The Dems and the press-folk are keen On playing a blame game, obscene. But they’re missing the point In their haste to anoint A fall guy: Most voters are mean!
Says Donald, The Fed is at fault
For the stock market’s large downward vault.
Blame Powell, he’ll blurt,
Throwing mud to subvert
The truth, via “facts” that are alt.
In the Trumpian mindset, when stuff
Goes terribly wrong, then he’ll huff
And he’ll puff, placing fault
On others (facts “alt.”) Ducking blame is Trump’s concept of “tough.”
Conservatives, bummed and bereft,
Due to Donald Trump’s poll number heft,
After searching their brains
To explain his huge gains,
Found the cause: It’s Barack and the Left!
The “Mistakes Were Made” Game (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Simply playing the passive voice game
Is a popular way to dodge blame.
The “mistakes were made” line
Is the best tell-tale sign
That slipp’ry evasion’s your aim.
House Republicans will vote to pass a one-year delay of Obamacare in exchange for funding the government, a plan that drastically increases the chances of a government shutdown this Tuesday.
Discredit Where Discredit Is Due (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A government shutdown’s been forced
By Republicans, sadly divorced
From our nationwide needs.
It’s clear from their deeds:
They have fiscal disaster endorsed.
“Party First” Politics (3-Verse Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
When the government runs out of cash
And shuts down, then just who will you bash?
If you’re paying attention,
The party you’ll mention
Is Republican — that’s who you’ll trash.
But misinformation’s widespread
Cuz the public is constantly fed
Big Republican lies
Which attempt to disguise
Who would chop off the government’s head.
Yet the GOP’s mission is clear:
It’s a goal they’ve chased year after year
To stymie Obama,
No matter the trauma
To all that our nation holds dear.
John Boehner’s 2011 PowerPoint presentation provides ample proof that sequestration originated with the Republicans.
But even if we didn’t have that smoking gun slide show, the GOP’s attempt to label it “Obama’s sequester” wouldn’t pass the straight-face test. Here’s Andrew Sullivan making that powerful point:
…I simply cannot see how a political party that has branded itself in favor of drastic spending cuts can somehow win a public debate in which they are now apparently opposing drastic spending cuts, and “blaming” them on Obama. And their branding means that the slow government shutdown we will almost certainly now face will surely stick more to them than to Obama.
Sequestration Blame Game (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
What’s the key to the GOP brand?
Budget cuts that our land can’t withstand.
So it’s laughably lame
That they’re trying to claim
The sequester’s Obama’s scheme grand.
Mitt “Sore Loser” Romney doesn’t use the word “bribes” in rationalizing his loss to his donors, but he sure comes mighty close:
A week after losing the election to President Obama, Mitt Romney blamed his overwhelming electoral loss on what he said were big “gifts” that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters, African-Americans and Hispanics.
In a conference call on Wednesday afternoon with his national finance committee, Mr. Romney said that the president had followed the “old playbook” of wooing specific interest groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people,” Mr. Romney explained — with targeted gifts and initiatives.
If I understand Romney correctly, winning votes because of policies that benefit the middle class, minorities, and the poor is bad. But winning votes and tons of donor cash because of policies that will make rich people even richer is just fine and dandy. So glad we cleared that up.
Limerick Ode To Mitt “Sore Loser” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Mitt Romney is sore-loser cross,
Blaming targeted “gifts” for his loss.
Mitt in essence describes
Good programs as bribes
To Blacks, Youths, Hispanics. What dross!
When a political party loses big time, the way the Republicans lost on Tuesday, there are two ways to go: 1) Careful introspection; or 2) Blame game. Guess which route the Republicans picked.
Finger Pointing Blues (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The Republican game is “cast blame.”
Faulting somebody else is their aim.
It’s Sandy! It’s Rove!
It’s Chris Christie, by Jove!
But they lost cuz the GOP’s lame.
Steve Benen points us to yet another example of the media blaming the wrong political party. According to the Washington Post, the Democrats, in resisting Republican precedent-changing demands for FEMA disaster relief offsets, was starting a “fight over a side issue:”
But Democrats decided to pick a fight over a side issue: an insistence by the GOP to pay for more disaster relief funding by cutting a popular auto-industry loan program. Republicans refused to back down.
So let me get this straight: Republicans try to change the rules, thereby holding disaster victims hostage … and it’s the Democrats’ fault?
This calls for two poems: a limerick and a tanka:
Dear Washington Post, you are wrong
With your Democrats started it song.
Disaster relief
Is the cause of this beef.
Give those offset demands a loud gong.
*****
Republican pols
Demand FEMA fund offsets—
Hold victims hostage,
While “liberal media”
Blames Dems for starting the fight.
Today, May 13th, is the first Friday the 13th of 2011, which makes it Blame Someone Else Day. I thought I’d celebrate it with a tanka (a haiku plus two more seven-syllable lines).
Blame Someone Else Day:
Annual celebration,
with one exception —
the Republican Party
commemorates it daily.
UPDATE: The next Blame Someone Else Day will happen in just eight months on Friday, January 13, 2012. So mark you calendars! If you don’t and you miss it, you’ll only have yourself to blame.
