CHENEY DUNK TANK RAISES $800 BILLION FOR NATION

WASHINGTON—Organizers reported Sunday that the 44th White House Carnival was a rousing success, raising a record $800,000,066,845 for the federal government—$800 billion of which came from a dunk tank featuring former vice president Dick Cheney.

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Cheney tells more than 200 million Americans to "throw or get the hell out of [his] sight."

According to Secretary of the Treasury and carnival volunteer Timothy Geithner, the 5-foot-deep tank has provided a much-needed boost to the nation's flagging economy.

"We expected a big turn out, but this is unbelievable," said Geithner, adding that it's tradition for the outgoing vice president to work the dunk tank. "More than half the country has already gone, and there's still about 20 million people stretching all the way to Maryland waiting for their chance to sink Cheney. We'll be leaving this booth open for as long as it takes for everyone to get a turn."

According to carnival sources, a visibly irritated Cheney, clad in sandals and a white cotton robe, arrived at the one-day event shortly before 10 a.m. After removing his robe to reveal a black, 1940s-style bathing suit, the vice president reportedly touched his hand to the water, muttered something to himself, and was then helped up the tank's ladder by several members of his Secret Service detail.

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"All right, you candy arms, let's go," Cheney shouted at the line of people, which consisted of Americans, non-Americans, out-of-work autoworkers, teachers, luminaries from the science community, gays, lesbians, military personnel, members of Congress, children, and the entire Arab-American population. "Hey [former British prime minister Tony] Blair. I see you back there. Think you'll be able to stop crying long enough to throw the ball?"

Added Cheney, "You bunch of pansies couldn't hit a barn door if you were sitting on the handle."

Records show that the first dunk of the day came at the hands of Iraq War veteran Ben Hunter, whose throwing technique, Cheney repeatedly said, was reminiscent of his own grandmother's. After being goaded by the former vice president for several minutes, Hunter reportedly struck the tank's target on his third turn, plunging Cheney into the pool below and eliciting wild cheers from the roughly 150 million people on hand.

"That felt really good," Hunter told reporters. "I mean, really good. I'm going to get back in line and do it again."

Established in 1797, the White House Carnival was the brainchild of President George Washington, who wanted to raise funds for the burgeoning new republic. That year, citizens paid two cents apiece to watch Vice President John Adams jump into a nearby pond, an act that ultimately led to the dunk tank tradition.

Although past carnivals have raised anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000—just enough to pay for the carnival itself—tallies indicate that, thanks to Cheney, this year's record-setting proceeds could help steer the nation out of a deepening recession.

"The water's great," Cheney said moments after being dunked by third-grader Sean Biller, who traveled all the way from Denver for his chance to meet the former vice president. "Hopefully your unemployed dad can afford to give you money for another turn."

Unlike Biller, who carefully threw the ball at the bull's-eye, many citzens opted instead to aim directly at the head and chest of the 67-year-old politician.

One contestant who struggled to hit the target was Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). After nearly 20 unsuccessful tries, several of which involved Kerry standing well ahead of the thrower's line, carnival officials finally allowed Kerry to just walk up and press the button with his hand.

Other carnival highlights included "Crazy Rahm's Guess Your Weight" game, President Carter's face painting station—which raised $52.75—and Laura Bush winning her third consecutive demolition derby. Still, the main attraction was Cheney, who several times sprayed the crowd with a Super Soaker, suffered an estimated 1,396 assassination attempts, and once suggested that participants with weak arms be sent to Afghanistan "to toughen up."

"I think that son of a bitch was actually having a good time up there," said attendee and former press secretary Ari Fleischer. "Much different than in 2000 when Al Gore refused to take off his T-shirt."

While the dunk tank remained busy throughout the evening, reports from the other side of the White House lawn were less favorable, with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice having not yet received a single customer at her kissing booth.

Senate to investigate CIA's actions under Bush

The 'fact-finding' effort will seek details on secret prisons and interrogation methods -- but will not aim to determine if CIA officials broke laws, legislative sources say.

By Greg Miller

February 27, 2009

Reporting from Washington — The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to launch an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs under President George W. Bush, setting the stage for a sweeping examination of some of most secretive and controversial operations in recent agency history.

The inquiry is aimed at uncovering new information on the origins of the programs as well as scrutinizing how they were executed -- including the conditions at clandestine CIA prison sites and the interrogation regimens used to break Al Qaeda suspects, according to Senate aides familiar with the investigation plans.

Officials said the inquiry was not designed to determine whether CIA officials broke laws. "The purpose here is to do fact-finding in order to learn lessons from the programs and see if there are recommendations to be made for detention and interrogations in the future," said a senior Senate aide, who like others described the plan on condition of anonymity because it had not been made public.

Still, the investigation is likely to call new attention to the agency's conduct in operations that drew condemnation around the world. It is also bound to renew friction between Democrats and Republicans who have spent much of the last five years fighting over the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terrorism.

The investigation also could draw comparisons to the special Senate committee formed to investigate the CIA in 1975 and headed by Sen. Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat. Revelations by the Church Committee led to greater congressional oversight and legislation restricting intelligence activities.

The terms and scope of the new inquiry still were being negotiated by members of the committee and senior staffers Thursday. The senior aide said that the committee had no short-term plans to hold public hearings, and that it was not clear whether the panel would release its final report to the public.

The inquiry, which could take a year or more to complete, means the CIA will once again be the target of intense congressional scrutiny at a time when it is engaged in two wars and its ongoing pursuit of Al Qaeda.

The agency was stripped of some of its power and prestige after coming under severe criticism in previous investigations of its failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq.

But whereas those investigations focused largely on errors in the CIA's analytic efforts, the new inquiry will dive directly into its most sensitive operations, seeking to unearth details that previous generations of agency officials referred to as the "crown jewels."

During the Bush administration, the agency was often able to safeguard many of those secrets. Lawmakers have never been told the locations of the CIA's secret prisons overseas, for example.

But the Obama administration is expected to give congressional investigators new access to classified records as well as individuals who took part in operating the secret prisons and interrogating detainees.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta pledged this week that he would cooperate with any congressional investigation.

"If those committees are seeking information in these areas, we'll cooperate with them," Panetta said in a meeting with reporters Wednesday. "I think that we have a responsibility to be transparent on these issues and to provide them that information."

Panetta argued that CIA officers should not face prosecution if they were acting on orders in accordance with Bush administration legal opinions.

"I would not support, obviously, an investigation or a prosecution of those individuals," Panetta said. "I think they did their job, they did it pursuant to the guidance that was provided them, whether you agreed or disagreed with it."

News of the inquiry was greeted with concern among agency veterans.

"There is a good deal of investigation fatigue, and a feeling that the agency has become even more than before a piñata," said a former high-ranking CIA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The new investigation is likely to "stimulate more risk aversion," the former official said. "There's a potential cost to other operations down the road when the current administration says, 'We would like you to take this operation, it's been blessed by lawyers and briefed by Congress.' Why should we do anything anywhere near cutting-edge if down the road the next administration can decide to get back at their political opponents?"

Senate aides declined to say whether the committee would seek new testimony from former CIA Director George J. Tenet or other former top officials who were involved in the creation and management of the programs.

The Senate investigation will examine whether the detention and interrogation operations were carried out in ways that were consistent with the authorities and instructions issued in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.

The panel will also look at whether lawmakers were kept fully informed. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the committee, and others have said that the Bush administration improperly withheld information from Congress on the CIA's operations.

The investigation comes at a time when the Obama administration is in the midst of making dramatic changes in the CIA's counter-terrorism programs.

Last month, President Obama ordered the CIA to close its secret prison facilities and to abandon "enhanced" interrogation measures, including waterboarding, a method that simulates drowning. Instead, Obama ordered the agency to abide by the Army Field Manual on interrogation.

The administration has also established a task force to look at the interrogation programs, although that effort is mainly designed to examine their effectiveness and determine whether the CIA should again be granted authority beyond the Army Field Manual.

Senate investigators plan a similar line of inquiry, with a goal of assessing the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA, including sleep deprivation and subjecting prisoners to cold temperatures.

Panetta's immediate predecessor as CIA chief, Michael V. Hayden, has defended the agency's use of such methods and argued that the agency should not be bound by Army Field Manual constraints.

Hayden has said the agency has held fewer than 100 prisoners in custody since the Sept. 11 attacks, and less than one-third of those were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation measures. Three prisoners, including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were subjected to waterboarding.

There has also been a push from other lawmakers to launch an independent investigation of the CIA's operations. The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing next week on a proposal to create a commission like the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks to examine CIA counter-terrorism operations under Bush.

"The last administration justified torture, presided over the abuses at Abu Ghraib, destroyed tapes of harsh interrogations," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of that committee. "How can we restore our moral leadership and ensure transparent government if we ignore what has happened?"

But the Senate Intelligence Committee has direct jurisdiction over U.S. spy agencies, and is launching its inquiry in part to make sure its members have independent data and are in position to influence future interrogation and detention policies, officials said.

Aides said the negotiations were aimed at producing an investigation with broad support from both parties. Republicans have argued that the inquiry should focus on CIA programs and not become a referendum on Bush administration policies, such as the Justice Department legal memos that underpinned the program.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), the panel's ranking Republican, "does not think that witch hunts and discussions of the legality of [Justice Department] memos are in any way helpful at this point," another Senate aide said.

NEO - CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

ByJoseph A. Palermo
Author/Associate Professor of History

Southern Republican Governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Mark Sanford of South Carolina are making noises about "refusing" federal dollars from President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package. They are posturing in a way reminiscent of an earlier generation of Southern governors who stood for "states' rights," which was a euphemism for Jim Crow racial segregation. Given that these GOP governors preside over the nation's "black belt," Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina accurately called their obstructionist stance "a slap in the face of African Americans."

Haley Barbour, before winning the governorship of Mississippi was a high-powered Washington lobbyist and a former chair of the Republican National Committee. When he's not attending barbeques hosted by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (C of CC) he's figuring out new ways to tax poor people while denying them government aid. Mississippi has the most regressive tax structure in the country and is ranked 50th among the states for per capita spending on social programs.

Bobby Jindal is the Indian-American rising star of the Republican Party. To prove himself to the country club set he adheres to the harshest of anti-poor ideologies. Jindal is also a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who calls for teaching "intelligent design" in public schools. His talk radio conservatism is tinged with the fanaticism of someone who comes from a "subaltern" group. Jindal's immigrant background leads him to compare his own experience to that of African Americans and conclude that the black community must be inherently dysfunctional. Jindal must distance himself from the first African-American president or he'll jeopardize his lilywhite political base and dash his presidential ambitions, and what better way to do so than to posture against federal aid?

And don't forget Texas Governor Rick Perry. A mad executioner like his predecessor, Perry is closing in on his 200th execution since taking office (George W. Bush only managed 152, but both governors hold national records). Perry also vetoed a measure that would prohibit executing mentally retarded people. "At a time when the country -- including Texas -- is opening its eyes to the problems that plague capital punishment," Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA said, "Governor Perry has chosen to remain blind to its flaws, further tarnishing Texas' human rights reputation." The vast majority of inmates Perry (as well as Bush) put to death were blacks and Hispanics.

And then there's Mark Sanford who rose out of Strom Thurmond's Republican Party in South Carolina with an abysmal record on all issues affecting the lives of African Americans. His policies always somehow benefit the well-healed white folks in his state while leaving behind everybody else. Governor Sanford proudly flies the Confederate flag over the South Carolina state house, a fitting tribute to the rise of the Neo-Confederacy. On that score, Sanford must be the new Jefferson Davis.

These Neo-Confederate governors are following in the tradition of President Andrew Johnson of the Reconstruction era. Johnson vetoed over twenty pieces of legislation that would have created a set of federal institutions in the former Confederacy to help guide the transition from slavery to freedom of four million former slaves. Today, the Neo-Confederacy obstructs the federal government's attempt to alleviate some of the suffering of the descendants of those slaves even while the nation endures its worst economic disaster in 70 years. These Southern governors are even refusing federal help to continue unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of people who have recently lost their jobs. Now that's pretty harsh!

But there's hope. The Department of Justice has the tools to bring Southern obstructionist governors in line as it did in the 1960s. "There's a new sheriff in town," and there are plenty of federal statutes on the books protecting the rights of poor people and minorities that Attorney General Eric Holder could enforce far more vigorously than his Republican predecessors.

The process of Southernizing the Republican Party has reached a more advanced stage after the election of the first African American President. What began in 1968 with Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" continued to mature through the Reagan years and the Newt Gingrich "revolution" until, in the 2000s, George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist brought it to apotheosis. The Southern wing and its Sunbelt allies gave the Rockefeller Republicans the heave-ho leaving only a distilled rump party filled with ideologues, zealots, and "Ditto-Heads"; note the inordinate hostility aimed at Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter for voting for the stimulus bill. Vacuums in political leadership never last long. And some of the most backward elements in our political discourse are poised to take control of one of our nation's major parties. "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," Barry Goldwater famously said. But it might be bad politics. In 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated the Republicans had 36 Senators and 117 House seats; four years later, when FDR began his second term, the Republicans had 16 Senators and 88 House seats.

Of course, the madness is not limited to the South. The state of California is reeling after six years of a Republican governor and an obstructionist Republican minority in the legislature. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to power through a circus-like, GOP-financed "recall" election, where Gary Coleman and a porn star also ran, for the sole purpose of stroking his overblown ego. Schwarzenegger's abysmal record coupled with the crippling Republican "supermajority" needed to pass budgets means the Golden State ain't so golden anymore.

When "the Terminator" came to power the state's budget deficit was about one-fourth the size it is now and he failed to get any federal help from his "good friend" George W. Bush. He spent most of his political capital trying to privatize the public employee pension system and break the teachers' and nurses' unions. He spent a lot of time in 2008 out on the stump campaigning for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Most recently he couldn't even get members of his own party to vote for the desperately needed budget.

The devastated U.S. economy is tearing families apart and the cutbacks at the state level are coming at exactly the wrong time. The California Republican Party is every bit as backward and reactionary as its Southern counterparts. California Republicans are up in arms because a handful of GOP legislators voted to keep the state from going belly up. They were apparently willing to let the state hemorrhage $400 million halting construction projects rather than show "bipartisanship." Like their brethren in the Neo-Confederacy, California's Sunbelt Republicans would rather see the state drop off into the Pacific Ocean than take the step of raising taxes on their wealthy friends or give a helping hand to those who are suffering in these terrible economic times.

Sanford Offers Unemployed South Carolina Resident ‘Prayers’ Instead Of Stimulus Funds

By BEN ARMBRUSTER

Following the lead of a number of his fellow Republican governors, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has given some indication that he will not accept some of the money slated for South Carolina in the $787 billion economic recovery bill President Obama signed into law last week. “At times it sounds like the Soviet grain quotas of Stalin’s time,” Sanford said yesterday on Fox News.

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Sanford received a call from a Charleston resident who said he lost his job because he has been taking care of mother and sister, both of whom have serious illnesses. The caller told Sanford he is “wrong” to decline the money. “A lot of people in South Carolina are hurting. And if this money can come and help us out we need it.” In response, Sanford could offer him only his prayers:

CALLER: I hope you all are not playing politics with this. People in South Carolina are hurting. You know how unemployment rates are high right now and going up higher. We are running out of money in the unemployment bank — we need money for that, the people that need help. And I’m one of them, I can’t get no help. […]

SANFORD: Well I’d say hello to Charleston because its home and I’d say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

Sanford offered no other alternative solution for his constituent and instead argued that the state could not accept money to extend unemployment benefits because “increasing the tax on unemployment insurance” would negatively “impact the caller’s family” (although he didn’t say how).

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) — who sponsored an amendment to the stimulus bill that would allow state legislatures to “accept stimulus funding over the objections of conservative governors” — chastised Sanford on MSNBC this morning. “This program is an opportunity for Governor Sanford to target” the “chronically unemployed” and “chronically sick” communities in South Carolina. “I have got to believe that he is willing…to help these communities,” Clyburn said, asking,”Why won’t he?”

What Part of ‘Stimulus’ Don’t They Get?

From

Imagine yourself jobless and struggling to feed your family while the governor of your state threatens to reject tens of millions of dollars in federal aid earmarked for the unemployed. That is precisely what is happening in poverty-ridden states like Louisiana and Mississippi where Republican governors are threatening to turn away federal aid rather than expand access to unemployment insurance programs in ways that many other states did a long time ago.

What makes these bad decisions worse is that they are little more than political posturing by rising Republican stars, like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. This behavior reinforces the disturbing conclusion that the Republican Party seems more interested in ideological warfare than in working on policies that get the country back on track.

Fortunately, as President Obama prepares for his first address to Congress on Tuesday evening, voters of both parties have noticed. About three-quarters of those polled in a recent New York Times/CBS News survey — including more than 60 percent of Republicans — said Mr. Obama has been trying to work with Republicans. And 63 percent said Republicans in Congress opposed the stimulus package primarily for political reasons, not because they thought it would be bad for the economy. It should be sobering news for Republicans that about 8 in 10 said the party should be working in a bipartisan way.

The Republican Party’s attacks on the unemployment insurance portion of the stimulus package are a perfect example. States that accept the stimulus money aimed at the unemployed are required to abide by new federal rules that extend unemployment protections to low-income workers and others who were often shorted or shut out of compensation. This law did not just materialize out of nowhere. It codified positive changes that have already taken place in at least half the states.

To qualify for the first one-third of federal aid, the states need to fix arcane eligibility requirements that exclude far too many low-income workers. To qualify for the rest of the aid, states have to choose from a menu of options that include extending benefits to part-time workers or those who leave their jobs for urgent family reasons, like domestic violence or gravely ill children.

Data from the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit group, show that 19 states qualify for some of the federal financing and that a dozen others would become eligible by making one or two policy changes. Unemployed workers are worst off in the Deep South, where relatively few people are eligible to receive payments. Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas stand out.

The governors are blowing smoke when they suggest that the federal unemployment aid would lead directly to new state taxes. No one knows what the economic climate will be when the federal aid has been used up several years from now. But by dumping billions of dollars into shrinking state unemployment funds, which puts money into the hands of people who spend it immediately on food and shelter, the stimulus could help the states through the recession and into a time when unemployment trust funds can be replenished. In other words, the stimulus could make a tax increase less likely.

But even if new taxes are required at some point, the new federal standards would protect more unemployed workers than ever before and bring states like Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas into the 21st century.

Governors like Mr. Jindal should be worrying about how to end this recession while helping constituents feed and house their families — not about finding ways to revive tired election-year arguments about big spending versus small government.

Cheney and the Goat Devil

By MAUREEN DOWD
OP-ED COLUMNIST

I was dubious about Will Ferrell doing his Bush impersonation one more time on Broadway.

As we lurch through the disasters bequeathed by W. — the economy tanking, 17,000 more troops going to Afghanistan, Chrysler pleading for a total of $9 billion — would audiences still laugh at Ferrell’s lovable fool of a president?

I was wrong. The audience for the Sunday matinee of “You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush” howled in delight.

I asked Adam McKay, the former head writer of “Saturday Night Live” who directed and co-wrote the show with Ferrell, why people respond this way to one of the worst presidents ever.

“He’s so clearly a neglected 13-year-old that there’s something really kind of heartbreaking about him,” McKay said, calling him “a good-time Charlie” who was “just used his whole life to front questionable business endeavors, and in a way that’s what his presidency was.

“He doesn’t have Cheney’s cartoonish need for power and greed that’s so off the charts you don’t even understand how Cheney got that way. W. may have some awareness, deep down inside, sort of like a petulant teenager who just flunked the trig quiz and knows he screwed up. I think Cheney not only knows but is delighted with everything he did, as is Rumsfeld.”

In the show, the former president dismisses waterboarding as a spa treatment at Bliss, and reveals that he did walk in on Cheney once in the basement of the White House locked in the amorous arms of a giant goat devil in a room full of pentagrams.

“He looked at me with solid silver glowing orb-like eyes, and his breath had a strong ammonia scent to it,” Ferrell’s W. said. “And he told me in a language that I knew in my heart hadn’t been spoken in a thousand years ‘Pariff Go Lanerff!’ And I just ran.”

One of the great mysteries of the Bush presidency is whether W. ever had an epiphany when he realized that he had been manipulated by Dick Cheney, whether it ever hit him that he had trusted the wrong father figure.

There were clues in the last couple of years that W. and Condi were trying to sidle away from Cheney by using the forbidden strategy of diplomacy in dealing with Iran and North Korea, and by cutting loose Rummy.

As one official who worked closely with both W. and Cheney told The New York Daily News’s Tom DeFrank the last week of the administration: “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve heard the president say, ‘Run that by the vice president’s office.’ You used to hear that all the time.”

The clearest sign of disaffection we have is Bush’s refusal to pardon Scooter Libby, the man known as “Cheney’s Cheney,” despite Vice’s tense and emotional pleading. It was his final, too little, too late “You are not the boss of me” spurning of Dick Cheney.

It may seem pointless for W. to worry about his legacy at this juncture, but he clearly did not want to add a Marc Rich blot to all the other gigantic blots on the copybook.

As DeFrank reported in The Daily News, Cheney conducted a full-bore, last-ditch campaign to persuade W. to pardon Libby, peppering the reluctant president with visits and phone calls, and was furious when W. would not relent.

After so many years of getting W. to do so much of what he wanted, by giving the insecure president the illusion of deference and a lack of personal ambition, it must have been infuriating to Cheney to have W. turn a deaf ear.

Cheney, uncharacteristically critical of W., told The Weekly Standard last month: “I disagree with President Bush’s decision.” Other Libby sympathizers put it more bluntly in the conservative magazine, calling Bush “dishonorable” and saying that his action was akin to leaving a soldier on the battlefield.

Alan Simpson, the former conservative Wyoming senator who is close to Cheney, told Jo Becker and Jim Rutenberg of The Times that the decision had left the former vice president “hurt and deeply disappointed,” but he is not the type to stay bitter. (With Cheney contemplating writing a book, publishers and historians can only hope otherwise.)

By not pardoning Cheney’s alter ego, who plied his dark arts trying to discredit Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson and then lied to protect his boss, W. was clearly saying he thought that Libby, and by extension Cheney, did something wrong.

But it’s not clear whether W. is simply pouting because Cheney’s machinations blackened his legacy, or if, at long last, he fathoms the morality of it, that Cheney did hideous things to the Constitution — not to mention that goat devil.

Bitter,irrelevant GOP

By CYNTHIA TUCKER

Before House and Senate negotiators could get to work on the compromise stimulus bill, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) rushed to denounce it as a “disgrace.”

Meanwhile, some of his constituents were singing from a different hymn book. In Washington for a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week, Alabama transportation officials were gleeful about federal funds in the package for infrastructure development, according to The Birmingham News.

“We welcome all of it, and we are absolutely giddy with excitement,” said Alabama transportation director Joe McInnes.

A similar cognitive dissonance has enveloped the Georgia state Capitol, where the Republicans who dominate state goverment have struggled to stay in tune with the party line — government spending bad; tax cuts good. But Gov. Sonny Perdue and legislative leaders have a problem: like state officials around the country, they are struggling to plug an ever-deepening multi-billion-dollar hole in the state budget, a shortfall that will require unpopular spending cuts. They badly need the billions in federal aid to states included in the stimulus package.

So while the Georgia Legislature has voted to slow down its session to wait for the money tap to open in Washington, its GOP leaders continue to voice opposition to the stimulus package.

“There are no Santa Clauses for grown folks,” declared Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. “The reality is, Georgia does not need to be dependent upon the federal government for filling our budget deficit.”

Such is the state of the Grand Old Party these days, trapped in an outmoded ideology, contemptuous of compromise, bitter about its loss of power. Indeed, congressional Republican leaders seem more interested in finding a cudgel to wield against President Obama and other Democrats in 2010 than in rescuing the nation from the worst economic calamity since the 1930s.

When Obama pledged to reach across the aisle to work with the GOP, he must have believed its members had the best interests of the nation at heart, that they would work toward practical solutions, that they would practice intellectual honesty. If the president believed all that, he was wrong. Instead, he found a Republican Party unwilling to take “yes” for an answer.

To lure Republican support, Obama made sure Democrats compromised on several key GOP demands, the most prominent of which was increased tax cuts. It’s not even clear that was such a good idea, since most economists don’t believe tax cuts will rescue an economy teetering on collapse.

Last month, Mark M. Zandi — economic adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, a forecasting firm — told House Democrats that the greatest stimulus comes from increases in food and unemployment benefits. Each dollar appropriated for food stamps and unemployment benefits yields more than a $1.60 in additional economic activity, Zandi estimated, while tax cuts produce less than a dollar for each dollar of stimulus, according to The New York Times.

Still, the Senate approved tax cuts for middle-class Americans who might otherwise have had to pay the alternative minimum tax. Businesses also got steep tax cuts. In total, some economists say the bill may contain the largest tax cuts in U. S. history, about $282 billion over two years. (President George W. Bush’s first two years of tax cuts amounted to $174 billion, while his second series of cuts amounted to $231 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.)Did any of that matter? Absolutely not. The GOP stuck to its old playbook, accusing Democrats of “socialism” and decrying the stimulus plan as wasteful “government spending.” U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, went so far as to suggest that Republicans may need to launch a Taliban-like “insurgency” to disrupt Congress if they can’t get their way.

These are serious times, and the country would be better off with two major parties seriously engaged in finding solutions to difficult problems. The Republican Party has instead resorted to behaving like bitter exes at a wedding party, trying to ruin things for everybody.