“Business” As Usual For The “Party of No”

I guess, to the GOP’s way of thinking, actors Kelsey Grammer and Adam Sandler would be “small business” people (can’t think of any other rationale for a vote like this…the bill was signed into law today).

(Maybe more posting tomorrow…)

Sorry Meg, The Price Isn’t Right

Sounds like “Gubernatorial Campaign Fail, Clean Up Aisle 7″…

“Gather” This, Wingnut!

Bye bye, Rick Barber (ha, ha, ha).

Money As Dirty As The Goop In The Gulf

As I look at the pics of the wildlife covered with sludge, the phrase “you get what you pay for” comes to mind.

Some “Schock” Treatment On “Terra! Terra! Terra!”

Amidst his other idiotic ramblings here, Repug U.S. House Rep. Aaron Schock criticizes the Obama Administration for dumping those dern terrists from Guantanamo into the “heartland” (presumably, Schock is referring to the Illinois “supermax” prison in Thomson; as Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune tells us here, Thomson is “a small town in the northwest corner of the state”).

Chapman also tells us the following…

The Bush administration’s purpose in putting the captives at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was to keep them beyond the reach of federal courts, so it could do whatever struck the fancy of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted that Guantanamo cannot be a lawless zone. The executive branch has to follow the Constitution even there.

Moving the prisoners to American soil would affirm the startling proposition that we consider ourselves bound by the rule of law. It wouldn’t make veteran terrorists give up the fight. But it would deprive them of an emblem of torture and abuse that inspires anti-American fury and endangers American lives.

When the detainees arrive here, I predict, Illinoisans will pay attention for about five minutes and then go on calmly with their lives. At least the grown-ups will.

Amen.

Setting A Democrat Up For A Fall

I should tell you that I personally don’t like partisanship in our political dialogue, but I prefer Democratic capitulation even less. And that is the issue I have with this column by E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, in which he makes the partly reasonable suggestion that President Obama should more or less expand the Q&A session he held with Republican members of Congress last Friday (in which Obama basically cleaned their proverbial clocks, swatting away their idiotic talking points as if they were mosquitoes, as noted in this clip).

I say “partly reasonable” because dialogue is a good thing. However, if Obama were to conduct another one of these forums with the “loyal opposition,” I can tell you right now what would happen. The Repugs would find some way to rig it to allow every possible way to try and frustrate Obama by trying to talk over him and interrupt him at every opportunity, just so they could get a few moments of him getting impatient with these imbeciles. That way, they would have their precious “attack” footage they would rerun endlessly so they could say “See? We told you he was arrogant.”

This, though, is the bigger issue I have with Dionne’s column today…

The Q&A was a smash success, and we need many more. Let’s have Obama do the same kind of session with the Senate Republicans. Then, let’s have him debate potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, starting with Sarah Palin, and then, perhaps, Mitt Romney. I’m quite serious. Tens of millions of Americans would turn on to politics again.

I’m not sure if Dionne is aware of this or not, but according to this CBS poll, most of those polled (including 56 percent of Republicans) don’t want Sarah Palin to run for president. For that reason, a decision by Obama to elevate her to the same level as the President of the United States on a debate stage would be an act of supreme idiocy. And such a move with Willard Mitt Romney would have a similar effect.

And it should be emphasized, as this article tells us, that debates are fraught with danger for incumbent presidents, even though we pretty much take them for granted now. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson decided not to debate Barry Goldwater and won decisively. Richard Nixon didn’t debate Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and eked out a win, and he made the same decision in 1972 against George McGovern and thumped the challenger. Jimmy Carter ended up debating challenger Ronald Reagan a week before the 1980 election, and though Carter was considered the debate winner, Reagan handled himself well enough and ended up projecting himself better than the 39th president, and he won the election.

Besides, if it takes Obama having to share the stage with the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who would likely end up winking a time or two and deciding not to answer questions she didn’t like or giving totally non-responsive answers to the questions she preferred, to get “tens of millions of Americans” to “turn onto politics again,” then this country is in worse shape than I could have imagined.

Some SOTU Commentary, Including Chris “Ofay” Matthews

I’m glad you forgot, Tweety – thanks for reminding us anyway, you nitwit…

…and speaking of screwed-up priorities, watch the “loyal opposition” do nothing here.

Today’s Health Care Moment Of Zen

And while we await the details of this supposedly doubleplusgood health care “compromise” that involves killing the public option deader than dead (and by the way, why is it that the punditocracy and our politicians only consider a “compromise” a circumstance where we lose ground and the right-wing methane dispensers gain ground at our expense?), I thought it would be instructive to review how we got here (and how pathetic is it that former Governor Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin actually makes sense here, albeit out of context?)