really is a spectacle. charlie rangel on msnbc just now: "the republican leadership in the house is being held hostage by the tea party radicals. these people don't care at all about the country; all they care about is being re-elected." um, unlike you, i guess. the tone is just ridiculous, and then "we have to come together to work for the people." really? with people whom you hold do not care about the country at all? and that's a sweet invitation you're offering: these people are profoundly evil, and the american people are sick of the partisanship, so we need to work together.
one formulation i have grown to hate hate, constantly produced by automata on both sides: "the american people want us to do x." it's chanted by obama, cantor, boehner, reid: absolutely everyone. e.g. "the american people want us to work together to do what's right," followed by a series of extreme insults directed at the other party. of course what the american people want is whatever the spokeman's ventriloquists are saying. and don't tell me what i want, bitch. if you want to do what i want you to do, dissipate like a mist or a hallucination.
but at any rate, nothing can make these people stop. nothing. for some time, we've been in the era of meta-partisanship: partisanship, and hence congress, is polling extremely badly. conclusion? blame the other side for the partisanship. seriously, they will get up in dueling news conferences and accuse their opponents of 'playing politics' or engaging in 'washington business as usual.' it's impossible to imagine who could possibly find that persuasive coming out of their mouths; it's like eric cantor and jay carney accusing one another, in extreme outrage, of wearing a suit. i have no idea who they think they're talking to, or who they expect to take them seriously or keep listening. it's insufferably repetitive, but completely meaningless. and it just cannot be a good strategy in any sense or for any purpose. perhaps their intended audience is their own consultants or something.
this current debate about a two-month or a one-year extension of the ss tax cut is a particularly excellent example; it's not about anything at all, and they all purport to have exactly the same position. and yet they are just verbally assaulting each other, all in unison. it's the gop that walked away. no it's the dems. it's the house. it's the senate. if only the fact that they are disgracing themselves continuously and are entirely incapable of independent intellection could make them disappear.
