what a difference a joke makes

[burnunit]

I found that I really liked John Kerry in the last months leading up to 2004's election. i thought he seemed like an affable, intelligent, and serious guy. He had an interesting life and one very cool hobby (dude, he windboarded for like 75 miles one time!). But gawd!! What a doooooofus. I really think what he said Tuesday was way overhyped by a desperate GOP on the eve of their humiliating defeat. But not only is his sense of the punchline absolutely DUMB, his timing is completely foolish! Why risk throwing off the momentum even a tiny little bit? The current talking point is "Kerry botched a punchline, Bush botched a war" which is, essentially, true. It's a good little soundbite response to asinine trumpeting of the aging elephants. But as the ever intriguing Joan Walsh said in Salon today, "Yes, Kerry only botched a joke, while Bush has botched a war, and yes, Republicans were despicable in their intentional misreading of his words -- but Kerry should never have given them an opening. I have a deal to make with Kerry -- if I say I believe you simply blew a punch line, rather than slurred the troops, will you go away? For good? Done." Please big J, just shut the fuck up and disappear for a while. We'll give you some seniority on a committee after the changeover, but you gotta keep your hands off the pendulum until it is done swinging!

Meanwhile, I heartily commend you to read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article about Congress. In a long, profanity-laden piece Taibbi summarizes some of the very good reasons we have to be utterly disgusted by this new Do Nothing (Unless You Can Fuck It Up) Congress. Believe me, they find a way. One choice passage:

It is clear that the same Congress that put a drooling child-chaser like Mark Foley in charge of a House caucus on child exploitation also named Cunningham, a man who can barely write his own name in the ground with a stick, to a similarly appropriate position. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the former chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence: "As truth will come out and you will find out how liablest [sic] you have & will be. Not once did you list the positives. Education Man of the Year...hospital funding, jobs, Hiway [sic] funding, border security, Megans law my bill, Tuna Dolfin [sic] my bill...and every time you wanted an expert on the wars who did you call. No Marcus you write About how I died."

How liablest you have & will be? What the fuck does that even mean? This guy sat on the Appropriations Committee for years -- no wonder Congress couldn't pass any spending bills!

This is Congress in the Bush years, in a nutshell -- a guy who takes $2 million in bribes from a contractor, whooping it up in turtlenecks and pajama bottoms with young women on a contractor-provided yacht named after himself (the "Duke-Stir"), and not only is he shocked when he's caught, he's too dumb to even understand that he's been guilty of anything.

I know some folks reading this today are 3rd party, not-particularly-Dem-backing, and that's fine. But I'm a Democrat and we're going to kick the shit out of those rat finks on Tuesday. Maybe you'd like to party along. When you're in the booth, ask yourself if, in the national elections, the situation is going to really truly be the very same no matter who is in control of congress. If you can honestly say that, that this class of GOP is morally and legislatively the equivalent of this year's class of Democrats, by all means, vote for a third party. But I'm asking you, as your friend, to vote for a Democrat. Please vote specifically for Democrats. I'll eat a big plate of crow, with all the fixins of my words and my hat, if the Democrats don't make a better Congress than what we've had the last 6 years. If you doubt me, you can mark this entry in your memories. Hell, I'll tag it and everything. We'll drag it up in 2008 and 2010 and you can make me swallow bite after bite. Please vote for Democrats Tuesday.

Just don't think about John Kerry when you do it.

Comments

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

the neocon-repubs are excellent of turning molehills into mountains. always have been. what pisses me off is how spineless the dems are at letting them hijack debate away from the real issues and at the general public for allowing it.

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

c: excellent at / masters of

[r0ckc4ndy.livejournal.com]

That's funnny, because we were having that exact same discussion about Kerry the other day. Like really, the joke went wrong whatever. Even the conservatives (read white devils) at school have said the republicans were ridiculous. But doesn't Kerry know by now that he's like the Ziggy of the political world? Oh, Kerry, will you ever win? NO! I worked for the campaign, and I thought then and do now, that Kerry was the reason Dems suck. We find these totally middle of the roaders who try to pull in some conservatives, because the real liberals have no one else to vote for!
I am one of those thrid partiers, but I will be voting what I'm pretty sure is a straght Dem ticket this year. Please please, let IRV pass.