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September 19, 2010 Clarice's Pieces: I Told You SoBy Clarice Feldman
Last year I wrote that the Tea Party demonstration in Washington was a "transformative event," and I described it through the eyes of a participant:
Rosslyn Smith described in detail her experiences with this growing movement and shared my views that it would not be out down:
The primaries, the reliable polls, and the preposterous attacks on the Tea Party, its candidates and supporters all, to my mind, reflect the wisdom of the take Rosslyn and I shared a year ago. Americans know how to organize themselves almost from birth. Tocqueville commented on this. It is a unique and undying American tradition. In recent years, it had dropped off considerably when it came to elections, as the candidates seemed not so different from each other, people felt relatively happy, and workers generally paid for their services and ran campaigns from the top down. But since such audacious executive and legislative overreaching in defiance of the voters' wishes have marked this administration, we have once again organized ourselves to fight back. And we prove again that we are damned good at it. This week, the attacks on the rebelling voters were so preposterous that a friend suggested we rename this National Parody Week. It really is hard to pick out the most obvious examples, so bear with me if I've somehow left out a favorite of yours. The great pundits speak: Let's start with the incredibly myopic lefty journalist Margaret Carlson.
Need I remind you that Joe Biden, now our vice president, held the seat O'Donnell seeks to fill? Someone whose brilliance is manifest in these classic Bidenisms culled by my friend bgates:
Our friend Iowahawk, channeling T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII, compared O'Donnell and Biden in much the bgates framework:
Margaret herself was forced to concede during the presidential campaign that Obama had no experience suitable to serve as Commander-in-Chief, but she brushed aside that seeming handicap for the Delaware Senate seat when it came to the far more critical presidency.:
The editors of the New York Times, like Carlson, provided comic relief to a week when all the pols and pundits and First Ladies Bruni and Obama seemed to be at each other's throats. They see in the voters' rebellion frothing moderates itching for a (gasp!) victorious fight:
It's not clear what the editors mean by "the destructive effects" of the movement, but from all the polls I'm reading, the effects of the Tea Party efforts seem to be a successful driving of both parties to the right and back to the fundamental principles of a representative federation. This is certainly "destructive" to the NYT's agenda, but apparently not to a plurality -- perhaps even majority -- of the American voters. I suppose it would be churlish to note that what the editors of the NYT call "the basest political instincts" would be called intelligent choice by most. After all, take a look at the Republicans the Tea Party voters have rejected. Charlie Crist, when he lost the nomination for Florida's senator, switched parties, and polls show he's far behind Mark Rubio, who was the Tea Party pick. Or Mike Castle, whom the voters rejected in favor of O'Donnell. He's refused to abide by their choice and endorse her. And then there's Lisa Murkowski. She was defeated in the primary by Joe Miller, sought the endorsement of another party, and when they, too, rejected her, she announced she's running as a write-in. None seem to have the principles any shrewd voters would look for in deciding whom to support for office. They are Me-Firsters. Period. No account of the pundit mewling would be complete without E.J. Dionne's contribution. He shows his love (only) for Republicans who lost their bids for the presidency. He called the defeat of the unreliably republican Mike Castle "the final collapse of the Republican Party not only of Nelson Rockefeller and Tom Dewey, but also of Bob Dole and Howard Baker." Usually people like E.J. praise only those Republicans who can be counted upon to vote with the Democrats on big issues. Dionne goes beyond that, saving his respect and regard for the losers.
It pains me to disagree with such a perceptive observer of the political scene, but I think Clyburn is confusing implosion with explosion and his party with O'Donnell's. On taxes, having seen the guillotines being rolled up to the polling places, the Democrats in Congress are pushing Pelosi to agree to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone, including those the Democrats absurdly call the wealthy -- that is, families earning more than $250,000 per year. (That, by the way, is $50,000 less than Michelle earned in a make-believe job to provide political cover for the University of Chicago hospital's desire to persuade poor blacks in the hood to go to clinics elsewhere -- a salary on which she complained about the high cost of her kids' piano lessons.) And then there's the signature legislation, ObamaCare:
So maybe they don't want universal health care and individual mandates, and maybe tax breaks for "the rich" aren't so awful after all. But since this represents a last-minute volte face in the shadow of the blade, who believes them? Well, who besides people like the pundits who said we should support Crist and Castle and Murkowski for our own good? It's not just Congressional Democrats in disarray. The DNC and the White House seem to be losing their bearings. Rumors were flying that David Axelrod was going to be replaced after the midterms by David Plouffe, who managed Obama's presidential race. Bgates, that wag, says, "Finally we'll see some attention paid to campaigning." Leaks from those who worked in the white House (and perhaps still work there) continue, and one of them tells us something we long expected: Obama is not very focused on the job and has paid no attention to the details of governance. The DNC announced with great fanfare that they had a big announcement this week. We could hardly contain our excitement. Then it came -- a new website and a logo consisting of a D inside a circle and an explanation: 
The logo reminded many of the JOM posters of the button denoting the down elevator. Others thought it looked remarkably like a toilet bowl. Still others thought the logo reminded them of the "drive" shift in cars, which would fit with Obama's oft-made speech about driving us out of the ditch. Bgates thinks that driving cars is not the Democrats best analogy.
Others in the nation's capital, all of whom are smarter than bitter, clinging, spit flecked Tea Party supporters, showed us what it takes to get the corner offices and big bucks. Like the courtiers in Versailles, we who live and work here find it important to keep changing terminology so that when you return home to tend to your real affairs, you will on your return be hopelessly lost, not knowing what we are talking about or even the appropriate protocol for knocking on doors of your social betters. In that vein, White House Science Adviser John Holdren wants us to stop using "global warming." Instead, we are to use "global climate disruption." If you want to be taken seriously here, for future reference put this in your files along with "man-caused disaster" instead of terrorism and "overseas contingency operation" for war. I don't want you to think this week has been all under the net jostling in the primaries and on the Hill. There's been one very bright bit of news on the horizon. There's a move afoot in Congress to repeal the ban on incandescent light bulbs. One other announcement buoyed my spirits:
I assumed Congress had come to its senses or Obama had started paying attention to the highest unemployment figures in decades. But no, a closer reading indicates that that was a statement of the official labor federation of Cuba.
on "Clarice's Pieces: I Told You So"
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