A nod to Time.com: OMG, y’all! GOP.com is the best site evers!
Jeez. Michael Steele and his pals over at the new and improved GOP Web site — you know, the place where they ask, “Why are YOU are [sic] Republican?” — have a nifty little timeline in which they tout all the great things Republicans have done. And you know what? Republicans HAVE done great things: Nixon went to China, Bush 41′s response to Iraq…and we’ll try to come up with something else by the end of the day.
Anyway. The timeline. Under the banner “Accomplishments” exists! It’s really something. Check it:
Oh, Abraham Lincoln! We forgot he was a Republican. (Why, Dave?) Because if blacks were enslaved in 2009, no Republican would free them. Michael Steele doesn’t know he is black.
Pacheco’s time in office as governor: Feb. 27, 1875 – Dec. 9, 1875. A whopping 10 months. In November 1876 Pacheco was elected to the House of Representatives by one vote. The House Committee on Elections later refused Pacheco’s certificate of election and seated his opponent Peter D. Wigginton. In today’s Republican party, the only Hispanic senator, Mel Martinez, gave up his seat before finishing his first term. It’s called “The Sarah Palin Effect.”
That’s just plain false. An amendment to the United States Constitution must be ratified by three fourths of the state legislatures, and 28 of 37 states held up their end of the bargain. Even dirty Democrat-controlled states.
And now no Republican will go near Howard University. Ironic.
Oh, Michael Steele and company. Never, never, never invoke Teddy Roosevelt as a Republican. This is the guy who advocated universal health care, and was a conservationist, two things contemporary Republicans hate. They also hate Jews (supposition). They won’t even let Joe Lieberman be a Republican.
The most telling thing about this GOP fantasy timeline is that once we get into the 20th century, the gaps between “accomplishments” get longer, and the skin of the people the GOP is helping gets whiter. The last thing Republicans did which was good for anybody, apparently, was the 2004 Vouchers for DC Schoolchildren program. While we’re keeping score, that program was deeply unpopular in the District, and it passed by a whopping three votes in the House, with 13 Republicans voting against it.
Let’s be honest, GOP.com (impossible for you, but hear us out). This is what your party looks like now:
Look at all the diversity in that photo! I mean, you call Jackie Robinson a hero of the Republican party, and he wrote this about the GOP in his autobiography:
A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.
That was the 1964 convention he wrote about. Oh, how times have changed!
Jackie probably would have felt right at home there, too. After all, for many years, he often was the only black guy in the room.
Ugh. GOP.com. Your place for disingenuous bullshit.
I think it’s also worth noting that even on their own (completely absurd and disingenuous) website, they can’t come up with one accomplishment after 2004. Amazing.