Dem massacre, Olbermann, debt, Notre Dame, Browns

Mitch McConnell said today on Face the Nation that President Obama thinks the Democrats lost in the midterms because he undersold his achievements, but in reality Americans just didn’t like what he was selling. I thought that was just GOP bombast until I got to the "Week in Review" section of the Times. Look at these charts. The Dems lost ground in virtually every single demographic this election, including African-Americans. This was a bigger massacre than I realized.

Naturally, the Democratic response will be to re-elect Nancy Pelosi Minority Leader, which should really turn things around because we know how popular she is all across the country.

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I never imagined I’d be defending Keith Olbermann over anything, but this flap over his political donations is ridiculous. First of all, don’t his rights as an American citizen to participate in democracy trump the rules of a corporation, or the arbitrary and unwritten rules of “journalistic impartiality?” And secondly, aren’t his highly-opinionated, one-sided, on-air musings a more powerful expression of his partisanship than his $7000 contributions to a few local races? I say yes to both.

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It’s interesting how little complaining there has been from either Republicans or Tea Baggers over the Feds decision to print an extra $600 billion in cash the day after the elections. This money takes the form of new T-Bills and is a net addition to the deficit. Maybe since it can’t be pinned on Obama it isn’t worth the effort?

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I’ve never been a Notre Dame fan and won’t be one in the future, but the institution earned a lot of respect from me when it stepped up and took full responsibility for the death of a student who was killed last week when the 50’ platform from which he was taping football practice blew over in a 50 mph wind – legal liability be damned. It doesn’t happen often in this modern American “it’s somebody else’s fault” society.

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Browns 34 - Patriots 14. Nuf said.

The worst person in the world

I should have called this post “Ben Aflac is actually a really good actor.” His Keith Olbermann take off last night on SNL was brilliant – revealing him as the pompous, self-righteous, tool that he is. I saw Olbermann walking down 49th Street, near the GE Building, recently, and had to restrain myself from greeting him with a hearty “hello douche bag” as we passed, which was my strong inclination.

I’m happy to report that he looks much worse in person than on TV. He’s kind of short, at least compared to what I had expected, and really soft looking. He has one of those gushy, wide rear ends. In fact he looked really soft all over -- what my high school football coaches used to call “a real cake-eater.” Plus, he was wearing his studio makeup – lipstick, rouge, the whole schmegeggie. (Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit – maybe it was his everyday street makeup.) In any event it made the whole package truly frightening.

Speaking of SNL, I thought John McCain was funny and personable; everything he hasn’t been on the campaign trail. But did anyone else detect a hint of surrender in the opening bit? I was surprised McCain went along with the part where Tina Fey did her little aside, pitching the “Palin 2012” tee-shirts. It seemed a little too close to the reality of the situation to me. I would have thought he have balked at including it.

[Happy Birthday Charly!]