What Republicans Voted For

We continue to lose the battle of framing but then, reducto ad absurdium is the Republicans' strength. Rove and Co love to reduce an argument to something absurdly simple but mostly wrong. "Cut and run" is a good example. They repeat that meme any time there's a microphone in front of them knowing it isn't the truth at all. So in the spirit of reframing, here's what Republicans voted for:

They voted to continue losing American lives for a war that has, as far as we can tell, no clear purpose and that was started on a lie. In fact, they voted for it twice.

They voted to shift Paris Hilton's tax burden either to you or to your children.

They decided without a vote to let immigration reform, their party's number one priority, die because they can't agree to make 11.5 million people felons.

They, through their Supreme Court, decided development trumps clean water.

They failed to vote against a pay raise for themselves, automatically raising their pay, while voting against raising the wages of someone making $10,600 per year at minimum wage.

Meanwhile, the EPA in a study demanded by Bush, debunked Bush's claim that higher gas prices are caused by the "boutique" fuels that keep our air clean. Again, it seems, the Shrub wants to gut environmental rules for no reason. According to the EPA, the boutique fuels neither contribute to high prices nor do they create distribution problems. They do keep our air a bit cleaner and that seems to the Shrub to be the ultimate problem. Yet the meme is in the public mind now, I've even caught myself using it to justify why gas is more expensive in Houston than in Denver. It'll be a tough one to kill. Here's how to frame it: In his ineptitude and his rush to judgement in defense of oil companies, Bush once again lied about boutique fuels contributing to high prices and distribution problems.

Amazingly, today Bush's Toady in Chief General Pace announced there will be troop reductions, cutting and running even as Bush's toadies in the Senate rejected rational calls, favored by the majority of Americans, to get out of Iraq.