War, Politicians and the Constitution

I have a confession. I skipped President Barack Obama’s “AfPak Strategy” speech last night. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a well-delivered homily from time to time (I do), nor was my inattention attributable to a lack of reverence for the POTUS (though I will admit to a lingering reservation or two concerning his fitness for what, before him, was the most powerful office in the world). It was just that I had other plans, obligations really, for Tuesday eve. The grout in our guest bathroom was just a disgrace, the dog was waaaaay overdue for waxing, and I had this ingrown toenail that had been festering for days ….

I did, however, manage to squeeze a few minutes out of this morning’s schedule (between turning over the compost pile and changing the sugar-water in the hummingbird feeder) to peruse a couple of news accounts of the speech. As near as I can tell, it had little salutary effect on anyone except Chris Matthews who, though he decried the venue, the tone and the content of the Obamaspiel, still enjoys a good leg tingle now and then. Oh, Senator McCain seemed genuinely unhappy also, but it was difficult to tell if it was the speech that upset him, or a flare-up of hemorrhoids. Rahm Emanuel probably liked it a lot, but he was asleep in his coffin this morning and couldn’t be reached for comment.

The general thrust of the speech was that some 30,000 (or so) military personnel will be sent to Afghanistan and associated environs sometime between now and the next millenium, to both kill bad guys and to teach Afghanis how to kill bad guys too. Obama was at pains to emphasize that we would prevail, no matter the odds, no matter the costs, no matter the sacrifice … as long as it didn’t take more than a few months. If this thing runs on until it begins to rub up against the next election cycle, well then … all bets are off, and he will have to go back to gestating yet another strategy, presumably one that will this time assign blame for the mess to George W. Bush … or maybe Bibi Netanyahu … or even those pesky right-wing Quakers.

Me? I’d bring ‘em home … all of them … this afternoon. Don’t misunderstand … I enthusiastically support a strong national defense; I believe wholeheartedly in that ethos that axiomatically values peace through strength. But I am also unequivocally committed to the notion that a constitutional basis must underlie everything we do as a nation, as a people, and as a society – and the war(s) to which we are currently dedicating so much of our national resources, both human and material, are being prosecuted on blatantly unconstitutional grounds. War, in itself, is a political contrivance, and, taken in vacuo, can be neither constitutional or otherwise; like Bill Clinton, it just is. But the manner of proceeding to war, i.e., the basis on which it is undertaken, is, in this nation, directly and unavoidably subject to constitutional scrutiny, and our involvement in this war (like several in the past) clearly does not pass constitutional muster.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 unambiguously assigns both authority and responsibility for declaring war to the Congress – and, in the current Afghan conflict (as well as several others, as already stated), it has never done so. There are those, of course, who claim that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 provides both the enabling and controlling authority for “undeclared” wars, but conveniently ignore the fact that every president since its inception has (correctly) considered the WPR73 unconstitutional, and has paid, at best, lip service to it. It hangs on our body politic like a withered appendage because our federal judiciary doesn’t have the stones to tackle the issue, not to mention that no politician in his/her right mind will go anywhere near it. The fact that this pernicious piece of congressional mischief still exists as a viable legal operant is a national disgrace.

You wanna whup up on the Taliban/Al Qaeda goons? Good on ya … me too. But do it like the Fathers prescribed – declare war and then go get ‘em. Otherwise, quit schlepping around, pretending that we’re just poor misunderstood white knights trying to bring a little harmony to Camelot. If you can’t (or won’t) do that then bring our people home!

Be well.

Olbermann, Limbaugh and Maddow – oh my!

The screen-saver on my creaky old Gateway is a bust of Ludwig von Mises underlain with the Latin phrase “Tu ne cede malis“. The phrase is a quote from Book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, and was adopted as a personal motto by Mises early in his career; it translates roughly to “Do not give in to evil”, and, at least for me, it resonates.

Evil abounds, of course, and whether one views it as a real and palpable entity (as Scott Peck does in his People of the Lie), or as a mere negativity, an “absence of good”, as perceived by other modern moralists, it seems clear that however it is characterized, it is part and parcel of human existence. The challenge would appear to be how we, as human beings (and subject to human frailties) respond to manifestations of evil in our world and in our lives.

I have come to believe that some of the most evil people on the planet are those who spend their time and their energies trying to tell the rest of us what/how/when/why to think. I’m talking about the talking heads, the talk-jocks, the pundits, the shriekers, etc., etc. These folks seem utterly bereft of any ennobling motive; their sole incentive is their own personal profit and/or aggrandizement, and no subject, no matter how personal or non-germane, is off-limits to them. They have raised character assassination and guilt by insinuation to an art form, and seem constitutionally unable to distinguish between settled fact and ideological phantasmagory. I have in the past often characterized them as unconscionable political whores, and I have yet to find reason to amend that appellation.

Let’s name a few names. Getting the low-hanging fruit out of the way – there’s Limbaugh … loud, loutish, and laughably coronated as the “leader” of the Republican party (which, if true, only makes me happier that I am a proud “nonpartisan”). Rush spends three hours each day making points that the average high school debater could cover in ten minutes.

Then there is Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s own misanthrope-in-residence and iconic hater of all things “non-progressive”. This guy is perpetually so angry, so filled with vitriol, that he yells at himself if no one else is around. Mr. Olbermann possesses no discernible qualifications for his exalted position as Master Assassin; he is unburdened by any sort of objective fact set that might bear on his manifold ideological apprehensions; he is, in a phrase, serenely unballasted by relevant experience or expertise. But, like Limbaugh, he is loud …

MSNBC also features Rachel Maddow, for whom the smirk may have been invented. Ms. Maddow holds court each week day evening, snug (and smug) in her shimmering, nearly transcendent hermaphroditism, offering up such pearls as “Humans are ambitious and rational and proud.” At least in your case, Rachel, two out of three isn’t bad.

And perhaps the most reprehensible of the lot, at least to this observer, is Fox’s newest polemic protege, Glenn Beck. He always looks to me like what the Michelin Man would look like if we stripped off all that white rubbery stuff. Brush-cut and pudgy, Beck likes to think of himself as “the most dangerous man in America”, but in reality he is only the most clamorously irrelevant. He inveighs incessantly against a government that is (his words) “out of control”, and measures it against cherry-picked quotes and facts from a bizarre lexicon to which apparently only he has access. He appears to view himself as a cultural and political iconoclast, but in point of fact he embraces a hide-bound sociopolitical entelechy that belies his professed free thinking. He likes to write things from and about the founding fathers on his innumerable blackboards, but his scrawlings are usually only marginally pertinent to whatever point he is trying to sneak up on.

Beck also “creates” movements, lots of them – and not just the lower tract kind. Projects and initiatives fall from this man like the dirt that falls from Charlie Brown’s buddy, Pig-Pen. There is the “912 Project”, “Founders Keepers”, “Re-Found America”, “Be a Watch-Dog”, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And of course, his latest shell game (introduced a week or two ago at an upscale retirement community in Florida – never think that the Beckster doesn’t know his audience) called, simply, “The Plan”, which he promises will afford everyone an opportunity to learn how, why, and when to oust all these rascally politicos who are making our lives so … ummm … incommodious. The fact that he will stand to rake in another couple gazillion bucks while escorting all of us to the gates of Valhalla, is, ahem, of no consequence.

There are others, so many others, that contaminate our lives and our politics … Ann Coulter (lotsa leg, not much else), Al Franken (shoulda stayed with SNL, Al), Laura Ingraham (brings new meaning to the word “shrill”), Michael Moore (fat, hypocritical, opportunistic pig – what else is there to say?), Bill O’Reilly (neither bold nor fresh – his “me, me, me” schtick is just old and stale), James Carville (surely the role model for Beelzebub) … each of you can extend the list – sadly, there is no dearth of poorly-informed, and evil-intentioned bloviators.

Let me say it again – these people are evil; they embody evil, they promulgate it, they live off it, and, perhaps worst of all, they institutionalize it – they make it seem normal, hence acceptable. It is neither. Tu ne cede malis.

Be well.

It’s official … Hell has frozen over

Epiphanies, like most gifts from the Almighty, come in a variety of shapes, sizes and textures. Sometimes they will begin with one shape, then morph into and through other topologies, eventually, if we’re very lucky, to coalesce into a recognizable “Aha!” moment. Genuine revelation (small “r” if you please – blog-fog is hardly the venue for apocalyptic biblicism) is at once both salubrious and profoundly disturbing; suddenly we find ourselves confronted with the impossible task of embracing two (or more) utterly unharmonious notions. Synapses crackle and pop; neuronal circuit breakers chatter; attitudes set for decades shimmer away into smoke; Gibraltar-like sureties fade like the snow in the rain.  Fact is, it’s probably as close as most of us are ever going to get to a real sockdolagizing spiritual experience.

So …why all this talk of afflation?

Welllll … I just had one a them drop on me ….

My youngest young’un, of whom I have written much in the past and of whom I am greatly and justly proud, is home from college for the Thanksgiving holiday, and recently we chanced to trade views on health care reform, as well as a couple of other matters political. This is ground that we both have learned to approach warily since, though we have real affection for each other, our general political orientations tend to be diametrically opposed – she of a distinctly liberal bent, while I tend to occupy the rocky redoubts of a hoary paleo-conservatism.

Cutting to the chase, the discussion became heated and, because I can, I suppose, I began to bully her. I will not here fully document the extent of my villainy, but my behavior was as ungenerous as it was inexcusable. Unable to counter her several excellent points with fact and reason, I substituted volume, thereby practicing exactly the kind of ersatz “debate” that I have taught her all her life to eschew. Falling steadily behind, I bellowed something about engaging in sound-byte-talking-point argumentation and imperiously cut off the discussion. Oh yeah … I can be a real peach …. Her eyes filled with tears of frustration and disappointment at my boorishness, and she withdrew.

Later, I apologized, and hugged her tightly … but I didn’t sleep well. In fact, I hardly slept at all. Why had I gotten so angry? I would remove my own spleen with a rusty shoe-horn before I would purposely hurt her, and yet ….

The answer is of course rooted in my own vanity – the kid was right, and I was wrong. The particular point in contention just before I erupted dealt with whether the US was the only (as she maintained) industrialized country that did not offer universal health care/coverage to its citizens; my position was that there were others. In fact, there are no others … none … period. I should have known it at once because she said it – she neither fabricates nor equivocates. But because my tender ego was at stake, I spent considerable time and effort researching the matter and found, as I’ve already stated, that I was wrong. Doesn’t matter how strongly I or anyone else feels about it or how we slice, dice and parse the details, the US is the only one that doesn’t make such provision for it’s people. I will not fill up this space with the several dozen references that I accessed, but trust me … they are out there for those with the willingness and courage to go looking.

And here’s a significant corollary to our American “uniqueness” – we spend far more (up to twice as much per citizen) on health care for results that, compared to the rest of the world, can only be viewed as mediocre. We tend to lag in many (though not all) measures of effectiveness – certain mortality rates and morbidity rates, doctors per population unit, wellness programs, etc. Don’t take my word for it … do the work … look it up. It’s there, and it is disturbing. Fact is, we just ain’t the best, no matter how much we’d like to think we are.

And while we’re about it, here are a couple of other conclusions I have lately formulated regarding “health care reform”;

1) The whole “health care reform will cut Medicare by (fill in the number) billion dollars” is a canard. We are the only culture in history to exalt generational theft. I have long been bothered by the concerted “Geezer Grab” going on, whereby tens of millions of us whose primary purpose should be to shepherd our progeny to a better life than the one we knew are instead dedicated to transferring their wealth to us. This is not just shameless, it borders on criminal. They owe us little, if anything, and the organized, codified efforts epitomized by organizations like AARP are scandalous. Medicare and related larcenies should not just be cut, they should be summarily abandoned – and that includes Social Security. Such monies should be dedicated to ensuring the future – not the past.

2) Another point … catastrophic medical debt of a magnitude to cause bankruptcy is exploding. My best efforts at research put the total number of medical expense related bankruptcies in this country at between 20 and 50%, depending on which sources you choose to believe. Whether toward the upper or lower extremes of this range, either rate is too high. To the exact degree we are unable to provide our citizens even basic protections against catastrophic loss do we fail as a humane society. I will not here attempt to decide whether basic economic protections are “rights”, but what should be eminently clear is that the “pursuit of happiness” danged sure is a right (at least as codified in our most sacred foundational documents) – and the right to pursue happiness most surely embodies basic economic protections. Will universal health care as currently envisioned in pending legislation provide such protections from calamitous medical debt? I don’t know, but it’s pretty clear what we’ve done so far has failed miserably. How much worse could a new program be?

Yeah, UHC will likely drive taxes up … so what’s new? Does anyone actually think taxes are going down anytime soon … whether under Democrats, Republicans, or Venusians? Not bleedin’ likely, Nigel. Why not toss some of that – a lot of that – toward health care?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking; I’ve thought about the 47 million – or 32 million – or 15 million – or 7 million – or however the hell many Americans are out there without access to docs and medicines and hospitals, and I wonder why we have let this happen. I’ve been thinking about those folks who are neither rich nor poor, but whose lives, because of blind fate, have been materially altered (and not for the better) by arbitrary disease and infirmity. They are forced to expend most of their life energies, efforts and earnings simply to continue to live. Surely as a society, as a caring community, we can do better. And yet, so far, we have failed abjectly to do better – maybe its time to let some new ideas in … maybe its time … maybe ….

Don’t anyone get too concerned about the state of my corroded old retrocon soul; I’m not apt to vote for Mr. Obama anytime soon, and it’s unlikely that I’ll develop a taste for Brie on rye crisp or that I’ll join the Pelosi Fan Club … but my internal gyroscope is indicating strongly that it may be time for a new paradigm – one that replaces manipulation with compassion, self-interest with community, expediency with morality, animus with tolerance, and indifference with love

Be well.

The Lady or the Tiger?

A couple of pre-apocalyptic musings …

To paraphrase one of the more notable and recent socio-politico-cultural commentators, that Scion of Scurrility and Head Boll Weevil of the Hate-America-Now crowd, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright … “G — D — Ben Nelson!”

Even though the Benator over the years has repeatedly displayed a stunning flair for fouling his own nest, and then miraculously roistering his way out of the mess, it appears, with his announcement that he will vote to allow debate on Harry the Dinge’s scatological excuse for a health care bill, that he may have jumped the elective shark. I have lived, loved and labored in the midlands my entire threescore and ten, and I cannot recall a degree of plebian seethe and frustration such as that now being focused on Bennie the Jet since his public announcement that he will vote to allow debate on the bill. Nebraskans are livid, manifesting a level of anger and disappointment likely to significantly change the political landscape of the heartland, and virtually certain to rock Earl Benjamin’s world.

Update:

In direct contravention of Nelson’s contention that  he has “consistently rejected efforts to obstruct” (his excuse for his upcoming ‘Aye’ vote), here are just a few of the instances (which he seems to have conveniently forgotten) that indicate he is not always all that reluctant to “obstruct”(courtesy of American Solutions):

July 9, 2003, The Patients First Act
April 7, 2004, The Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act
May 8, 2006, The Medical Care Access Protection Act

Earlier this week, commonsense conservatism had four beckoning, if wobbly, beacons of hope. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and (Gawd help us) Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, erstwhile back half of the ill-fated “Sore-Loserman” 2000 ticket. Democrats all, but each had expressed at least middling concerns about various aspects of the Senate bill, and, it was calculated in the early going, might (possibly?) vote against Reid’s abomination. Wellllll … file that under “F” … for “Fat Chance”.

Fast forward a day or two – Landrieu has been purchased for 100 million pieces of silver (she rated two whole pages in the bill when one word would have sufficed – it rhymes with “more”). We all know what you are now, Mary … we were just a little confused about the price. Charles Krauthammer has deftly characterized Mary’s blatant political mercantilism as the New Lousiana Purchase.

Ben Nelson, after getting the call to Principal Harry’s office, folded up like the cheap suit we all know underlies that bumpkin manner and shaggy coif. And by the way, Benster – Mary gets a hundred mil for some leaky dikes in NOLA, and you don’t even get us a crummy second I-80 exit for the Arch? (Hat tip to pal Todd). Can we just pause for a moment to re-examine the concept of selling your soul for a mess of pottage …?

Lincoln has told Horrible Harry (though not the rest of us) how she will vote and he is staying with the Saturday night vote deadline – hmm … do you suppose Blanche’s answer may have encouraged him?

Which leaves us with Grinning Joe, doin’ what he came to Washington to do … be somebody. He has already openly stated, “If the public option is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote …” However, he previously has said he won’t oppose opening Senate debate on the bill despite the public option provision. Wonder which Joe will show up Saturday night?

How many of us ever thought that the future of the greatest republic ever to grace this hunk of rock would be left dangling, twisting, awaiting the tortured ministrations of a disaffected expatriate with a rabbinical bent agonizing over a golden opportunity to pull the trapdoor on the minions who tried to run him out of his party a couple years ago? Joey, we hardly knew ye ….

For those of a historio-literary inclination, click up and peruse the fable after which this post is titled … then try to guess which choice Lieberman will make. It’s a bit like a slow motion train wreck … if the potential consequences weren’t so horrific, it would be fascinating to watch.

My own guess? They’ll all cave in the end. See, Mel, liberalism is defined by moral surrender and the arrogance of victimhood. Characterized by a visceral need to appease instead of confront, it is a unvarying indicator of human weakness and therefore eternal. The vote is taken and Harry and Nancy do a high kick-off down the Capitol steps (complete with canes and top-hats) while up at 1600 Pennsy, The One beams down from the Truman Balcony like a sinking, blood-colored sun.

Be well.

Ta – DAAAA ..!

OK … the rabbit is upright again, fat and sassy, if somewhat humbled by the recent intrusion of virally-induced reality/mortality. It’s still true kids … none of us are bullet-proof and we all need to be reminded of that from time to time – especially opinionated old barkers like yours truly. My thanks to all the folks who contributed to my speedy recovery. I am planning a post in the near future to discuss, up close and personal, what really goes on in health care down here on the ground. About which more later ….

For now, I am trying to get caught up on the events that have gotten away from me in the last few days … Sweet Sarah is rocking the land, The One continues his peripatetic globetrotting, presumably in search of the ultimate “Mea Culpa” venue, Dirty Harry is preparing (as we speak) to offer his secret health care libretto to Nasty Nancy’s previously paraded score, and, mirabile dictu, the Huskers appear to be closing in on a Big 12 North title.

So much to blog …. I better get started.

Be well.

Bunny down

Everyone’s luck runs out once in a while, and even lovable old bunnies are not exempt from this universal truism. I had a run-in with a singularly nasty bug last week – a real jihadist of the viral world. Long story short, I am typing this post from a hospital bed. Happily, our local hospital has wi-fi internet and, unlike virtually every other service in the place, it is free! ( yeah, yeah - i know … nothing is free … but you take my meaning)

The good news is,  medical technologies available out here in the wilds of the Third are more than up to the challenges presented by even the gnarliest microorganisms, and after the usual and customary period of whining, mewling, coughing, wheezing, gasping and in general acting like the wussy that I really am in the face of any sort of physical discomfort, things are now well on the mend and I hope to be back at the store, and at the computer ere long.

My favorite anecdote so far from this whole experience stems from hooking up to the hospital’s wi-fi this morning. Once I was firmly attached to the Great Electronic Teat, I went immediately to my favorite three or four blogs, one of which is P.T. Gustan’s renowned Plains Feeder.  Imagine my amusement at discovering that the administrator of the hospital’s wi-fi network has blocked the Old Feeder’s blog … labeling it as “containing pornographic content”. I’m sorry, pt … I laughed till I nearly hurt myself. So far, I haven’t found any other site so quarantined, so you must have written something that really steamed the network gods here at good ole Good Sam.

For those few unfamiliar with pt’s peerless wit and and consummate skill at detecting bovine excrement four miles away on a foggy night, I hasten to add that I have been reading pt’s stuff for a few years now, and, while it’s always possible that I may have missed something, I can recall nothing that would even remotely qualify as “mildly offensive”, much less “pornographic”.

Or, pt, have you been posting the really good stuff in some sort of invisible electronic ink that my garden-variety ‘puter can’t see?

Time to go … here comes a nurse with a ginormous needle in her hand and an evil grin on her …. eeeeeyyyyyyaaaah!

Be …uhh … well.

Over there …

A grateful nation remembers … and offers thanks to all veterans.

Fax this …!

Chatted recently with an acquaintance who is, as the kids say, “hooked up” inside the Beltway – not officially, of course, but this dood has an insider’s knowledge and understanding of the way things work gubmint-wise. To jump directly to the point, he confirmed what I have long suspected – namely, that expressing opinions to our senators and representatives via email is pretty much a waste of time and bandwidth. None of them have generally available email addresses; instead, folks trying to communicate are forced to use a highly structured gubmint email “system” so cumbersome and inflexible that most simply find it too much trouble. They utilize such a system ostensibly to control spam and automated mass emailing, but I suspect the actual purpose is to limit unsolicited contact with their constituents.

Whether or not this is true, what is clear is that email is the least effective way to let them know what you think. Emails are batched (if they are even looked at) and farmed out to staffers for canned response. Telephone calls are the best since that requires a real live person (also usually a staffer) to actually pick up a phone and talk to you, but many of us have neither the time nor opportunity during regular business hours to place such calls.

So what to do? One word – “fax”. Virtually all congress critters have a fax line and the number is readily available on their web sites. And a fax, like a telephone, requires someone on the other end to actually perform a physical action – like walking over to the machine and retrieving a received fax. Optimally, someone will actually read it, though there is no guarantee of this.

There are tons of computer fax programs out there, ranging in price from free to a few dollars a month which allow one to fax directly from your trusty ‘puter to Senator Foghorn’s fax – all over the internet, and at no charge! Most of these programs allow mass faxing (which means sending the same message to multiple recipients quickly and easily), thus making communication with several members of congress at once a highly efficient process. I like the one called “MyFax” – it’s simple, effective and costs about $10 per month.

Let me give an example: last week I created a data base (using Excel) consisting of the name and fax number of each of the Blue Dog Democrats using their individual web sites (there are 52 of them – took about 30 minutes), and uploaded it to my fax program. I then wrote a letter asking them to vote against HR 3962 (Pelosi’s health care bill) and faxed it to each of them, using the aforementioned software. All 52 faxes were sent with the click of one button, and all but 4 of them went through in less than a minute. MyFax lets you know whether a fax you send was successfully sent or if it failed. Of the four that failed, 3 were busy, and 1 apparently has published a wrong number.

Obviously my valiant effort to defeat 3962 failed, but I am quite pleased to have found a route which allows me at least some small degree of timely access to the pols. If anyone has any other ideas/methods to expedite communication with the folks in Washington, please feel free to share them. Only through constant effort will we refute the arrogance of power that infests our leaders.

Be well.

Hosed … again

Last night the malignancy that is political party machinery delivered another in a series of body blows to our bleeding, tottering republic. The petulant duplicity of Republican party apparatchiks in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, in concert with a well-oiled but equally treacherous Democrat organization, engineered the defeat of a conservative candidate (Doug Hoffman) who demonstrably represents the aspirations and goals of a significant majority of Americans.

Make no mistake – elections implemented under the rubric of political parties are no more a flawless measure of the public will than are polls. Both are subject to, in fact seem at times almost expressly designed for, manipulation and subornation by interests largely unrelated to what is good for or desired by the citizenry in general. And no better characterization of the modern political party exists than that – “interests largely unrelated to what is good for or desired by the citizenry in general.”

Those who stop by the Notebook even semi-regularly are likely aware of my galloping antipathy for the species Politicus partius, whether Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Constitutional, Green or Gollywobbles … they are all just different varieties of the same pestilence, and serve only narrow interests that bear little relevance or applicability to the common weal. Can there be any doubt that yesterday’s travesty in NY23 was the direct result of noxious party sleight-of-hand – cynical lubricity on the part of the Dems, coupled with a laughably misplaced Republican strategery? Newt, Steele et al were so intent on serving party ends that they failed to see the looming ambush being contrived by the other side. The result? Libs – 1, Liberty – 0. Thanks, guys.

Bernie Quigley wrote an arresting piece a few days ago plumping for the establishment of a national Conservative Party. Sadly, like so many others, he runs afoul of his own infatuation with “party as end-in-itself” and winds up stomping his own thoroughly laudable premise into oblivion. “Political parties are exclusively about packaging” he correctly notes, but then immediately conflates the wrapping of the package with its contents, trumpeting “a Palin/Perry ticket on the Conservative Party in 2012 would really wake things up.” I have no particular problem with a “Palin/Perry” ticket, but swaddling it in the smothering shroud of political party-dom, Conservative or any other, would almost certainly bleed off most of the vitality and cachet of such a bold effort. Let’s remember what the Republican Party gadgetry did for Sarah Palin during her last outing.

A commenter over on the American Thinker today has it right, stating, “… a political party is not where our loyalty should be invested, it is in individual freedom and liberty.” Precisely. From where I stand, the most significant result of last night’s exercise in party-directed suffrage was that Nancy Pelosi’s majority is today a bit larger. Does anyone feel better?

Be well.

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Naah – it’s Doug”

Lots of heavy breathing and leg-tingling these days among the blogs and commentators over what is being touted as the impending (and, some would say, inevitable) efflorescence of “real conservatism” in a heretofore little-known congressional district nestled into the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Douglas Hoffman, an accountant running as a third-party “Conservative”, appears likely to defeat his Democrat opponent for the 23NY District House seat after the Republican dropped out of the race … and endorsed the Democrat! You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Politics generally has finally morphed into a real-life version of a Magritte painting … a discontinuous gruel of nonsense images and surreal misrepresentations of reality.

Overlooking the festering goofiness of this electoral terpsichore for a moment, we could perhaps focus on what, for want of a better term, I call the “so what? -ness” of the situation. Does anyone really think that one pencil-necked CPA with born-again conservatism just welling up within him actually represents the genesis of effective reform of a political system whose baseness tends to persist like the stench of a cheap cigar? Not bleedin’ likely, Nigel.

Moreover, a conservative, whether of Republican, Democrat, or Rosicrucian persuasion, being elected in NY23 is not exactly a stop-the-presses development – can we all stop huzzahing at least long enough to remember that conservatives have held this seat since before Reconstruction?

We could also pause to reflect that folks in that neck of the woods tend to raise extra-party contrariness to high art – recall that just across the state line to the east those fusty Vermonters have for years continued to send Bernie Saunders (an avowed, often apoplectic, Socialist) to Washington.

So – twitch and quiver all you want folks, but you might as well move along … nothing to see here … just one more permutation in the often confusing, sometimes bizarre, but always entertaining kaleidoscopic world of American politics.

To close, let me quote from John Steinbeck, who understood and elegantly expressed the folly, the sheer ineptitude, of the political process:

“We wonder whether in the present pattern the pieces are not straining to fall out of line; whether the paradoxes of our times are not finally mounting to a conclusion of ridiculousness that will make the whole structure collapse. For the paradoxes are becoming so great that leaders of people must be less and less intelligent to stand their own leadership.” [The Log From The Sea Of Cortez]

Be well.