Partisan comment

As election time draws near I find it harder to resist posting something partisan on my blog. Believe it or not, I try to stick to material intended to move readers opinions by presenting unexpected content from sources with which they might otherwise agree. I am a message only kinda guy, but I also give a lot of weight to messengers. When one of us peace nuts advances the case for non-violent responses to the provocations of North Koream that's not news. But when Newt Gingrich advances a non-violent response, that's worth noting.

Interestingly enough, it is a Newt reference that takes me to this piece.

Modern bipartisanship can be simply defined as Democrats repeatedly getting taken to the cleaners by Republicans. Until the rules of the game are changed it will remain so whether Democrats are in the majority or not. That pathetic Charlie Brown with the football ritual is what Joe Lieberman is running on and what Joe Klein is angling for with his Blankslate Obama love-fest. (Norquist called it date rape but that's too kind -- the Liebermans and Kleins love being in the spotlight giving wingnuts lapdances. They enjoy every minute of their rightwing orgy --- they just don't want to take responsibility when they turn up with wingnut transmitted diseases.)

It is going to take some deft media management and skillfull legislative action to stop this pattern, but stop it we must. We have had more than two decades to assess this and this is how the conservative movement works. You can almost feel the relief (and even the glee) in some of the recent right wing claims that losing will be good for the party.
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This time the stakes are so high and the failures so manifest that we cannot allow this zombie revolution to rise again. No matter how tempting it is to let bygones be bygones and get to work to "fix" the problems, the Democrats must recognize that fixing the problem requires discrediting this Republican revolution once and for all. Until that happens, they will keep coming back and each time they do they destroy a little bit more of our democracy.

We may win this one but we are basically the janitors, winning the contract to clean up after the conservative frat boys trashed the place for the last few years. And Daddy Broder believes it when his boys tell him it was the cleaning people who caused all the damage because he just can't bring himself to admit that they are out-of-control misfits because they come from good families and dress so nicely when they come to the club. We need to make sure the dean and all his friends have their noses rubbed in what their boys have been up to all these years before we can ever hope to do anything but take out the garbage and change the sheets every few years.

As I have said before, I have tried all my adult life to think, act and vote as a Republican. Working in management, paying the max into Social Security for twenty years and being a Section Eight landlord should by now have made me into a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. But something in my temperament, genes, faith or blood always gets in the way.

Sorry 'bout that. All I know to do is disclose my biases and hope my friends will understand. I don't have to go far to find among them infidelity, substance abuse, parental neglect, financial irregularities, and a long list of more benign vices...all of which are part of the landscape. It's an easy matter to shrug and quip "Well, we're all only human...want another cup of coffee?"

All indications are that Democrats are about to regain whatever passes for "control" in Washington. My reaction is tepid at best, but I cling to some hope that such a move might drag the political center of gravity somewhat closer to just that: the center. You want some insight into my thinking? Read both links above from top to bottom. Tom Watson and Digby say it far better than I can.