time on the Mother's Day resolution (which had already passed), and never got a second chance to vote for or against HR1113.

*extends hand* Shake?

[Gary Farber]

"*extends hand* Shake?"

I'll have banana fudge. What would you like?

[mightygodking]

ring ring ring ring bananafudge

[Jeff]

"The majority has taken, once again, their go-it-alone policy. It's time for Democrats and Republicans to work together."

Okay, everyone in the Time Machine -- we're going back 4 years. Who would have said this then? (Hint, it wouldn't be a Republican.)

Crybaby.

(or: what Ugh said)

[Eric]

What a complete and total farking waste of time. WHY THE FK IS THE GOVERNMENT WASTING IT'S TIME WITH THIS CRAP?

[felix culpa]

Amazing.
They’ve lost their heads. And their minds.

The once almighty righty night party is losing its shirt.
And they’re running around in circles like decapitated clumsy chickens.

Brutal.

[felix culpa]

But hey, ya gotta make a living, eh?

Doesn’t really much matter what you do.

Right?

[Tony P.]

The unfortunate thing is that these GOP clowns are ELECTED BY THEIR CONSTITUENTS. We can take it for granted that they expect to be RE-ELECTED by their constituents despite (or because of) the antics they are engaging in.

One hopes the Boehner Brigade is wrong in their assessment of their constituents. One fears they are not wrong at all.

-- TP

[mikefromtexas]

Boner is a WATB.

[Hartmut]

Although I share the sentiment that that resolution is indeed a pure time waster, I nonetheless wouldn't mind, if the Dems made a lot of hay out of this (sweet revenge). I also propose that the tax on apple pies is suspended during the summer months ;-)

[rea]

The Republicans voted against not wasting any more time on the Mother's Day resolution (which had already passed)

NO, you've got it backwards. They voted against the motion to table reconsideration, which means they favored more debate and another vote on the Mother's Day resolution.

Of course, it's entirely fair to characterize this as, in essence, a vote against Mother's Day. If the shoe were somehow on the other foot, you would certainly hear Republicans making such a claim.

[Tyrant King Porn Dragon]

But where is Charles Bird to tell us how the Democrats are the Party of No? :)

[ral]

A song just popped out of my iPod set to random selections... Loudon Wainwringt III, More Love Songs, track 5: "No."

Coincidence?

[AndyK]

>>>>The Republicans voted against not wasting any more time on the Mother's Day resolution (which had already passed)

>>NO, you've got it backwards. They voted against the motion to table reconsideration, which means they favored more debate and another vote on the Mother's Day resolution.

Unless I'm misreading one of the two of you, poster Number Two has it backwards: poster Number One said they "voted against not wasting any more time," i.e., in favor of wasting more time. Not a very felicitous phrasing, but still...

[Hartmut]

I find the double negation more powerful in this case.

[Ginger Yellow]

What's the history of this bill? Is it really just a feelgood Mother's Day bill, or is it a tit-for-tat response to that Christian nation bill the Republicans put forward last year? Voting against it would make more sense in that context. Of course the real context is how astonishingly obstructionist the Republicans have been, with next to no coverage from the press. Even in this column, Milbank says the Repubicans have been stopping Congress doing anything "all week". Well, actually, they've been doing that since the Democrats got the majority.