Olympia Snowe throwing her party under the bus.

[RoverSuswade]

On Candy Crowley "State of the Union" now she is practically echoing President Obama's earlier MTP interview. She is blaming the GOP for not cooperating and sees no improvement in 2013 in dealing with immigration and the debt ceiling. Of course she is leaving and can say what she wants, but I'm amazed at her frankness. And judging from Candy's shocked expression it appears she was too.

[DJ13]

1. She is blaming the GOP for not cooperating

Is this the same Olympia Snowe that began voting the party line as soon as Obama was sworn in?

[RoverSuswade]

3. With McConnell's gun held to her temple.

You know how the party and its overlords (Limbaugh, Krystol, GHWB etc) apply their influence. I wish she and Collins had become independents 4 years ago (a la Bernie). I'm disappointed they didn't.

[Ikonoklast]

9. Snowe acts just like an emotionally abused wife.

Complains to her next-door neighbor about how badly she is treated, but come running back inside as soon as the drunk jerk bellows for supper instead of telling him to fuck off and leaving for good.

[Tom Ripley]

44. +10000000000000000

[calimary]

20. Welcome to DU, RoverSuswade!

Glad you're here! Like your screen name!

File this one under "WTF took you so long?" Only NOW you're speaking truth to power and doing the TRULY right thing, Olympia (instead of using the word "right" the way the knuckledraggers have perverted it? Only NOW you're telling the truth - when you're about to get outta Dodge? When you don't have to take the heat anymore? Basically still a coward.

Sorry - kind of a hardass I'm being, this morning. But we don't need this from people like her now so much as we did when the GOP started careening off onto the wrong track and worshipping the teabaggers and grover norquist etc. That's when it could have made a difference, and when a sensible, clear-eyed, clear-throated voice might have given others a little more cover to resist the shit, too. Comin' in a little LATE there, aren't ya, Olympia? Where were you when it really mattered? Shall we rename you Janey-Come-Lately?

If you REALLY love your country, you're there when it really matters. PARTICULARLY when you're privileged to sit in the expensive seats like she had in her position as a Senator. Those of us in the cheap seats are usually not listened to. SHE was positioned much differently.

[russspeakeasy]

23. Too little, too late. Keep bashing the pubes, but don't think

we won't remember your true values, Olympia.

[alfredo]

29. If she had spoken out, McConnell and his lackeys would have

taken it out on her constituents.

[LuvLoogie]

33. It was the President who needed to give her cover.

I blame the Left and the President. A single-payer health bill should have been scored. The Left should have prepared and gotten behind fresh single-payer legislation. Then do a "score our bill" campaign to have it included for CBO analysis. Instead of trying to get a seat at the table, the Left should have set a different table.

By taking a "centrist" position in every major negotiation, the administration hasn't allowed for moderate GOPers to coax its party to the "middle." By taking what may have been Snowe's and Collins' ground, the administration made them irrelevant. Instead of getting centrist GOPers to pull our way, we had to deal with Lieberman et al pulling their way.

I don't fault Snowe. I fault a Democratic Party that won't do it's own heavy lifting.

[calimary]

40. Kinda goes without saying - the Democratic Party won't do its own heavy lifting.

They've been collectively asleep at the switch for FAR too long. I hope to GOD that's changed. Elections have consequences - and nobody should recognize OR exploit that MORE than our Dems, since the results went so nicely our way in November. So now we're RID of lieberman, thank goodness! And we need to pile on our Dems and keep reminding them who they REALLY work for, and what kind of momentum they're supposed to be using and making the most of.

[RoverSuswade]

38. Thanks for the welcome.

I wondered if anyone would "decipher" my screen name.

[elleng]

26. Right, and welcome.

[Kahuna]

10. Riiight. That would make her a coward. nt

[Texin]

17. She did what a lot of moderates did up until this last election:

she was betting that they were going to successfully make Obama a one-term president. I don't think she took any enthusiasm for it, but make no mistake, these rethugs were being held at gun point into walking, talking, breathing and sleeping the GOP lock-step mentality. They doubled down on the rhetoric after the tea partiers took control because they were frightened by the prospect of primary challenges thereafter. It's only gotten worse. This is going to continue because they so-called moderates within the party are cowed. It'll continue until the people get so sick of everything that they eventually vote these good for nothing empty suits out. But that isn't going to happen until after the next census - or the SCotUS blocks the gerrymandering or declares it unconstitutional (which is not gonna happen).

[Tx4obama]

37. Actually after Obama was sworn in it has been Snowe & Collins that have voted with the democrats...

more than any other of the republicans.

[politicaljunkie41910]

43. Exactly. How much courage does it take to speak up when you have nothing to lose by doing so. The

time to speak up was 4 years ago. Also, I'm so sick and tired of the media saying that these congressmen and women are afraid to do what is right for this country because they are afraid of a primary challenge. No one is entitled to a congressional seat. You go to Washington to do the people's business and what is right for the nation, because it is the right thing to do. You're not sent there to be a permanent fixture. What we need is a one-term, term limit? That way, no one has to ever worry about being primaried.

[sharp_stick]

2. I'll believe it when she votes

Olympia Snowe has a habit of complaining about how hard it is to be part of the GOP and then she falls in line as soon as minority leader Yertle tells her how she's going to vote.

[RoverSuswade]

4. I hope she tells Yertle to go to Hades

with her yes vote.

[catbyte]

12. She has nothing to lose now. She is in the Senate for one more day.

Big deal.

[WCGreen]

18. Methinks the woman doth protest too late

[fredamae]

5. I wonder how many times she, herself

voted to obstruct for no other reason than to stay in lock-step w/her party?
To be courageous, she would have come out with This years ago..so, for me? She can kiss my.........too little-too late.

[RoverSuswade]

6. You don't know how many times I wanted to throw my Coke can at the TV

(while watching Cspan) when she did that. I always conjured up "this time she'll do it" and then became disappointed.

[fredamae]

8. Imagine for a moment what

we could have accomplished & where our country might be right now if the "Moderate Repubs" who were and Are horrified with what they've allowed themselves to devolve into--would have, then, spoken up and defended our country instead of meekly going along with mainstream GOP ideology and/or running away via retirement and making short statements about "dysfunction/gridlock" as cause?
They (Moderate GOP) are every bit as responsible for the sad state of affairs our country faces, in their Unwilingness to speak truth to power-as boehner, mcconnell, mccain, cantor, ryan, norquist et al...wreaked havoc upon us all

It only makes them more cowardly and coming out Now, just days before their terms end is bullshit and disgusting, imo.

[calimary]

22. ABSOLUTELY. EVERY BIT as responsible.

She was in a position in which she could have made a difference. Maybe could have helped - if not to turn the tide, then at least to hold it back a little longer. And she didn't. She fell directly in line like the good little GOPer she really was. Party over country. The "'America FIRST!' My Ass" club.

[alfredo]

31. She did have to protect her state from retaliation.

[pscot]

7. Talk is cheap

Where was she when it might have made a difference?

[high density]

41. She was always standing with the GOP

Collins needs to go next.

[BlueStreak]

11. These people are amazing

She has been a key part of the obstruction. And now, when she has 1 day left in her term, she blames it on "those Republicans". That lowers my opinion of her about 10 notches. That is really disgusting. She had countless opportunities to not be part of the obstruction, and the only times she broke with the Party, she forced the Dems to shift their legislation far to the right anyway.

I think people are missing a really big story here. Regarding the Senate election, the MSM only talked about the numbers. The numbers were impressive, to be sure. But the real story is, when you look seat by seat where there was a change, we got more progressive in almost every seat. That is really like a pick-up of about 5 seats, replacing Lieberman with Murphy, replacing Webb with Kaine, etc.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

13. She can go fuck herself as far as I'm concerned. Or maybe I

missed all those times she voted against her party's obstruction.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. Many Repubs feel the same way but are too frightened

[RoverSuswade]

15. There was a pub senator that actually admitted this on TV

about 3 years ago but his name escapes me.

[grantcart]

32. You may be thinking of Senator Grassley of Iowa

He didn't actually say that on TV but he was widely quoted.

He had offered a number of ammendments on the Health Care Bill and they went through them one by one and adopted many of them.

In the end he voted against the bill to the shock of many who had assumed that he was negotiating in good faith and that they had accepted his ammendments in good faith that he was negotiating in good faith.

He finally admitted that if they adopted all of his ammendments he still wouldn't vote for the bill because he was too afraid of a primary challenge by the Tea Party.

[adieu]

16. You know...

people can talk amongst themselves. If Republican politician A and politician B have the same feeling about not supporting their higher-ups, they can seek out other like-minded people and form a mini-coalition to change their higher-ups' point of view.

In a way, the Tea Party caucus within the GOP is doing that. Of course, they're a bunch of crazies, but that's besides the point. How come Snowe and Collins and other moderate GOP politicians did not threaten the hard right's positions? How come they didn't threaten to switch parties or go independent?

Constituents, of either a D- or R- politician, would probably keep voting for that politician if (s)he went independent saying, "I'm tired of the BS..." Constituents love a politician with a back-bone.

[Curmudgeoness]

19. What the hell are they so frightened about????

It isn't like we execute politicians who don't do the lock step. The absolute worst that can happen is that they are not re-elected. And that is never a given. If I found it so intolerable to try to work with my party leaders, and I was against what they told me to do, I would welcome getting the hell out. And if I found that by standing up to them, I was still re-elected, that would give me more power to do what is right instead of what is commanded.

[melody]

21. Oh, yes, they do

They go after them with every penny they have to make certain they're driven into obscurity.

[Curmudgeoness]

24. So what?

What is the price of your dignity?

I couldn't give a rat's ass whether I was attacked or "drive into obsurity" if I was doing what was right.

And maybe that is the worst sin of the politicians we have now....they care more about their "legacy" or their position than they do about the country and its citizens.

[melody]

34. If they had any dignity, they wouldn't be working for the GOP n/t

[calimary]

25. Well, I don't care! Too damn bad. They oughta get some backbone up when they KNOW

FULL WELL what the truly and genuinely "right" thing is and should be, to do for their country.

Just imagine - what if. What if - there were truly noble and sensible "moderate republi-CONS" (although that seems an oxymoron to me by now) stepped up, en masse, in a united front, and stared down the teabaggers and the norquists and the rest of the vermin? Defied the limbaughs and becks and other assorted assholes? What if they went shoulder-to-shoulder, lockstep, together, in active and forceful resistance to the teabagger movement? What if they went on Pox Noise and told the truth? Yeah, they wouldn't get invited back, but so what? There are other media. There are other ways. There are other means. They could hold news conferences. They could issue public statements. They could blog. They could tweet. They could start special Facebook pages and more. Hell, they could start their OWN movement. And it might have made a difference.

I think part of the reason the teabaggers succeeded was that there WAS no pushback, back in the beginning when it could really have swatted them down. There was a vacuum and they rushed in to fill it. There was NOTHING standing in the way or shouting back or denouncing anything they did. They were allowed to have their way. And look at what happened! Look how much more fucked-up we are now.

People like Olympia Snowe had a very special and unique responsibility to speak out, to be their party's conscience, and to keep it on track, in touch with its better self - NOT its baser self. She was uniquely positioned on the inside. She would have had more allies by the day until she had an army behind her. Facing down an army that's like a solid concrete block wall is a lot harder for a group of renegade jerks throwing teabags around than if they were facing a whole lot of walls with a whole lot of front doors left ajar.

If there had been some substantial resistance from within the GOP, led by somewhat more reasonable and realistic people such as Olympia Snowe professes to be, it's possible the teabag movement might not have gotten off the ground, or at least not as far off the ground as they have. It's like a cancer. If you go at it with firepower the instant you detect it, your chances of eradicating it are very strong. If you just kinda hang back and let nature take its course and figure it'll be alright, then your loved ones will be talking to undertakers, and MUCH sooner than later.

[great white snark]

30. Speak it!

Two devastatingly accurate responses in one OP re Ms Snowe & the GOP.

Totally agree and kudos to you calimary.

Well said.

[calimary]

42. Well I don't care. One of 'em better get over it and start standing up.

Who do they work for, after all, grover norquist? They need to be reminded of the joke they made out of their so-called party slogan during the 2008 election (aka the FIRST time Barack Obama cleaned their clocks). That slogan was "Country FIRST!" Which is total bullshit if you look at what they do, rather than what they just say. Talk is cheap. Especially theirs.

And I do wonder what might happen if one of 'em did stand up. And convinced one of his/her friends to join in. And they both convinced some more of their friends to stand up. Do they not understand what this kind of agenda-worshipping has done to their brand?

One other thing we need to be reminding EVERYONE about, including the republi-CONS who need to be disabused of their cockamamie ideas, that THIS IS A CENTER-LEFT COUNTRY. NOT center-"right". No center-"right" country votes to legalize pot, approve or reinforce marriage equality, raise taxes to fund education, get rid of the loudest, most loutish, most high-profile teabagger loudmouths in the House of Reps, OR keep the black guy in the BIG chair behind the desk in the Oval Office for another four years. We need to talk that one up. A LOT. This is NOT a center-"right" country. We're forward-thinkers, which means we're quite nicely progressive.

[Berlum]

27. Listen up, Repukes

You are being called out by one of your own for your darkside campaign against America.

[BVictor1]

28. Because she's been so helpful over the past 4 years?

She's as bad as the rest of them.

She walked in lockstep.

[Third Doctor]

35. The only reason she voted

with the dems the few times that she did is because she is a conservative from a blue state and she did not want to piss too many of her constiuents off. Most of the time she lock stepped like a good little repug. With that out of the way she is devastatingly right. This whole fiscal cliff crap was a GOP creation and now they are driving us off of it. I think they were so certain Obama was going to lose due to their obstruction that they didn't think the chickens were coming home to roost.

[Skittles]

36. oh, NOW she talks?

fuck you Olympia

[ProudProgressiveNow]

39. K&R nt