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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Mike And The Mushy Middle 

...Mike Huckabee sounded the clarion call today for all True Believers to rally behind those core conservative values that are the only hope for bringing the Republic-Fascist Party back to power. Those of us who hope that the Republic-Fascist Party never in our lifetime comes back to power can only wish him the best of luck in this bit of political evangelism that he is pushing...

Show me a member of the Congress of the United States who decided to run on clearly stated conservative policies in any sort of swing-state or swing-district election, and the odds are really good that I can show you a person who these days has the word "former" attached to his legislative title. Even for those incumbents who try to step away from their own foul history, what is there to run on? Smaller government? Lower taxes? Gays, guns, and God? That hasn't been working too well for them in the last couple of election cycles and they've pretty much mined all the ore they are going to find out there in the electorate on those issues anyway. There really is such a thing as the Mushy Middle; it matters, despite the occasional insistence by commentators on either end of the political spectrum that it doesn't; and it clearly needs to stand up on its own hind feet and get a little respect. That Mushy Middle has been telling the Republic-Fascist party in various polls and elections since 2006 that it's out there and really hasn't been buying into those clearly stated conservative policies Repub's have been pushing but not implementing...

Obviously, the Mushy Middle is another name for moderates and the Repub's are edging up to the ragged edge of losing the only meaning they have in political life - the power of the Senate filibuster (at least theoretically) - because so many of the leader-wannabe's think that all of those moderates don't matter. Mike Wannabee has joined the right-wing chorus, insisting that what the American people are really hungering for is more talk about banning abortion, denying equal rights to gays and lesbians, and slashing the budget in order to get rid of all those pesky socialist programs that protect air and water and worker's rights and the opportunity to stave off the prospect of giving up the suburban rambler for a family-sized shopping cart underneath some federally-financed bridge in these desperate economic times that the Mushy Middle is confronting. I can't think of any better thing to do than send Mike an encouraging missive. You Go, Mike...
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:56 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 08, 2009

A Party In Search Of Its Own Rodney King 

...these days, the Republic-Fascist party is starting to look remarkably like the Los Angeles Police Department officers who were caught on tape making damned sure that convicted felon Rodney King didn't nurture any more thoughts about trying to evade pursuing officers in a car chase. For those who missed the credit roll, the weak-minded yet fervent "Base" of the Republic-Fascist party plays the role of the LAPD officers in this remake; anybody who looks anything like a moderate Republican plays the part of King himself, but - in a strange plot twist - Newt Gingrich has decided to take over all the "Rodney King" speaking roles (especially those uttered during those riots after that first acquittal) even though he has traditionally fought to get one of those really juicy LAPD roles...

Rodney King asked during the midst of the rioting "...can we all get along?" It's a question of forbearance and comity that would most appropriately come from someone who has the cred to raise the question as a result of being the target of a big-time professional stomp-down. In this odd remake of the failure of the Republican part to actually capture the imagination of the voting public, that question is now being asked by one of the leading architects of the very circumstances in which the current Republic-Fascist party now finds itself. Newt Gingrich was THE leader of the movement that took an axe to any of the ropes that lashed moderate Republicans to the base that he helped to create as the most important primary election voting block that the party would ever have. Now, in the deep vacuum of space created by the failure of the party to create or nurture anybody who passes as a 'leader' without provoking a powerful cringe reflex in the rest of the populace, Newt wants to step up to be that one healing force and sane voice calling for a more inclusive Republican party...

Seriously.
"I am happy that Dick Cheney is a Republican," Gingrich said at the annual Senate-House fundraising dinner. "I am also happy that Colin Powell is a Republican."

There isn't any better evidence than this that Newt sees an opening to the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Over the course of his Congressional career, you would have had to waterboard him to get him to say something like this, because Newt didn't during that time draw a breath the exhalation of which would result in the forming of such a sentence. He isn't an inclusive, embracing kind of guy...

Newt clearly wants to be the new "Kumbaya" guy for the Republic-Fascist party; sadly, for him, Newt isn't a guy who has been stomped into a mudhole in the debate over what the Republican party truly means. Newt can't be the party's Rodney King, no matter how hard he tries; he has too much history living on the wrong side of that particular set of tracks. But his effort to assume that role is going to be fun to watch...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:15 PM 0 comments

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Twitter In The Hands Of An Angry (Republican) God 

...the filibuster rules of the U.S. Senate will probably stand in the way, but I really think that there should probably be a law passed - for a couple of reasons - that bars members of that body from establishing Twitter profiles and sharing their personal thoughts with the rest of us. I offer as Exhibit No. 1 today's efforts by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R -Iowa), which are as follows:
Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL.

OK, so first of all, we are clearly able to see what the real burr is under Senator Grassley's saddle: President Obama is hangin' in Paris and Chuck isn't. Chuck is working overtime; he's even working weekends, although the plural is probably just a little overboard, given that the Senate just got back from a two-week break in honor of Memorial Day - which careful observers will note only grants some - but not all - regular taxpayers one single day off. But never mind that; Senator Grassley has his nose to the grindstone while the President is galavanting around some Frenchy place. The Honorable Gentleman is toiling away in the salt mines of legislative business after a too-short Memorial Day recesss - which followed an apparently too-short Easter recess - while some liberal young pretender to the throne is stylin' around taking in the sights in the City of Lights (I am confident that the 140-character limit for Tweets is all that prevented him from bringing up that date-night trip to New York City)...

The other problem with Grassley stepping out onto the raw cutting edge of communication technology is the very real risk that his constituents will tumble to the conclusion that - at the very least - he has thumbs too thick to allow him to be trusted with the people's business. I mean, set aside for a minute the whole idea that he could get all pissed off at a president of the other party commenting on health care and decide - solely for reasons of pique - that he is no longer interested in playing nice with the other kids in the most superannuated day care center in the history of the world. In any sort of real world, that kind of tantrum is the type of thing that gets you sent off to the Loser's Lunch Table in the cafeteria to sit with the kids who made too much of a big deal about all their on-line World of Warcraft victories scored on Prom Night. That isn't the sort of emotion worthy of a United States Senator, so never mind that, either; that's probably not what he was getting at, right?

We should focus instead on his raw abilities when it comes to sending tweets. On this point, Chuck comes close to Epic Fail. The brave new world of text-based Intertubes communication relies first and foremost on spelling and punctuation. Thick thumbs get in the way of that First Principle, and these Tweets suggest that, pouting and partisan gameplaying aside, Chuck Grassley should probably hand his CrackBerry over to one of his assistants. These most recent Twitter entries may express his true feelings, but they represent a failure of articulation in the online world that would embarrass a 14-year-old. It is hard to rally anybody other that the committed base to a particular position if you are going to rely on Twitter posts that make you sound like some out-of-control 'tweener who's parents won't be likely to notice all the missing bottles in the liquor cabinet after tonight's date night when you were left alone and in charge...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:24 PM 0 comments

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