This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If Lewis Carroll thought he created an unmatched trio of illogical characters with confounding arguments when heroine Alice attended that strange tea party, it's too bad he isn't around to see what real life tea-party types are pitching today.
The head-scratching nonsense spewed by the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse in Carroll's 1865 classic about "Wonderland" was no more bewildering that the rhetoric from Utah Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart and Sen. Orrin Hatch.
Oh, and let's not forget Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
For example, you'll recall the scene in which Alice sits at the table and then tries to decipher the gibberish coming out of the mouths of her hosts.
"Have some wine," the March Hare says to Alice.
"I don't see any wine," she responds.
"There isn't any," he answers.
"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" offers the Hatter.
And the Dormouse wakes up to fashion a story about three sisters living at the bottom of a "treacle well" that had no connection to the already ridiculous conversation.
Now compare that to recent rhetorical calisthenics undertaken by the aforementioned GOP politicians trying to explain why actions taken by their political allies are so righteous when similar decisions made by Democrats when they were in power were so despicable.
Let's start with McConnell.
He had nothing but praise for the airstrikes Republican President Donald Trump ordered against a Syrian air base in response to chemical weapons brutally dropped on civilian populations in that Middle East nation.
But McConnell criticized Democratic President Barack Obama for proposing in 2013 that the U.S. launch airstrikes against Syria after a similar gasing of civilians.
When asked about the difference, McConnell said Trump's attack was "well-executed, went right to the heart of the matter, which is using chemical weapons. So, had I seen that — that kind of approach by President Obama, I'm sure I would've signed up." But McConnell said then-Secretary of State John Kerry described Obama's proposed military strike as "like a pinprick" that would not have "any great consequence"
But FactCheck.org noted that what Obama proposed was similar to the assault undertaken by Trump. In a televised address, the Democratic commander in chief called for "a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities. The United States military doesn't do pinpricks."
Syria sent warplanes out of the same airstrip the following day after the Trump-ordered strikes, which used an estimated $60 million worth of Tomahawk cruise missiles. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said there is no follow-up plan.
That's well-thought-out?
"You should say what you mean," the March Hare told Alice.
"I do," Alice replied. "At least I mean what I say — that's the same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see.' "
"You might just as well say," added the March Hare, "that 'I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like.' "
"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe.' "
So now let's apply those sensibilities to Hatch, who bemoaned the Democrats' filibuster of Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, after supporting dozens of similar maneuvers against Obama's judicial picks.
Hatch also backed the "nuclear option" that did away with filibusters for Supreme Court appointments while lamenting the Democrats' use of that tactic for lower-court nominees when they had the majority.
The difference? Well,the Republican appointees are the good guys, and the Democrats' nominees are the bad guys.
Chaffetz, of course, has used his position as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to go after Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails, Planned Parenthood and the use of PBS children's cartoon characters while being reluctant to investigate Russia's tampering in the U.S. election.
And Stewart? First, he said any suggestion that the intelligence community was investigating any ties between Russian hacking and the Trump campaign was "BS," and he knew because he was on the House Intelligence Committee. Then, when it was confirmed that such an investigation was underway, he blamed his ignorance on Obama.
Stewart also said there was no reason Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes should recuse himself from the Russian hacking investigation — even after it was revealed that the California Republican had conspired with White House officials to disseminate information intended to exonerate Trump's hokey assertions that Obama had him wiretapped.
"What a funny watch," Alice told the Hatter. "It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is."
"Why should it?" said the Hatter. "Does your watch tell you what year it is?"