Memo to Rahm Emanuel

You've got it all wrong about Rush Limbaugh dictating Republican strategy. Actually it's David Brooks.

In his New York Times column this morning, Brooks writes: "The G.O.P. leaders have adopted a posture that allows the Democrats to make all the proposals while all the Republicans can say is 'no.' They’ve apparently decided that it’s easier to repeat the familiar talking points than actually think through a response to the extraordinary crisis at hand.

"If the Republicans wanted to do the country some good, they’d embrace an entirely different approach.

"First, they’d take the current economic crisis more seriously than the Democrats...Republicans could point out that this crisis is not just an opportunity to do other things. It’s a bloomin’ emergency. Robert Barro of Harvard estimates that there is a 30 percent chance of a depression."

After their weekly strategy meeting this morning, House Republicans sent out their attack puppy Eric Cantor to complain that Obama is not focusing enough on the economy:

"At the end of the day, we are in an economic emergency. Economists are saying that there's a 30 percent likelihood that we're going to be in a depression. My goodness, we do have an emergency, and we oughta say, look, priority No. 1 is to create jobs."

Boehner and his clueless bunch are showing better judgment about where to get their marching orders. Brooks is a big step up from Limbaugh.

Makings of a Mismatch

Hearty laughs are so scarce these days that political observers should be grateful for news that John Boehner has ordered his House pygmies to attack President Obama directly instead of aiming their fire at Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a "triangulation" strategy.

Unleashing the likes of Eric Cantor and Mike Spence, who launched the effort by taking aim at Obama's campaign promise about earmarks, will remind old timers of the movie, "The Mouse That Roared," in which the world's smallest nation, on the brink of bankruptcy, attacks the US with a handful of warriors in chain mail and carrying long bows, to get attention and some kind of reparations.

Boehner, apparently miffed by the White House emphasis on Rush Limbaugh as the face of the Republicans, wants the spotlight back.

“This," he said after rallying his troops, "is nothing more than a distraction created by the administration to take people’s attention away from the fact that they’re going to raise taxes and grow the size of government.”

If the GOP is aiming for comedy, they will get more slapstick from House Republicans, but Limbaugh is better at delivering punch lines.

Update: In the Washington Post Friday, Boehner pushes the blame-Obama charge with an OpEd piece claiming "in a carefully calculated campaign, operatives and allies of the Obama administration are seeking to divert attention toward radio host Rush Limbaugh, and away from a debate about our alternative solutions on the economy and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over." Bring on the long bows.

Republican Leader Is Highly Stimulated

Like the Claude Rains character in "Casablanca," John Boehner was "shocked" yesterday by details of the Democratic stimulus plan.

"There's over a half-a-trillion dollars worth of spending," he said on the PBS News Hour. Spending in a stimulus bill? As shocking as gambling in a casino.

The House Minority leader, who has been an embarrassment before, doesn't like the proposal because (1) it isn't all tax cuts and (2) Republicans weren't consulted enough.

The $825 billion stimulus bill unveiled by Democrats yesterday has $275 billion in tax cuts and credits to jump-start the economy (and appease Republicans), along with $550 billion in spending for clean energy, road construction, social welfare programs and emergency assistance to states.

There is much to debate about the details, not only the nature of the infrastructure expenditures but opposition by some Democrats to the size of the tax cuts, but Boehner's boobery-as-usual won't advance the process very far.

When the original bailout was voted down in late September, Boehner insisted it could have drawn enough Republican votes "had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi's words "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."

This led Barney Frank to respond with disbelief, "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to punish the country?"

The House Republican leader is a sensitive man, who has shed patriotic tears on the floor, but with the US economy at stake, Boehner will have to calm down and get his colleagues to discuss the bill rationally.

McCain vs. McCain

In the three-ring circus over the financial rescue bill, the Republican candidate has shown an instinct for his own jugular, grasping the issue for political advantage and then becoming encoiled in his own flailings.

"Even before the House vote, voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats for the crisis. Then McCain suspended his campaign to come back to Washington to rally support for a rescue plan," says CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. "He failed, so he gets blamed by both supporters and opponents of the rescue plan."

When the bill appeared headed for passage, McCain took credit for influencing House Republicans to support it even though, during the tense Saturday evening negotiations, the McCains were having a leisurely dinner with the Liebermans at a posh Washington restaurant.

Now, after his purportedly convinced confreres brought the House bill down, the Republican nominee is back on the campaign trail in mournful mode: "Yesterday, the country and the world looked to Washington for leadership, and Congress once again came up empty-handed."

This now-detached analysis is coupled with criticism of Barack Obama for the contradictory offenses of injecting partisanship and just wanting to "phone it in" on the issue.

McCain could have saved himself all these contortions if, like Obama, he just showed up as one member of Congress and didn't try to play premature president for the TV cameras. The one in the White House ended up with egg on his face yesterday, and so did McCain.

Notes From the Ice Floe HMO

The British have a solution to their health care crisis--cut off the undeserving sick and send the old off on ice floes the way Eskimos did a century ago.

In a new survey, doctors call for National Health Service treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives, an idea that may appeal to the Bush Administration as a solution to runaway Medicare costs.

One in three British doctors said that "elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long," according to the Telegraph.

As an octogenarian candidate for that Ice Floe HMO, I can report that American insurers have made significant headway in that direction. The doctor and hospital performing my shoulder surgery had to make do with Medicare allowances, since my supplemental insurer deemed that, for a person of age, the need to be pain-free would be an unwarranted luxury.

But all is not lost, even in Britain. Responding to the survey findings, a doctor speaking for the British Medical Association said: "If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it's not our job to play God."

Tell that to the Republican Congressmen who recently voted once again to sustain President Bush's veto of expanded S-CHIP coverage for poor children.