As a rule, ideologues are blinded by their devotion, but I'm continuously impressed by the GOP's ability to ignore all inconvenient facts, like the Congressional Budget Office's projections on health-care reform:
Rescinding the federal law to overhaul the health-care system, the first objective of House Republicans who ascended to power this week, would ratchet up the federal deficit by about $230 billion over the next decade and leave 32 million more Americans uninsured, according to congressional budget analysts.
With equal speed, Boehner and other House Republicans repudiated the forecast of the nonpartisan CBO, saying that its analysts had relied on flawed assumptions they had been provided by Democrats. "CBO is entitled to their opinion," Boehner declared at his first news conference as speaker.
So, there is no data and there are no facts, only opinion and belief. The nonpartisan budget office doesn't agree that health-care reform is a job-killing, deficit-busting monstrosity? Well, the GOP says, their "facts" are just Democratic spin.
Liberals are sometimes attacked for their supposed "moral relativism," but Republicans have cornered the market on postmodernism as political strategy. From health-care reform and global warming to immigration and the financial crisis (where poor minorities are still the official culprits), the Republican narrative has little room for facts or empirical data. Opinion reigns, and realities are purely subjective. As long as John Boehner believes that the Affordable Care Act will crush the budget and grind its bones into dust, then it must be true.
-- Jamelle Bouie
