Your generous
donations help keep
this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.
But for anyone who thinks that American voters just elected a bunch of clowns to represent them in Washington, I humbly draw your attention to Brazil, where they just elected a real clown to their Congress.
An interesting article caught my eye last week, but what with all the election hoopla, I haven't had a chance to write about it before now. But even if it went mostly unnoticed by the public at large, it was an important and downright scathing indictment of the Democrats' complete inability to get their message out, so it certainly fits in with our theme here on Fridays. Some may feel, perhaps, that the word "indictment" is too strong to use here. I disagree. In fact, I'll make the statement even stronger: this article is an absolute epitaph -- which should be carved into the gravestone laid on top of the corpse of the Democrats' efforts to communicate their virtues to the voters in the 2010 midterm elections.
I'm going to (mostly) resist the urge to take advantage of this column's volume number in order to write a really gross column. Numerically, and inventory-wise, a "gross" is (of course) one dozen dozen. Twelve squared.
Of course, there was a bold way Obama could have acted on the issue, but looking at his past record, it would have been nothing short of downright astonishing if he had taken it. This would have been to perform what I would call (keeping in mind I am no lawyer, and realizing there already may be a term for this, which is unknown to me): "prosecutorial nullification." In other words, the government agency (in this case, the Attorney General) could have decided: "The judge is right, this is unconstitutional, therefore we will no longer defend this law in the courts, and let the ruling stand."
"Whenever you get hit with an overwhelming weight, you have to jujitsu it. So we want to turn it against them... I want to tattoo them right on to the Republican candidate," she said, smacking her hand for emphasis. "Big oil, big banks, big health insurance: We're going to tattoo you with that, so it's like doggy-doo stuck on your shoe. Wherever you go, people will know."
I will begin today's column by drying a tear as we all wish Rahm Emanuel a fond farewell. Actually, I am lying. I am drying no tears for Rahm because I am crying no tears at his leaving. Chicago's loss is the White House's gain, as far as I'm concerned.
The White House has been in the news this past week, mostly for who will be leaving it soon. One is tempted to insert the old "will the last to leave please turn out the lights" joke here; but one will not, because one holds oneself to a higher standard than that. Ahem.
First, though, we simply must wish ourselves a happy third anniversary. Woo hoo! Three years of FTP columns!
And dominate he did. Monday, he gave a rousing pro-worker Labor Day speech, Wednesday he gave a rousing speech on the economy, and Friday he held the first press conference he's held in months. Finally, the White House seems to have woken up and realized that "overexposure" of a president is a myth propagated by those who oppose him. The "bully pulpit" is there to be used, in other words, not there to gather dust until Fox News decides it is OK for the president to speak to the public.
Jollification aside, though, we're still one week away from Congress returning to briefly do their job (or at least give the appearance of doing so), before they award themselves another month or so off, in order to campaign. Labor Day is right around the corner (or perhaps blowing past the corner at 75 miles per hour, if you live in the hurricane zone -- which contains, my television assures me, everything east of about Denver).