Why Republicans Fail at Government

Congressman Mark Meadows of the North Carolina 11th Congressional District became a major instigator and cheer-leader for last year's government shutdown, which cost his own national-park-heavy congressional district millions of $$ in tourism.

Asheville Citizen-Times columnist John Boyle was in on an interview with Mr. Meadows last week and tried to pin down the congressman on his current thoughts about the wisdom of shutting down the government. Makes for a very interesting column.

Boyle's lede:

Well, I guess he sort of, grudgingly, reluctantly — with a hint of “maybe I did it, maybe I didn’t” and a dash of “wild horses dragged me into it” — owned it.

Republicans hate government, but when they try to destroy it or mangle its operations, they run away like Monty Python players when they succeed in their agenda:

Last fall, CNN tagged Meadows, a freshman legislator, as the “architect of the brink,” a reference to a letter Meadows penned last August in which he suggested to Republican Party leaders that they work to dismantle Obamacare by cutting off federal funding .... Meadows got 79 fellow House members to sign it, forwarded it to House leadership, then ran from it like it was a nuclear bomb once it went off and federal campgrounds, parks and picnic areas shut down, costing dependent business owners and vacationing Americans millions of dollars.

GOP conservatives hate government, especially government run by a black man, which makes them terminally inept at running government, and they're unfailingly mendacious about admitting their true motives.

Incidentally, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx did not sign the Meadows letter calling for the government shutdown. But she did vote against ending the government shutdown on October 15, 2013, thus upholding her extremist credentials.