Tuesday, February 21, 2006

This Could Be It

This could be the issue that finally brings down this corrupt administration. On CNN last night Lou Dobbs went off, and all their viewer mail was anti Bush on this. All they had was homeland security. Now they will not even have that. The Dems have really got to drive this mother of all wedge issues.

ABC News: Bush: Arab Co. Port Deal Should Proceed: "President Bush said Tuesday that the deal allowing an Arab company to take over six major U.S. seaports should go forward and that he would veto any congressional effort to stop it."

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

WSJ.com - Cheney Accident Triggers Jokes on Late-Night TV

WSJ.com - Cheney Accident Triggers Jokes on Late-Night TV

Friday, February 03, 2006

Barkely 08?

Last night I was thinking that maybe Lakoff is wrong. Maybe the ‘nurturing parent’ model is just a loser. Maybe what Democrats need to do is to run a ‘strict father’ candidate, albeit one who has a progressive viewpoint. I thought, “when was the last time I saw a Democrat who fit the ‘strict father’ model?” I imagine LBJ may have been one. I really don’t know much about him, but he seemed like a tough guy. But in recent memory all of the Democratic presidential candidates had serious wimp problems. I mean, John Kerry couldn’t kick MY ass. Maybe what we need is a football player or something.

This morning I turned on CNN and there was Charles Barkley shilling the paperback version of his book and talking about poverty in America. Yeah, he was spouting the libertarian, “the government isn’t going to help you, you have to help yourself” line. I’ll take that if it means at least talking about poverty. This is the type of guy I was thinking about. I wonder if he’s a Democrat?

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Civility schmivility

My father-in-law died a couple of years ago. I still miss him, especially when I want to talk politics. We couldn’t have been more different. He was loud, opinionated and conservative. Well, ok so we were both opinionated.

Anyway, we used to get into serious pissing matches. I’d come over to the house and he’d be in the basement watching tv. Invariably he’d turn to me as I sat sown and say, “Did you hear what your President wants to do…” And no matter how many times I protested that I didn’t vote for Clinton (I was SWP all the way back then), he’d insist that he was my president and then launch into some tirade about liberals destroying the world.

At this point you might be thinking, “And you MISS this?!?” And you’re right too. But here’s the thing. No matter how much we went at it, at the end of the day we were friends—or at least as close friends as a father-in-law and a son-in-law could be.

He was a dirty arguer and he used all the tricks: straw men, personal attacks, statistics out of context, false dilemmas, etc. But in classic pissing match fashion it was never about winning me over to his side. In fact, I think he would have been disappointed if he did. Instead, it was another thing to talk about, like sports. And the conflict was simply a way to keep it interesting.
When I first met him I was pretty intimidated. I had never experienced this type of interaction. It was passionate on the one hand, but with a distance on the other. Nothing was personal. For me growing up, politics and religion were off-limits. People might disagree and disagreement was upsetting.

I’m not sure where this came from. Maybe I’m succumbing to a ‘Golden Age’ fallacy, but when I talk to my own Dad now, he tells me about growing up in a family that always argued politics. And he talks about how he had friends with lots of different political points of view and they also argued. It seems somewhere between his generation (the Korean war guys, stuck between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers) and now things changed. I like to blame the Baby Boomers for making politics personal. But I like to blame them for everything. For whatever reason, these days we seem balkanized in terms of politics. I’m sure I have very few conservative friends, if any.

I heard that in his State of the Union speech, Bush called for a return to civility in political discourse. I think he’s off the mark. Civility has never been a part of politics. What we need is a return levity. We need to stop defining ourselves by our politics. Because, when being a conservative or liberal is an integral part of who you are, then any questioning of that position can only be taken as a personal attack. Where’s the fun in that?