Crazy Cruz and Floundering Ma

With its usual short attention span, the US media seems to have largely forgotten about Syria recently, instead focusing on the irresponsible Republican threat to shut down the government if the health care reform that has been given the rather silly and dismissive nickname "Obamacare" is not defunded. The Republicans, or at least the more extreme among them – which of course means most of them – are using a vote to keep the government funded to remove funding for health care reform, and incidentally inserting various other provisions such as one favoring Monsanto and another allowing employers or insurance companies to opt out of providing birth control coverage into the funding bill. In the upcoming weeks, they also are planning to use what would once have been (and still should be) a routine vote to raise the government's debt limit as a club to try to make destructive budget cuts. At the center of this effort are the House Republicans from the so-called "Tea Party", goaded on by the extremist Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz (I should point out that John Cornyn, the other Senator from Texas, is merely less flamboyantly extreme in his right-wing politics).

Having encouraged the House Republicans to pass a bill that funded the government for a few more months while defunding health care reform, Cruz then pulled an even more crazy stunt. Since he was no doubt aware of – and was probably jealous of – the national attention Texas State Senator Wendy Davis received for her filibuster in the Texas Senate against an extreme anti-abortion bill (I even referred to it myself in an email petition in favor of filibuster reform), he decided to imitate her. He declared that he would speak until he was "unable to stand" against Obamacare, as he termed it. He proceeded to speak for 21 hours, which on the surface might look as if he outdid Wendy Davis, who "only" spoke for eleven hours. However, Davis had to speak on topic and was not allowed to take any breaks, even to go to the bathroom. Cruz took breaks and rambled inanely, going completely off topic and even spending time reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, which as Jon Stewart and others pointed out, about someone who stubbornly insists he doesn't like something that he hasn't even tried – just as Cruz and his fellow Republicans insist they don't like health care reform that hasn't even been implemented yet (it's also worth pointing out that nowhere in his rambling speech did Cruz offer a real alternative). Finally, Davis's filibuster had a point. Regardless of what one thinks of the bill she was filibustering – and I'd say that any law that forces the vast majority of women's health care clinics to shut down or stop providing even first trimester abortions due to absurd requirements is too extreme – she was arguing to stop a particular bill from becoming law, and she even succeeded as far as that particular special session went. Cruz wasn't even actually filibustering (he knew he had to yield the floor at a specific time anyway), and the bill that the House had passed did exactly what he wanted. So while Davis did a real filibuster for a specific purpose, Cruz's stunt was just that, a stunt with no point to it except to draw attention to himself. But only those with similarly screwed up thinking will actually admire him for it.

I will say that I find it difficult to wholeheartedly support the current health care reform myself, mostly because it didn't go nearly far enough. If it had at least included a public option open to all Americans, I would be more enthusiastic about it. But at least it takes a number of positive steps in the right direction. In any case, to refuse to fund the government unless it is stopped is ridiculous. What's more, the additional threat to raise the debt limit unless they get their way on this and other issues is the height of irresponsibility. As has been pointed out many times by many people, a refusal to raise the debt limit means a refusal to pay the debts that the government already owes. Even if these lawmakers consider it important to reduce the deficit, the place to do it is when they are voting on new spending, not on paying for existing debts. In fact the deficit has already been shrinking, and despite the overblown rhetoric, the budget deficit is not actually the greatest problem the US faces. For that matter, the deficit seems to suddenly become less important to the Republicans when it comes time to vote on military spending, corporate tax breaks, or farm subsidies. It's only when we talk about health care reform, or food stamps for the poor, or Social Security (which is still running a surplus and therefore has not contributed anything to the debt) that the deficit becomes a major issue for them.

But Cruz and his fellow extremists in the US Republican party aren't the only politicians showing their electorates how ridiculous they can be. As I have mentioned in the past, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou heads a government that has been doing a lot of stupid and even downright evil things. While he himself may not have been directly responsible for many of these things, he certainly has done nothing to rein in such bad behavior. More recently, he has been directly involved in a mess that is at least partly of his own making, and certainly makes him look bad. I will admit I haven't followed the story very closely, but the broad outlines are clear enough.

First, a little background. The speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng, is, like Ma, a member of the KMT (Kuomintang or Guomingdang). However, he is considered a member of the "native" wing of the party, as opposed to Ma and others in the party who were born in China or whose parents immigrated to Taiwan from China. He was also Ma's rival for the chairmanship of the KMT back in 2005. Though they had seemed to work together well enough earlier in Ma's presidency, relations between them were never warm and recently they deteriorated radically. Not too long ago, I saw a quote from Wang in the newspaper that was highly critical of the way the Ma administration was running the country. At any rate, a few weeks ago it was reported that Wang was under investigation for helping out a senior legislator from the opposition DPP in a court case by pressuring (or persuading) the prosecutor not to appeal a lower court decision in the legislator's favor. It was clear from the beginning that the evidence against Wang was tainted because it had been obtained by apparently illegal wiretapping. Nevertheless, when the story came out ("coincidentally" when Wang was out of the country for his daughter's wedding), Ma roundly condemned Wang, calling his behavior unacceptable "influence-peddling". This was in contrast to his silence about other cases involving KMT figures, such as the mayor of Keelung who in response to a call from a constituent who had been arrested for drunk driving, went to the police station, pounded on a desk and threatened to have the police officers fired if they didn't release her. In Wang's case, not only was Ma very vocal in his criticism, but he had the KMT initiate procedures to have Wang kicked out of the party and removed from the speakership. While Wang certainly has his faults and may even really be guilty of misusing his position, it was immediately obvious to almost everyone that Wang, as a threat to Ma's power, was being treated much more harshly than other KMT officials accused of similar or worse things, a contrast much like that between the lengthy prison term given to former president Chen Shui-bian when he was convicted of corruption and the light sentences received by KMT officials convicted of similar crimes.

From all appearances, this whole affair has blown up in Ma's face. Wang has filed a court appeal against the revocation of his KMT membership. The wiretapping that was used against Wang has created yet another scandal for the Ma administration. Perhaps most importantly, the public seems to have sided almost completely with Wang. In one recent poll, Wang had an approval rating of around 60%, second only to Chen Chu, the DPP mayor of Kaohsiung. Ma's approval rating, on the other hand, was a miserable 11%. An even more recent poll put his approval rating at just above 9%. As several DPP leaders have pointed out, Ma once called for former president Chen to step down when his approval rating was around 18%, still considerably higher than Ma's is now. For now, Ma continues to flounder desperately. A KMT party congress scheduled for last weekend was postponed and moved to a less central location because massive protests were planned outside the venue. Even after the postponement, tens of thousands showed up at various protests around the country. While Ma may still hold the levers of power both within the party and in the government, the fact that even within the KMT many are criticizing him doesn't bode well for the remainder of his presidency.