Quick wrap-up.
Last week, we were treated to a marvel of pageantry, bombast, and good old American flim-flammery...right up until the end, anyway, when it careered between whimsical wishful-thinking and acute psychotic break. (And that was the nominee.)
This week, we saw a more slapdash production, but a more solid case was hardly ever made for not electing the other guy, whose flim-flammery, chicanery, and bombast made for great television, but painted nothing like a portrait I want to see of American government. Sophistry, arrogance, aristocracy and soporific disdain for one's social inferiors have their place, but Caroline Kennedy is a Democrat.
I don't like single-party rule. It's bad for the Republic, in a few ways, foremost because it re-polarizes government that isn't particularly focused on cooperative, compromising rule as it is. But we have been presented with a rather stark choice, between a party that has principles, but is willing to compromise them in order to provide the needful service of government to those that elected them, and a party that lacks principles, but is all the same unready to compromise in order to govern. That's not a non-choice; it's just a bad one.
I long for the days of Truman and Ike, when the middle of the road was considered the only part you could drive on and not fall off the precipice on either side, when the dog was the only part that barked. Now the median is filled with acid lava, and anyone who tries to veer toward it is bound to get burned, and the other guys laugh their asses off instead of offering to throw him a rope. And don't even get me started how the tail is the part that barks louder than the dog. There are scatalogical, Rovian implications I daren't even describe on a family blog.
But there you go: President Clinton lay out the case for re-electing President Obama, and it was a good one. Governor Romney lay out the case for not re-electing President Obama, and it was a weak one. As a partial, flawed judge, I still cannot help but notice that one party made their case, and the other party failed to make theirs, and while the argument can and must go on, both parties must at some point veer back toward stipulated facts, hard numbers, and solid science, and right now, only one party is still in that camp. We're faced with a choice between a tail that wants to wag the dog, bark for the dog, and given half a chance, eat the dog, and one that wants to wag the dog some of the time and be wagged by the dog some of the time. It's not perfect, neither choice is, but one seems like quite a lot better choice.
On with the day, wags.
This week, we saw a more slapdash production, but a more solid case was hardly ever made for not electing the other guy, whose flim-flammery, chicanery, and bombast made for great television, but painted nothing like a portrait I want to see of American government. Sophistry, arrogance, aristocracy and soporific disdain for one's social inferiors have their place, but Caroline Kennedy is a Democrat.
I don't like single-party rule. It's bad for the Republic, in a few ways, foremost because it re-polarizes government that isn't particularly focused on cooperative, compromising rule as it is. But we have been presented with a rather stark choice, between a party that has principles, but is willing to compromise them in order to provide the needful service of government to those that elected them, and a party that lacks principles, but is all the same unready to compromise in order to govern. That's not a non-choice; it's just a bad one.
I long for the days of Truman and Ike, when the middle of the road was considered the only part you could drive on and not fall off the precipice on either side, when the dog was the only part that barked. Now the median is filled with acid lava, and anyone who tries to veer toward it is bound to get burned, and the other guys laugh their asses off instead of offering to throw him a rope. And don't even get me started how the tail is the part that barks louder than the dog. There are scatalogical, Rovian implications I daren't even describe on a family blog.
But there you go: President Clinton lay out the case for re-electing President Obama, and it was a good one. Governor Romney lay out the case for not re-electing President Obama, and it was a weak one. As a partial, flawed judge, I still cannot help but notice that one party made their case, and the other party failed to make theirs, and while the argument can and must go on, both parties must at some point veer back toward stipulated facts, hard numbers, and solid science, and right now, only one party is still in that camp. We're faced with a choice between a tail that wants to wag the dog, bark for the dog, and given half a chance, eat the dog, and one that wants to wag the dog some of the time and be wagged by the dog some of the time. It's not perfect, neither choice is, but one seems like quite a lot better choice.
On with the day, wags.