GOP's New Grimm Tales

Just when Republicans were getting some traction with their “Chicken Little” yarn about Obamacare, the sky falls on them from different directions. Call such cautionaries from the new Brothers Grimm’ canon, “The Elephant and the Weasel,” as Chris Christie and Robert Gates personify why the pachyderm party just can’t seem to get a break in the realm of instructive narrative.

Christie is on an opinion-poll roll in Santa Claus disguise when he is outed as a vindictive bully over jamming bridge traffic to spite a political opponent while Gates’ tales out of White House school are getting the blowback they deserve from Obama’s people, albeit in a polite way

They point to a harrumph in his book: “I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, ‘For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe you be my witness.’ I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters.” So many meetings, so much offensive levity.

GOP problems with children’s literature go all the way back to 9/11/2001 when George W. Bush’s was reading “My Pet Goat” to second-graders and froze over the attacks.

Parents, teachers and child-care experts have been arguing for two centuries over whether Grimms’ Fairy Tales are too bloody and traumatic for young children. But not to fear. In this age where politicians tell tall stories every day about the real world, nothing shocks any of us of any age any more.