Frum Rhymes With...You Get It

I’m sure this made sense in his head when he wrote it.

As with almost every “This is why the GOP sucks” thing I’ve seen in recent years, its premise is a bit iffy, which pretty much makes the rest of it a nothing burger. Here’s what the infamously disgruntled fauxpublican claims are the three major “policy” defeats the GOP has suffered in the Team Lightbringer era:

(1) The fight over Obamacare. Result: the most ambitious new social insurance program since Medicare, financed—unlike Medicare—by redistributive new taxes on investment and high incomes.

(2) The 2012 election. Result: Despite the worst economy since the Great Depression, the reelection of President Obama, Democratic retention of the Senate, and 1.4 million more votes cast for House Democrats than for House Republicans.

(3) The fight over the “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012. Result: In order to preserve some of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans for the first time since 1991 left their finger prints on a tax increase for upper income groups.

Number 1 is ridiculous since the Republicans weren’t even really in a position to put up a fight at the time and Obama, Pelosi and Reid resorted to every sort of procedural trickery there was to get the never-popular PPACA ~~shoved down our throats~~ passed. The real “fight” over it came in November 2010 when many in the electorate realized what had happened and turned the House over to the GOP.

Number 2 isn’t really a “policy” defeat and has no value whatsoever without including 2010 in the win column, which Frum doesn’t do. The “more votes cast for House Democrats than for House Republicans” is seen as a victory even though it left the GOP in control yet the 2010 election that actually did something didn’t count? Buh-bye, Number 2.

Number 3 is the only thing he’s actually accurate about here and I don’t need to get my blood pressure up getting into that.

Frum then clicks off what he perceives are the seven bad habits of the GOP that led to these three defeats, two of which weren’t. It’s boilerplate Frum screed, working out his never-ending issues with the GOP so his new libmedia masters will continue to give him treats. Here is one part from the rest of it that will tell you all you need to know: