Friday, February 10, 2006
Electoral Calculus
I’ve heard a lot of crap in the last week from the Sean Hannity idiots about how the democrats can’t get elected when they are so hateful and have “no agenda other than nay saying the republicans.”
In the bizarre political calculus of the Republican Party, not only can they loot the treasury, kick the poor to the curb, burn scientists as witches, and slander war heroes, but they can also, they think, use some kind of Jedi mind trick to convince the demos that they can’t win by criticizing republicans.
Wow. Good luck with that one. While democrats are angling for just the right tone to take in the upcoming elections they are seeking to strike a balance between criticism and optimism.
I, and people in the media, have no obligation to kiss babies and woo every last voter come November. I, if I may say this without sounding pompous (impossible), have a personal commitment to truth, not popularity, and there is a difference.
So let me say personally that I wouldn’t take political advice from Sean Hannity if you waterboarded me for a week. And the media has no commitment to anything other than the truth.
I am heartened by reading The New York Times. The Bush Administration has been beaten like red-headed stepchild in the Times for a while now. Rightists may rail about bias, but their puling cries can’t change the fact that The Newspaper of Record is roasting them on a daily basis.
We get no such probity from the Chicago newspapers, unfortunately. The Tribune downplays and ignores the failures of the administration. Though I have mentioned it before it deserves repeating: the editorial board of the Tribune hasn’t endorsed a democrat for president in a century. The Sun Times is owned by conservative Canadian mogul Conrad Black, and their coverage of the administration has been similarly weak.
As our nation sinks further into debt and dishonor I have noticed many conservatives mentioning that they think the GOP has screwed up the governance of the nation. Of course, this usually comes as an aside in the middle of a diatribe against democrats, but it’s worth noting.
I don’t want to see a conservative whitewashing of the GOP. I don’t want to see conservatives say, “Yeah, these guys looked good when we voted but they screwed things up.” Wrong. These guys were crooks from the get-go and this was apparent to every person who gets their news from a balance of sources. You are personally responsible for voting these felons into office. When W got the republican nomination for president in 2000 I said he was the least qualified republican nominee for the presidency in history, and the record has borne me out.
You will never be an intelligent voter if you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. You will never know if your conservative candidate is a crook or not by getting your news from right-wing media outlets. These guys have been caught in more lies and one-sided arguments than Baghdad Bob.
I have a special dislike for conservative bloggers. The internet is right in front of them, the Information Superhighway, and the truth is literally at their fingertips. To completely ignore the entire MSM as biased and to only get news from Powerline is like closing your eyes at the sight of a robbery and claiming that you didn’t know a crime was taking place because you couldn’t see it. You are responsible for your words and votes. Brainwashing yourself makes you responsible for brainwashing yourself on top of that.
The truth has an ugly habit of being heard, something conservatives who believe in the righteousness of our free-market country have to acknowledge. It must be hard to advocate, on one hand, that the providential invisible hand works with infinite justice, and on other the other hand to maintain that the MSM and the bulk of the country is just biased and unfair. I thought this was the best of all possible worlds, conservatives?
While they focus on riots in the Middle East as symbols of the oppression of Islam their own country is sinking into the abyss. David Brooks wrote an amusing op-ed column to this effect in yesterday’s New York Times. Remove the mote in your eye, as the Bible says, conservatives.
Drinky maintained that while the West has freedom of speech, that freedom must be used responsibly. WTF, W? Whatever happened to our cowboy president? “Wanted dead or alive?” “You’re either with us or against us?” “Bring ‘em on?” How about a little bluster to defend something other than oil reserves?
Free speech has never been a prerogative of our “irresponsible debate” president, of our “free speech zone” president. I’ve come to expect nothing less.
Corruption
Welcome to Watergate II. Using the CIA to dig up dirt on political enemies? No problem.
As I mentioned before, I am not opposed to crying foul when I see it. I don’t even see a need to propose an alternative to the administration’s policies other than just obey the law.
I think democrats can win in November by just making a stance opposite the lawbreaking of current republican incumbents. The perennial liberal agenda might work, too: higher minumum wages, preserving medicare and social security, expanding government programs for the poor, and promising incentives for small business, student loans, and cutting taxes for the working poor while letting the tax cuts for the upper class lapse.
But at this point in the sad history of our nation any responsible voter should be scrambling blindly to vote for anyone who isn’t a republican. I would take a Green Party candidate over a conservative. I would take an unnamed democrat over a conservative.
Want an alternative to this trade policy? Don’t vote for a republican. Want congresspeople who don’t make bills like this? Don’t vote for someone who will fall in line with Hastert or Frist. Don’t want your caucus to put Tom DeLay back in charge like this? Don’t vote for a republican. It’s that easy.
Orifice clones like to say that the democrats are in a crisis, but I beg to differ, my friend. I have never seen a political party in such an ethical freefall as the Republican Party right now. I wouldn’t touch that party with a ten-foot pole. I wouldn’t trade places with those guys if they rigged every election machine in Ohio and Florida.
Record deficits, illegal war, international opprobrium, domestic disaster: this is the legacy of five years of complete republican control. These guys have absolutely nothing to run on. They are busily lying their asses off and denying they know Jack Abramoff and nervously looking at their poll numbers plummet and calling their lawyers in a panic, telling him to shred all records of their meetings. They are calling their aides and telling them to draft speeches that criticize the administration’s wiretapping program and ignoring the threats being bellowed by Karl Rove. Run, guys, run!
Mouthing the mantras of tax cuts and Voodoo Economics will no longer save you, gentle conservatives. Your crimes are so numerous, so public, that even imbeciles can reach the low-hanging fruit now. You are getting roasted in every mainstream and lefty news outlet in the country. The indictments are piling up. It doesn’t take Einstein to connect the dots between Michael Brown, “Scooter” Libby, and Tom DeLay. What we are looking at is the Republican Party pitching forward in a nosedive, with no wings and the tail on fire, screaming that democrats can’t get elected by just criticizing them.
Whatever you say, guys. I’ll roll the dice in the other plane. Happy landings.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 4:02 PM 
