Several regular readers chided me today for not having posted anything regarding the election. I owe it to all of you to give you a place to vent, rant or whine as you see fit. I, however, have little to say.It seems to me that not much changed. Once gain we’ve swapped one batch of fools for another in this perpetual overtime game between the party-that-is-against-spending-any-money-on-anything-except-themselves versus the party-that-is-incapable-of-doing-anything-right.
The only interesting thing I read or heard about the election was Maureen Dowd’s column in the Times this morning. Buckle your seat belts – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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"...this perpetual overtime game between the party-that-is-against-spending-any-money-on-anything-except-themselves versus the party-that-is-incapable-of-doing-anything-right."
Wait - which is which?
Personally, I am watching this play out with wide-eyed optimism. Here's to 'change'!
I, the eternal optimist, find myself pessimistic. I'm so sick of everyone rallying around "change." Isn't that what we rallyed around 2 years ago? And every other election cycle? In the wide-eyed enthusiasm for change...what are we changing? Nothing. Just people. Why don't we rally around a healthier economy, jobs for people, the environment, innovation....this "change" rally is a baseless cry that simply says..."my guys in; your guys out." I think the next few years will be an unproductive fight over ideaology. I hope I'm wrong. The bright spot is, however...Palin's "star"candidates lost. Even though many she endorsed won.
The results were about as predicted but for a party that controls the media the Democrats do a crappy job of communicating.
I am most taken that 62% of Americans believe that Obama has already raised taxes. There were actually modest tax cuts in the stimulus.
Most people believe the stimulus caused us to have the highest deficit ever...the downturn in the economy and the on going Bush tax cuts would have caused that also, the stimulus just made it higher.
George Bush turned a surplus into the largest deficit in history. He invaded two countries and systematically tortured prisoners. He refused to follow court orders to produce documents in the detainee trials claiming national security.
Pelosi got the health care plan and stimulus through Congress, after that I'm hard pressed to immediately think of another thing she did, yet she was despised and we want to go back to the Bush days.
At least the GOP leaders were honest, the goal of the next two years is to insure Obama does not have a second term.
Good to see in the longest down turn since the depression Capitol Hill is already focused on what matters most...keeping the power.
If you live long enough, life should wear you out. Politics are a reminder. A soap opera. Characters change, the plot twists but plods relentlessly towards the horizon. Tune back in 20 years later and it still plows the same fields, hitting all the same rocks, but from different angles.
Might I call attention to our founding fathers and their disastrous spawn, our country and its documents. Venerated by both the wise and foolish, our system appears to function on all cylinders in prosperity. But is one big dysfunctional family when poverty comes thru the door. If you can't argue facts, argue the law, if you can't argue the law, just argue. If you just listen to one side, it all makes sense. If you drink out of different wells you will choke on hypocrisy.
No one wants to take out the garbage. I'm getting that sinking feeling that I am going to spend my golden years in an economic depression being preached to by fools.
Maureen Dowd has always made me uncomfortable. Her columns are always filled with bitchy,cruel comments that seem more like tabloid gossip. She reminds me of the insecure "Mean Girls" in high school who criticized and demeaned the uncool in an effort to make themselves feel better about their own empty lives. Even her photograph is threatening. As a result, I have had great difficulty appreciating any of her columns.
You could be on to something with Dowd. She was a friend of my sister-in-law when they were at Catholic University. She was at the wedding but I don't remember her at all, alcohol could have been involved.
If she was a good enough friend to be invited, I'm sure she must have been an ass, the rest of her friends were.
My brother has since remarried.
@ Carolina -- excellent point.
@ Woody -- you don't have to like her to see the point she's making. we're on a never ending merry-go-round.
@ KG -- yeah, the liberal media snatched another defeat from the jaws of victory.
Or, in the words of many nutbags but immortalized by MoDo: man up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
I avoided reading Maureen Dowd when she was in her cynical parody period. She has moved on to a more rational style. Her immediate family was police. She does have a point of view.
Back to the topic on hand. I can see how disappointed the President must feel. He did deliver a health care bill, however gutted and warped its final form may be. This is not to say it is unworkable. However, what he campaigned on and delivered was overshadowed by the economy. Add the negative spin placed on campaigning with an unhappy and underemployed electorate and suddenly the emperor is naked. Thomas Friedman was correct in creating jobs in developing alternative energy sectors. The backlash, funded by special interests pushed the national psyche towards a return to "American Values," in essence a reaffirmation of the "covenant." But the world has moved on and demographics of technology and commerce have slammed the door on tactics which are akin to what Iran is doing: trying to put the genie back into the bottle. Leadership needs to envision where we what to be and how to get there. Unfortunately, slaying the unholy does little to bring us to where we want to be. Populism has its limits. It is like the pain felt when the finger gets caught in the door.
If Boehner and McConnell are telling the truth, I suspect the next two years will be awful.
It strikes me as indefensible to announce that your goal over the next two years is to insure that Obama is a one term President.
What is the surefire way to defeat Obama? It would be that the economy is no better or even worse than today.
One of the reasons the GOP would not support the stimulus was because if it worked they'd get no credit and if it didn't they could blame Obama and the Democrats. That strategy got them the house back. If the goal is the white house back where it belongs in GOP hands, then they should work to make sure that nothing gets better between now and 2012.
@ KG: the GOP will be walking a tightrope with this strategy. If they really look like they aren't trying to make a positive contribution independents will notice and may swing back. It could be like Truman in '48. You remember? Weren't you in grad school back then?
Nice shot at KG Dennis. Very subtle. I could say something about glass houses but I'll save that for another day. Unless and until the republicans how they are going to pay for re-upping the Bush tax cuts, I really can't take anything they say as any more than electioneering bulls**t.
I agree with KG that it's one thing to have getting the white house back as your primary strategy. It's quite another to say it out loud into a microphone like Mitch McConnell did. Just how is that strategy supposed to help people in Ohio and Michigan get a job? They are about as interested in middle class job creation as I am in NBA basketball in November.
@d'B: Truman's Do-Nothing Congress. Sadly for all of us KG is correct - if the economy doesn't get better "they" win, we lose, Obama goes down, we get Mama Grizzly.
@ Fenway -- see that's the problem with you liberals -- you're so pessimistic. You underestimate the Reps ability to screw the pooch by over playing their hand. Or is it that you think the public will just find Mitch McConnell and John Beohner irresistibly charming for the next two years?
As a Red Sox fan I've learned well.
But you are right on the overreaching. It will be fun to watch. "They" will forget they now own the governing and have to produce.
Fenway please. I'm an Indians/Browns fan. Don't talk to me about long term despair.
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