Athenae, Political Crack

Um, YEAH

Durr:

… would Obama get his strength and leadership numbers up if he directly took on the insurance industry and the Republicans?

YA THINK? People love winners and that’s why Yankee Stadium is filled to the rafters, it’s why people continue to pay for Red Wings tickets and it’s why they continue to vote Republican in the absence of a compelling alternative. Obama would get his strength and leadership numbers up, and he’d get his actual strength and leadership up, and Congress would have approval ratings slightly higher than chlamydia, if they all directly took on people who want you to starve and die and go bankrupt and preferably in that order.

Why is this always so fucking hard to get? We are not talking about rocket surgery here. I get that in the Senate everybody’s friends and you don’t want to upset your friends and absent calling somebody Macaca in public there’s basically no way you won’t get re-elected as a senator so fuck it, but there comes a point … right? When you get sick of being a national joke? Don’t these people ever get tired of getting their lunch money taken?

I’ve been saying it for years, and lots of us dirty fucking hippies have been saying it for years: the only thing a bully understands is a good hard punch to the face. So punch.

Crack van Wednesday night.

A.

9 thoughts on “Um, YEAH”

  1. We are not talking about Rocket Surgery is definitely my new favorite phrase. Also, damn you for hitting send on the long, tedious, blog post I’m still trying to write on this subject.
    aimai

  3. pulling down my worn out FDR/LBJ/Huey Long comparisons again:
    When government DELIVERS something people CANNOT OTHERWISE OBTAIN WITHOUT HELP, it will result in X amount of political capital.
    LBJ brought electricity to the Hill Country – no commercial/governmental entity would/could/wanted to before.
    Huey brought roads and textbooks to Louisiana. Same as above
    FDR, wherever you come down on the NEw Deal’s real efficacy, it did result in political capital.
    Votes? Popularity? People named their fucking children after those three for decades.

  4. Is “taking on the insurance industry” the same as “taking on the credit card industry”? Because the senate version of that was so successful if you measure things in baby steps.
    I fear baby steps is all we’re going to get.

  6. Damn right, A. The Dems have the right enemies; they should bloody wellfight them.
    virgotex, I’ve always said, “If something needs to be done and the private sector cannot, or will not, do it, then the government must do it.” But you stated betterwhy it’s good politics for the government to do it.

  7. OT, butbait:

    Liebling, who died in 1963, was spared the looming prospect of the no-newspaper town. There is, of course, the Internet, which he could not have imagined. Its enthusiasts rightly point out that digital media are in nearly every way superior to paper and ink, and represent, in essence, an upgrade in technology. But those giant presses and barrels of ink and fleets of delivery trucks were never what made newspapers invaluable. What gave newspapers their value was the mission and promise of journalism—the hope that someone was getting paid to wade into the daily tide of manure, sort through its deliberate lies and cunning half-truths, and tell a story straight.

    Your thoughts?

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