Repuglicans on Parade

Sully finds bushies Without Irony

Alberto Gonzales sat down with the Houston Chronicle to offer some advice on the drug war:

He also said Mexico should have oral, public trials of major organized crime figures rather than having trials consist of written testimony read by a judge behind closed doors. Doing things in private breeds corruption, he said.

Veep impact March 30: According to "The New Yorker" magazine, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Israeli officials that President Obama was pro-Palestine. Why is Cheney trying to undermine the current president? Rachel Maddow is joined by author Barton Gellman.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Benen says it's HARD TO ARGUE WITH LOGIC LIKE THAT....

It was certainly discouraging that Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) argued, publicly and with a straight face, that if we limit carbon emissions, we're "taking away plant food from the atmosphere." But I was also impressed by Shimkus' theological argument against combating global warming.

Shimkus explains -- well, perhaps "explains" is a strong word -- his belief that we need not worry about the effects of global warming, because his interpretation of the Bible suggests planetary changes are solely in the hands of the Christian God. "The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over," the Illinois Republican said. "Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a flood.... God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect."

What's more, be sure to watch to the end of the video clip, at which point Shimkus argues that we're not pumping enough carbon into the atmosphere: "There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet, not too much carbon."

I've heard a few conservatives over the years argue, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." I didn't expect, however, to hear an elected member of Congress apply this thinking to environmental policy.

Shimkus' "insights" came around the same time as Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas) argument that we need not worry about global warming, because in a pinch, humanity can simply pursue an "utterly natural reflex response to nature," by finding "shade."

There's a genuine policy discussion to be had about climate change. If policymakers like Shimkus and Barton represent the mainstream of House Republican thought, this discussion won't be bipartisan. Indeed, for humanity's sake, it can't be.

dday on the PARTY OF NO NUMBERS...
The GOP's "budget" was roundly mocked throughout Democratic circles and even in the suddenly-caring-about-policy traditional media for not having any numbers, the way that, you know, a budget does. Yesterday, John McCain sought to calm the waters by claiming that the Senate GOP would put together, in fact, an actual budget with hard numbers instead of just a pamphlet with a bunch of circles and positive affirmations.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you think that Republicans should provide a detailed budget alternative?

McCAIN: Yes.

GREGORY: With numbers?

McCAIN: Yes.

GREGORY: Will that happen in the Senate?

McCAIN: We're working on it, working very hard on it.

Rick Klein reports that Sen. McCain is mistaken.

According to a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate GOP's plan remains the same: Republicans are planning to offer individual amendments to the Democratic budget but not a detailed, comprehensive budget of their own.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, has pointed out that if the GOP amendments are accepted en masse (which will not happen), the amended budget would be the Republican alternative. Senate GOP leaders have also pointed out that Senate Democrats didn’t offer a detailed alternative budget in 2005 and 2006, when Republicans last controlled the Senate.

In any event, a full budget alternative may be what McCain wants, but it's not going to be what happens.

This comes after GOP leaders immediately blasted their own superiors in the House after the negative reaction to the non-budget, and after Rep. Paul Ryan conceded that, with actual numbers, the non-budget would in all likelihood increase the deficit.

These guys really have no idea what they're talking about, do they?

• atrios is Yelling At Clouds: I do wish someone would tell the celebrity political press that John McCain lost the election. Actually, he got creamed. By Barack Hussein Obama.
• dday says IF IT'S SUNDAY, IT'S JOHN MCCAIN....

  John McCain appeared on Meet the Press this Sunday, and while the content was unremarkable, a little portion at the end was pretty revealing.

  DAVID GREGORY: This is your 54th appearance on Meet the Press. Now I know you're a competitive guy. Bob Dole still holds the record at 63. And so we've been doing the calculations here. We think we can make this up, maybe within a year's time. If you're game for that.

  JOHN MCCAIN: I'd love to try. Thank you, David.

  DAVID GREGORY: Sen. McCain, thank you very much for being here.

  David Gregory was making a joke. And yet there's still much to this that's remarkable. John McCain has appeared on Meet the Press - just one of the multiple Sunday morning talk shows - 54 times, and I would guess that most of them have come in the years since announcing for President in 1999, since before that he was a more obscure figure in Washington. I can't imagine there's anyone else even close to that number. And yet McCain is an easy guy to find on the Rolodex and get to appear on your show. It points to a staleness in the official discourse.

  And while this was McCain's inaugural appearance on Meet The Press this year, he has done Face the Nation in 2009, Fox News Sunday on two occasions, and sat down with John King of CNN as well, not to mention the celebrated Twitter-view with George Stephanopoulos. That's 5 appearances and counting and we're only at the end of March. McCain is actually crushing the once-a-month appearance schedule that Gregory jokingly set out for him.

  I should mention at this point that McCain lost the 2008 Presidential election.