The Devil You Know
Portland, from Alameda, on the other side of town....
Watching President Obama’s Q & A with the Republicans Friday, it became starkly plain why entertaining any notion of “bipartisanship” in Washington is so colossally dumb that the very mention of the word ought to bring in a hail of derisive laughter and rotten vegetables. Bipartisanship, as practiced by the Republicans, means “do what we say or else,” and it’s exactly the same whether they’re in power or out. A baby could understand this, but none of the gasbags who are overpaid to ruminate on these issue seems to. (Mama, don’t let your baby grow up to be David Gregory….) Lo and behold, it might finally be dawning on our President that this is the case, and he finally let them have it (with laudable gentleness, considering).
It is just not possible to govern a country when the minority party devoutly believes that the party in power is illegitimate and fundamentally unfit to govern, and publicly says so, every day. The gasbags and righties will quickly point out that people said the same things about Bush, but to compare the two is ludicrous; Bush fulfilled the furthest right’s wildest dreams on an almost daily basis, with predictable results, and Obama has alienated “the left” nearly as often. The mildest anti-Bush comments were all but banned from the media amid stern denunciations, and Obama’s bland, centrist approach nonetheless has people loudly calling him a commie/fascist/what have you, hourly, from coast to coast. As Obama attempted to point out, such rhetoric leaves them little bargaining power, but that doesn’t matter to them because they don’t do bargaining. They consider Democratic dominance to be an unfortunate aberration they can just wait out, as they turn to dirtier and dirtier tricks to undermine it.
It’s no coincidence that the Manichean politics as practiced by Ailes, Rove, and the gang have their roots in the Nixon Administration. In many ways, Nixon personified the emerging Republican psychosis that plagues us to this day: paranoid, resentful, xenophobic, authoritarian, anti-intellectual, vengeful, soulless, venal, and reflexively deceitful. Both Bush and Nixon had great difficulty concealing these traits, and their popularity suffered for it, which is probably the main reason the Republicans are still so enamored of Reagan; he fooled a lot more people a lot more of the time than those creeps did. And fooling people is the one thing Republicans do well; that’s why they have invested so heavily in the media in the post-Watergate era.
Of course, there are a lot of things Republicans can’t do: win wars, balance budgets, protect natural resources, maintain infrastructure, respond to disasters, or pretty much anything else you thought you had a government to do. These glaring deficiencies would, in a functioning democracy, make getting elected somewhat more difficult, but when you have dozens of “think tanks,” hundreds of radio and television stations, and a whole “News” network dedicated to pumping out spin and garbage in your favor 24/7, not impossibly so. Because of the fundamental unpopularity of their program, which is nothing more than looting the treasury to reward their friends, Republicans must continually create disasters at home and abroad, then patiently explain that that’s where all the money went. ”More will than wallet,” as Dubya’s father once solemnly intoned with feigned regret as he cancelled one social program or the other. For Republicans, a wrecked economy is the best kind, because it make the rabble so much less uppity.
Another lesson learned from Watergate was the handling of the inevitable crimes required to maintain Republican governance. Destroying the independence of the federal judiciary and getting rid of “goo-goo” prosecutors turns out to be an awfully handy fallback when you’re caught spying illegally, disenfranchising voters, or using federal agencies to “screw your enemies.” Determined to avoid the type of fiasco the Nixon tapes created, the Bush Administration immediately set up a dual communications system to leave no trace of their criminality where some nosy judge might find it.
Basically, what we have here is a party, comprising a substantial minority of Americans, that either believes or has been taught that their particular ideology is the only one permissible even if the majority disagrees, and thus have no interest in compromise. To gain and hold power, they will lie, cheat and steal, and once they have it, they dedicate themselves to any means necessary to make it permanent. They don’t believe in Democracy, which becomes most apparent when they’re out of power and still demanding to control the agenda, regardless of its rejection by the voters.
So far, Obama has given in to them on the worst parts of their program; the wars continue, torture and other crimes will not be prosecuted, and it seems likely that at least some of the ruinous tax cuts Bush rammed through might survive relatively unaltered when their phony “expiration date” comes up. Still, they aren’t satisfied. You see, in the closed loop of spin in which they live, Obama is a socialist/fascist/usurper and their flimsy slogans masquerading as ideas are holy writ, and every stupid thing they say is unassailable truth because Glenn Beck said so. What an unpleasant surprise it must have been for them to stand up and bark the same old horseshit that reliably wows the teabaggers, and find themselves looking like the vindictive know-nothings that they are when a much smarter and more reasonable individual, the President, was able to answer them for a change. The horrifying image they’d been seeing and conjuring up for others turned out to be their own reflection in the mirror, once again.
Fox had to cut away in horror, and some Republicans were so gobsmacked that for a moment they forgot to lie and ruefully admitted that televising the exchange was “a mistake.” I’ll say. A mistake I wouldn’t be expecting them to make again.
All those years of controlling the government, kid-glove treatment in the media, and the freedom to lie without consequence has left them completely incapable of arguing any subject on its actual merits, as they were reminded Friday, booklet notwithstanding. More stunningly, even the media noticed. Their overconfidence at this point is probably just that; more of Karl Rove’s “Math.” If that’s all they’ve got, bring it on.
The spectacle of Obama breezily and artfully smacking down one Republican Bot after another repeating their ancient facile talking points was, although fun to watch and hear, frustrating. Frustrating because the ‘Concern Trolls’ are forever giving Obama – or whomever has a say in things besides the Republican Party jimolts and the talking head nimrods on TV and radio and the Wapo editorial page – the excuse that all of the above will ‘go crazy’ if Obama or whomever does or says this or that. I’ve always exasperatingly but simply said that all that need to happen is for for Obama – or whomever – to make their case. If they can do that then all else will follow. Obama happens to be extremely capable of doing that. So after a year, or more if you include all the way back to telecom immunity, of laying down and being a door mat I have to conclude that Obama has more than likely been disingenuous all along rather than afraid to move things in a much more constructive direction. His ability to slap them around is encouraging, his refusal to do so or his decision to not do so, repeatedly, all of this time is what has frustrated me and does still concern me about where he intends to take things.
Did you suggest the Republicans are babies?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-30/how-to-handle-gop-tantrums/?cid=hp:mainpromo2
Very cute article; My friend Rebecca, whose son just turned four, did all of those things. Maybe that’s it… the Family Values Party all had bad parents.
They had authoritarian parenting that inevitably results in insecure adults who refuse to accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions. Thus blame, shame, hypocrisy, revenge and worse become the norm.
Unfortunately, in the hothouse of the media, these poisonous flowers thrive. Lies and truth get equal billing, and they know it. Judging by what’s slated for the bobbleheads today, Friday’s little episode changed nothing. All talk will be the usual “Democrats in disarray; Republicans on the upswing.”
Well there’s an old saying I picked up in one of my language classes along the lines of: eloquence invites no rebuttal.
But that can only occur I suppose in a hothouse where it’s assumed intellectual honesty is present and active. Truly rare air in a political environment.
So Obama, while standing head and shoulders above the midgets he dealt with Friday, has to fudge too. Disingenuousness and dissembling are tools in the game they play, like feinting to get to the goal line.
But then …
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/01/31/easy__true/
Thanks for that article. I just briefly scanned it and will definitely devour it later. Obama pointed out at the end of the House Retreat event, the guy who is most responsible for all the simplistic, very effective framing sitting in the audience, Frank Luntz. I have watched Luntz on c-span and he seems to be a warm and genuine guy. Unfortunately, the Repugs realized his genius and the damage he has wrought is why the latest version of Nixon style governing becomes even more disgusting and destructive. Here’s Wikipedia on Luntz:
Frank I. Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political consultant and pollster. His most recent work has been with the Fox News Channel as a frequent commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups after presidential debates. Luntz’ specialty is “testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz
Obama pointed out the focus groups that Luntz uses to determine his words (framing). This how Luntz explains it:
“Focus groups and interviews are an important part of the process for finding the right words and phrases. In an article in The New Yorker Luntz is quoted as saying, “The way my words are created is by taking the words of others — average Americans, not politicians. I’ve moderated an average of a hundred plus focus groups a year over five years… I show them language that I’ve created. Then I leave a line for them to create language for me.”
But it’s a false Manicheanism when you peek behind the Curtain.
Obama’s Question Time with the Republicans was a means for him to join up with them, and for him to explain that he’s really with them. He’s not an ideologue. What they want is what he wants. They just have different paths to get to the same place, and he was defending his path against their calls to go some other way. That’s what “politics” is about in this country. The Mechanics of getting from point A to point B. Whether to do it Nice or to do it Ugly.
The debate over the destination and the merits thereof is almost absent. Where it occurs typically is only on the margins, among what pass for Social Democrats — some of whom actually have a different and more humane desitination in mind, and on a different level among the frothier TeaBaggers whose destination is the Risen Dixie.
Time after time, when he’s given in, there was no real contest. Obama said something the howler monkeys didn’t like — almost always about process — they send the Cheneys out to smashmouth the process and the patriotism of the Commander In Chief, and wahlah, Obama says, “OK then, you’re right, I didn’t mean it, I was too dumb to know better, thanks for all your courtesy and advice.” There was no defense from Obama at all, just a capitulation. And there’s a capitulation because there’s no disagreement on destination. Just how to get there and the optics of doing it.
Obama needs to do a Question Time with the Progressive Caucus and the Black Caucus, among some others. That’s where you’ll see the debate over destinations. So far, the White House has only offered the back of its hand to the people they really should be hooking up with.
Of course, it’s much less satisfying for Obama to take on lying dolts than it would be for him to take on his erstwhile supporters on the left, and far more damaging to him, too, for just the reasons you cite. I don’t think Nixon really believed that, say, Ed Muskie was a subversive, any more than George Bush thought John Kerry was a traitor. Demonization is how they play their game, even though they know that the outcomes won’t be that different.
Where the right has been successful, though, is in branding modern democratic socialism, as practiced in most of the developed word, as something to fear…. That argument keeps getting more threadbare as the US economy continues to decline, but it is still holding firmly on the TV.
Consider: a longtime friend of mine said last night that Obama had no right to criticize the Supreme Court while giving a speech before a joint session of Congress.
We’re still longtime friends and always will be.
He runs a construction company near Boston and is very much a CEO type. He self-identifies as a Republican, and with Scott Brown. He’s Irish Catholic but was always of two minds about Ted. Coakley was irrelevant to him.
I don’t identify as anything politically, but, rather than starting a fight over his critique of Obama, I just said, “C’mon” – and suggested Alito might have been out of line, while, for a nanosecond and as a guest of the House, becoming a bobble-headed nattering nabob.
So who’s right?
I think I am on procedural grounds, but, what of that?
Well, the gravity of the decision must be taken into account, along with the right-wing judicial activism the court’s majority is displaying. Ever since Bush v. Gore, the conservatives on the court have pretty much pissed away their presumption of disinterest, and Alito was just putting that on display. Because the decision had just occurred, and on an accelerated schedule for the 2010 elections, it was a hot political issue Obama had every right to decry. How many times did Bush and Tom DeLay excoriate “activist judges?” Too many to count.
I understand, pal o’ mine.
This to me is a blind spot, expressed by someone I know well and love as a friend – an example, I think, of an unwillingness to hold the Republicans to account for any of the recent history you cite.
The exception of Alito’s behavior proves the rule, or the assumption, that no matter how high the bonfire, Republicans don’t carry matches and therefore cannot do wrong, or be made liable for anything – even while they were in charge.
Lots of luck trying to convey sweet reason in such a situation.
I’m not sure that Obama wants to get to the same point as Repugs. Maybe I don’t understand what you see that point being. He does understand suffering because he saw a lot of it as a child, especially in Indonesia. It takes a lot of ego to gain the presidency. I believe and his lack of fighting back against the Repugs and their tactics does not dissuade me from my gut feelings, that his heart is in the right place and he truly does want to help those who need it most. That is not the case for the selfish, insecure Repugs. So that end point is not the same to me.
Obama does have his emotions too much under raps. I totally agree that he has given in on far too many issues. The most recent example really pisses me off and later today or tomorrow I am going to do a post on that. That issue is DADT and to further delay this hateful homophobic policy for years really pisses me off.
I would think his only point in giving them their due is to continue to offer the olive branch of bipartisanship, at least pro forma and in public. But a year of that has borne no fruit.
I hope he starts fighting and knocking some heads now. Get on with it. He seemed to signal that a bit in Friday’s exchange. He still has majority power. If he doesn’t get tougher, even as likable as he is, and even with his Horatio Alger story or whatever, he will simply be their enabler. They’re sensing that no doubt.
I like him and do think his heart’s in the right place. He had the “fire in the belly” to get elected. But does he have the same fire to govern on promises he made?
I’m with you on DADT. Over the side with that.
I have forfeited several good friendships over politics, never mind not speaking to several siblings and my parents about politics at all. I don’t have any good friends right now who are republicans.
I guess you have to pick your battles – or what hill you’re willing to die on. Right now, more than ten, fifteen years ago, I can’t compromise with Republicans at all. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who votes republican or supports the current status quo with the republicans or touts the party lies is a persona non grata.
And nice knowin’ ya.
I’m with you on that one…. For a long time, I have refused to work for Republicans, because they always try to rip you off, and as far as having a political discussion; forget it. The things they believe are just to bonkers for me to entertain; and most are deeply steeped in all the talking points, so they always think they’re winning, just like Bill O’Reilly.
Life’s too short for that.
It’s difficult, though, when practically all of your relatives are on the other side.
Except for my wife and me, just about everyone at our holiday family gatherings are hardcore Fox News Republicans. They’re great people and we love them to death, but they all suffer from what my logic professor once called “hardening of the categories.” They’re unable to see beyond their own talking points. We learned long ago to just stay quiet during after-dinner political discussions.
It’s called maintaining domestic tranquility.
I guess the difference is that in my family, the righties are my aunt and uncle, whom I despised even as a child, and have only seen a dozen times or so since I became an adult. When they left my mother’s funeral I felt pretty confident that I’d never have to see them again, and it was a great feeling on a very sad day.
My dad is the other righty, and since he was an utterly absent father until I was in my 20′s, we don’t bother to fight about things. (Unlike my aunt and uncle, he’s also funny and smart, so I can put up with one dinner and two phone calls a year….)
What was the most difficult for me in keeping my feelings from escaping my mouth, something people who know me will say is not often, was when my military peers talked about those fags. I never held back when defending blacks or women, but I did on expressed homophobia because I feared for my safety and I knew there would be no communication possible.
Gotcha, Steve: dial down the dissonance. Still, such “foolish consistency” rankles, doesn’t it?
Sure does!
OT but hilarious… Jason Linkin’s Huffpo account of the Scott Brown/Barbara Walters interview. I recommend it highly.
Here’s the link:
TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/31/tv-soundoff-sunday-talkin_n_443488.html
“One Thousand Points of Bullshit”
It’s funny, though… After Dubya ol’ Pappy seems almost charming, although I of course hated him at the time. Never was there a slimier, sneakier politician than he, but he managed to usually not behave like a total asshole, something his son had a lot more trouble with. “He was slightly less embarrassing than Reagan or Dubya” would make a nice epitaph.
Who can forget his violent claim, in debate, that Dukakis was a “card-carrying member of the ACLU!!”
good times, good times…
Barfing on the Japanese Prime Minister was my personal favorite…
Along with Luntz, Roger Ailes is another major framing figure (monster with no heart). He made a totally false claim about the nonsense and murderous claims his underling Glenn Beck spews and HuffPo found the truth. Ailes is extremely dangerous to America even more than The Dick was.
Roger Ailes On “This Week”: Defends Glenn Beck, Insists Fox Is No Longer At War With Obama
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/31/roger-ailes-on-this-week_n_443555.html
That guy is a total creep; and I don’t think he believes anything he says (or his network says, for that matter…), and imagine any other network head going on a talk show to launch a partisan attack. He doesn’t even care if no one believes in “fair and balanced” anymore. None of these people bother to hide what they’re doing, anymore, and I think that’s relatively new.
Here is where Obama is going after his Retreat appearance as expressed by Axelrod on MTP today. The price for playing politics instead of getting things done for the people will be very high. So now everytime the Repugs say “no,” this point will be made. Obama has put Repugs in a box through his State of the Union and Retreat appearances that they will find very hard to escape from if they decide to not actually try and get something done.
Axelrod: People will punish either party if they play politics instead of helping them
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/35169560#35168990
From rmp‘s Huffpo link re:
Ailes on Beck
Must remember to add that to my resume.
Kitt, yeah, that was my major concern with Obama. Thought he put that to rest during the campaign. Then he returned to go-along-to-get-along modeonce he was in. Did that a little Fiday, with the repeated my-side-too false equivalence comments .
OT , slighly, speaking of D. Gregory & similar, :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131/ap_on_re_us/us_shortened_school_year
Holy Fail-to-connect-the-dots “News”man.
Re working for dyed-n-the-wool GOPers, that’s included all but 1 (a current one), seems to be an occupational hazard of ownership.
The boss emeritus , ‘from ’99-’06, the most so, & schizophrenic racist*tm too (the sons? – rt-leaning,Bush-doubting, mostly apolitical) , but whatever else you could say, they were completely honest & generous financially.
* I’ll explain that, if need be, some other time.
I’ve had a few like that, but the exception seems to prove the rule. The only real cheats I’ve ever met were righties (often religious, too…), and a couple of other guys in the industry here share that view. I think it’s the superiority complex built into righty dogma that fuels this. They’re Darwinists, “but only socially.”
Pure Dorothy Parker. The Hag is a wag — which is why I hang out here, drink in hand.
As for the topic of the post, I kept thinking the whole the time: He really is a smartfella, isn’t he? A splendid specimen of The Best and the Brightest. Still, if we find ourselves trussed up on a barge, headed downriver, it’ll be Barack H. Obama’s signature on the bill of sale, not some idiot teabagger’s.
I consider myself a dedicated connoisseur of irony, but surely this has to be beyond the appreciation of mere mortals.
I was thinking of that scene in “Postcards from the Edge,” where Shirley MacLaine is in a dark house, alone with a magnum of wine, no eyebrows, and twelve disheveled hairs sticking out of her head, and she says. “I drink (hic)… socially.” If anyone caught it I thought it would be you.
Yes, ol’ BO is a showman, and a pretty good one, too, after that road talent we put up with for eight years, but not a lot else so far.
I’m the first to recognize that the GOP often fails to function as would, say, the “loyal opposition” in the UK, and often fails to really bargain in good faith, but, you know, there are stinkers on all sides, and all this blanket condemnation of the GOP does illustrate the oft illiberal prejudices lurking inside some of us supposedly open-minded progressives.
Let us, then, try for a more honest reckoning, and let us open our minds and cast aside such categorical calumny.
Brothers and sisters, if we are to live up to our own liberal ideals, then we must acknowledge the not insignificant portion of the GOP who are reasonable and willing to join hands for the greater good.
For instance, there’s the YRFB (Young Republicans For Bipartisanship) and I found a link to a training session, by own of their up-and-coming young organizers, from their recent symposium on “How To Talk To A Democrat.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQYjZc7gKXc
As you can see, they’re not unreasonable, and they say that maybe we can all compromise and get together and see the “big picture”.
Peace.
“I’m not a monster; well technically I am.” That was very cute…. I’ve heard the song before, but not with that particularly performance artist. (Could James O’Keefe move like that? I doubt it.)
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There is a curtain Bushbutcher41 hides behind and it is Dumbya. All the atrocities by, and hate at, Dumbya, are undeserved. He is an empty vessel, zero sentience. Vegetable walking. Probably broccoli, as we heard Bushbutcher41 hatesHatesHATES broccoli … so all the campesios in Cali sent him tons. And he hatesHateHATES ne’er-do-nothin’ Number 1 zilch-o son. Got this psycho-sick reverse-Oedipal thing going on. Every move, every pose, every breath the last 8 years was by direct order of The Monster, Bushbutcher41. Dumbya had nothing to do with it.
And I agree “110%” with Ché Pasa. Prez-O is one of ‘them.’ Below, at length, is a behind-the-curtain spy of it, (the situation), as seen by spies, yes, those in the know, colloquially known as the ‘intelligence community.’ They should know, they’ve got the cancelled checks Prez-O signed and cashed.
First, then, the prospects ahead. Prez-O was installed, (same as Dumbya, by the Rulers of the World and their hireling: the computer programmer of Touch-the-TV voting machines, where whoever is pre-selected is ‘elected’), and he is smooth oil poured on the troubled waters; a place-marker; stepping and fetching but wearing the Presidential Seal — how coooool is THAT! Probably the designed melodrama has his dance card penciled in for a second term; again, a two-fer: BECAUSE his ‘appearance’ is a placebo for the many ‘mentals’ who yearn to believe voting counts, AND he placates the risible who threaten actual ‘doing muscle’ that can Watts again all over, coast-to-coast. None dare call him out … who call him their preferred ‘choice.’
The bust of the whole thing could be a strategy (which succeeds) to run a candidate to the ‘left’ of Prez-O, in the primaries, in 2012. And beat him. Then things could be repaired. Once the RotW lose their puppet in The Fright House, then anything can happen. Yes it can. Including, particularly, prosecuting Dumbya’s gang. Simply wait out Prez-O’s one term and then get back, and down, to business. (1924-born B.butcher41 likely is gone by then, or gonzo.) The statute of limitations ain’t gonna limit nothing of what is prosecutable. And for instance: (some foreshadowing of what’s to follow), the Wayne Madsen Report (dot COM) (quoted below) has another attack also underway in developing the suppressed story from 1980-1, about the logistics of the Raygun/B.butcher missiles-for-hostages affair with Iran, (which is treason itself, but), in which B.butcher ordered (since Ronnie Bobblehead was out to lunch that day) the murder of the 34 crewmen of the SS Poet freighter off the coast of Oman coming out of the Straits of Hormuz after the missiles drop ‘mission accomplished’ in Iran … the crew knew too much … Israeli warplanes swooped over, sighted ship, sank same premeditated as ordered. Key element in the story — come a’haunting — is that murder has no statute of limitations and Ol’ Number 41 has started quaking and shaking at his exposure of what’s come up out of Davy Jones’s locker. Those ‘intelligence community’ dudes got a long looonnnnnng memory … and the paperwork documents. (Furthermore in the drama, B.butcher41 has plans in motion to ‘disappear’ the CIA, in a pincer move between decrementing the funding down a 10(?)-year glidepath, while simultaneously outsourcing the ‘activities and responsibilities,’ to such newly-created (how con-veeeen-ient) trick-tropes as TSA, DHS, NIA, ICE, oh, on-and-on, stuff no one can keep track of. And as disappears the CIA, so disappears all the files fingering Ol’ Number 41. Meaning: veteran Patriot-Serious ‘cold warriors’ got a motive against B.butcher41′s scheme — namely, to put a Stop to that! … hence, the divulging of juicy dark secrets coming to light these days, 2005-12, say.)
– Maybe don’t ‘fall for’ believing all this right away, in a single swallow, just allow it for the sake of open-minded consideration and then watch events to come, and many already seen, and when no other explanation for all the screwiness seems to satisfy any known logic, then revisit the simplemindedness of: 1) Rulers of the World, 2) following the leadership of B.butcher41 (who in turn is controlled by the Royal Family of Saud), and 3) arrayed against the institution of the CIA; that’s all there is to it, (plus a deep-background dossier, here: The Secret Team.)
Now this: An full report (with sequel) of Prez-O’s intern years ‘inside’ the ‘intelligence community.’ He was one of ‘them’ then. In the job they say you can NEVER retire from … or, you can, but not in any condition where you could cash some pension checks … actually, not in any condition with a pulse. I put most or all of this here because otherwise no one sees it — W.M.R. (dot COM) is subscription-only access and although it’s inexpensive ($30/yr), the blogger bunch (generation Zzzz) can’t be bothered to wake up and check into it. Please forgive, dear Hagness, such bandwidth brutishness. (Oh, btw, I mentioned in other places how the Mars retrograde swells anger in Leos and Aquariuses? well, Prez-O at the GOP Retreat is Exhibit A of that Leo ‘seeming’ angry, and likely, truly was ‘feeling it.’) Now, Wayne Madsen on the subject:
A dizzying tizzy, n’est-ce pace!
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As much as I’ve ruined it this far — I am sorry, CH — if I pour two more wasteful tangents here it kind of confines the damage to this one thread.
One is silly serious. Ideally it could be Prez-O but whoever someone should move a nonpartisan apolitical Bill forward for votes — a sort of ‘practice run’ or ‘rehearsal’ to get the feel of bipartisan behavior using an inconsequential matter ‘crash dummy’ where no one cares what the vote result is. It just so happens I’ve got that issue right here — neither Dem nor Rep:
Repeal Daylight Savings Time
Setting the clocks away from true time is living a lie. True time is Noon when an obelisk casts its shortest shadow. Use true time all the time — Repeal FALSE D.S.T. — no more living a lie.
(Plan B compromise: This year ‘Spring ahead’ only half-an-hour.)
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Two is a sequel to the long Wayne Madsen Report (.COM) item above, the sequel I promised and forgot to include. It goes like this:
Sheesh. There’s talk, and then there’s walk.
http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2010/02/03/matthews_and_olbermann_now_openly_fighting_over_obama
Ah, you really are a connoisseur of fine writing, and in nice big print, too.
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