Funny, that's Just What I ThoughtWhen My Septic Tank Exploded

Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor says the oil spill looks just like chocolate milk.

Why Didn't We See This Last Year?

Steve Benen offers a bunch of new in-your-face TV ads on health care (link). Conscientious practitioners of old-fashioned citizenship will find them cringeworthy--too personalized, too confrontational, too simplistic. A more detached observer might respond: why didn't we see these last year?

That is: one reason Obama is in such deep tapioca on an issue where he ought to rule is that he let the bad guys get control of the narrative--rather, not just Obama, but the whole Democratic apparatus. We say that Obama is too much of a gent but the fact is there is a whole swath of Democrats who really don't want to win that bad if they have to dust it up.

As an inborn coward with aspirations to gentility, I feel for them. But the fact is, it doesn't work that way. Let the other side tell the story and they tell their story. Moreover--worse--there's a fair-sized segment of the voting public that, if you don't fight back, will regard you with contempt for the mere fact that you didn't fight back.

I don't know if Democrats are in a mood to fight back now; I doubt it. The MoveOn adds are an attempt, but I bet they'll wind up in context looking half hearted and perfunctory. As Shakespeare said, Much Ado About Nothing:

DOGBERRY	This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are
	to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.	25
Second Watchman	How if a' will not stand?
DOGBERRY	Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and
	presently call the rest of the watch together and
	thank God you are rid of a knave.

Grass-Roots Rage: Another Voice

Andrew Sullivan gives the megaphone to a remarkably articulate voice:

The past year has been a very difficult one for me, personally and professionally. I've been up a lot more than I've been down, and I've been angry and frustrated with life, as we all are at times. But I can't remember the last time I felt such overwhelming rage toward a group of people as I have felt toward the Republican Party and the conservative movement since President Obama's election....

And now some low-rent hairdo, whose sole claim to fame is posing naked for some ladies' magazine way back when, may happily destroy whatever chance this country has at moving in a more just, humane, and morally and fiscally responsible direction.

As you stated, the Republican Party of this new century is shot through with nihilists. Unabashed nihilists. But what leaves me shaking with anger damn near every day since President Obama's inauguration is the pure smugness and nonchalance of their nihilism.

Palin, McConnell, DeMint, Boehner, Cantor, Rubio, Scott Brown and the rest of the Ailes- and Limbaugh-warped GOP: Would you trust any one of these goons to greet you at Wal-Mart, much less govern our country? The question answers itself. ...

That's just an excerpt; you can read the whole thing here. I have to admit I agree with about all of this, even though (by good luck more than good planning) my own situation isn't anywhere near as bollwackers as his.

But let that pass. The thing that puzzles Democrats is: why doesn't everyone feel that way? Why aren't all the voters willing--as they clearly are not--to dump the same spew of venom on the authors of their misfortune and--more apposite--the ones so determined not to offer any salvation or even relief?

Well of course if I knew, I wouldn't be here: I'd be out advising campaigns somewhere (so thank heavens that I don't know; at least I'm saved from that fate). I do offer a tentative and partial suggestion, though: our old friend Dr. Freud's cousin Schaden. They like to see 'em squirm. Put differently, they really don't think much more of the Republicans than our correspondent thinks. Truth is, in their rare moments of candor, they'll tell you that of course Sarah Palin isn't fit to govern a class picnic nor John Boehner a fourth-rate mortuary. But it is the Democrats who are inside the piñata for the moment. If you beat them hard enough some goodies might tumble out, but suppose not: at least you get to listen to them squeal. Damn, uppity, patronizing college girls and funny-looking tan guys. They never bother to stick their heads up around here until election time and now they want to tell us how to solve our problems! Hah! As far as we can see, our problems are not going away, but at least we have the momentary diversion of screaming holy hellfire at the fancy dancies who say they'd like to help.

My suspicion is that when if the Republicans do get back in, they'll find that their friends "the people" are not as good-natured and docile as they must seem for the moment to be. But meanwhile, it is the other guy who is the problem and the target.

Oh, as an afterthought: it might be nice if just once in a while somebody, somewhere in the Democratic apparatus gave them at least a little evidence that they were wrong, I saw Bill Clinton today, tromping around in the Haitian mud. It was shameless, look-at-me grandstanding, of course, but what grandstanding! Couldn't somebody on the White House team just for a moment show that they really do conceptualize the current crisis as something more than an academic exercise in fiscal management. Then, just possibly, the glacier might start to crack and you might begin to see the rage of Sully's letter-writer just a bit more often than sometimes.

Afterthought: By the way, I must have missed something. Which low-rent hairdo was it who posed naked for a ladies' magazine?

Who Called it "The Democrat Party?"

Swifty asks: who first called it "The Democrat Party?" He suggests maybe Joe Martin, Republican Speaker of the House But apparently it's earlier:

... Newt Gingrich did a lot to encourage the use of “Democrat Party” as a not-so-subtle form of denigration, but the practice began well before he arrived on the scene. During the Truman-Dewey presidential election campaign in 1946, for example, B. Carroll Reece, who was then chairman of the Republican National Committee, used the adjective “Democrat” as a weapon. (Truman, in turn, suggested calling the GOP the Publican Party, a reference to the tax collectors of the New Testament.)

So the use of the term “Democrat Party” is quite an old trick. In fact, researchers have found references from as far back as 1855, though at that time the term may have been inoffensive and not intended to show disrespect. The linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has cited negative references from the early 20th century, but he says the practice didn’t become “a Republican tic” until mid-century.

Source: Grammarphobia, though without any citation to sources.

Rich Bankers and the Approval Meter

Twas interesting to watch the CNN approval meter when Obama took a few swipes at rich bankers last night. Democrats liked it, but the Republican approval measure just fell of a cliff. Ooh, they were saying do not attack the rich!

Well, I can think of possible reasons for not attacking the rich (instrumental prudence; primitive Aynrandianism, whatever). I'm really not sure which might have been driving this crowd.

But I'm struck by the irony that among those note voting for the rich are--the rich themselves. Specifically, the Upper East Side of Manhattan--the Silk Stocking District, banker central, is red-hot liberal company with a liberal Democratic congresswoman and I bet lots of Obama votes.

It's part of a pattern that gives thoughtful Republicans the heebie jeebies. The brightest, the best positioned, the most cosseted--okay, the richest--Manhattan, Alexandria, Palo Alto are all Obama country. If the mass of Republicans are standing firm in defense of the rich, they are protecting a crowd that doesn't seem interested in offering this kind of protection to themselves.

Republicans Pull Their Shades Down;Democrats Don't, But Should

Eric Rauchway has a fascinating piece up at TNR where he argues that the Republicans are the party hounded by “the inability to govern” (while the Dems tend to govern too much) (link, and HT Mark Thoma). Let’s stipulate that this little foray is unlikely to be greeted with universal acclaim, but let me suggest one particular (among many?) ways in which it is surprising or original.

That is: ever since Lincoln, the Republicans have been able to sell themselves as the “respectable party,” the “real America,” casting the Democrats more or less as outliers. I’m sure this has something to do with the party’s anti-slavery roots (boy, those were the days…) and in particular, the Democrat’s laboring under the taint of complicity with the old south.

But it has long outlasted all that. Even today, Republicans seem to believe—and seem successful at persuading others—that the presidency really belongs to them and any Democratic president is at best a chair-warmer and at worst, a usurper.

I do not think that the presidency belongs to them, although I do think the Democrats tend to overgovern, and quite often, at that. But here is a spin: as a whole, Democrats tend to be better at wonkiness and the boring part of day-to-day operation. Stuff like this is bound to be irritating, particularly to people who find themselves governed.

In this perspective, the interesting thing is not that Democrats win some, but that they win at all. But the task of governing does have to be done, and every so often, you haul in the Democrats to clean up the mess.

One giveaway: consider how often deep-red states wind up with Democratic governors, even as they are spilling libertarian rhetoric (and sending Republicans to Congress). A more extreme example would be the “sewer socialist” mayors who survive with widespread popularity because they make the firetrucks run on time. Bernie Sanders, longtime Mayor of Burlington and now a senator from Vermont, is a dramatic example. Overseas, I don’t know about lately, but in Italy for a long time, Communist Bologna was by general assent the best-governed city, and not radical in any interesting sense.

"Fixing Broken Windows" and the Ic Factor

I vented on "The Democrat Party" a few days ago. It was an idle whim; nothing has ever come of this sort of thing before, and I didn't expect anything now. In particular, I recalled how Democrats rarely responded to this petty slur because they couldn't figure out a good way to get a handle on it.

But welcome to the blogosphere. In a refreshing new tendency that might be called "no slur left behind," some of the better non-crazy left bloggers are jumping on board and doing their best to keep the issue alive: link; link; link; link.

Well, God bless. Perhaps what we see here is a new flowering of the "Fixing Broken Windows" crime policy--police even small crimes, to show you mean business, and to keep criminals so snarled up in the system that they don't have time for anything bigger.

An added benefit is that my attention has been called to this Hendrik Hertzberg piece, which demolishes the "ic" strategy about 10 times better than I did myself.

Fn: And just for the record, the decline of crime in New York City had less to do with Rudolph Giuliani--and more to do with his predecessor, David Dinkins--than the Giuliani campaign is likel to tell to. For a refresher, look here.

President BS

I see by the Wall Street Journal that the President departed from his prepared State of the Union text at least once--to refer to "the Democratic majority" as "the Democrat majority." My God, they just can't help themselves, can they? He's tickling 28 percent, he's got majorities against him on both sides, he's really desperate for anything, anything to add a patina of gravitas to the debacle that is his Presidency--and he indulges himself by throwing it away on a towel-snapping locker room cheap shot.

I don't know--but it would be interesting to know--who came up with the idea that it would be funny ha-ha to take this bit of schoolyard dissery and turn it into a canon of Republican conformity. Best way I remember it was some time around the time of the Gingrich revolution, and I have to concede it was a pretty good idea at the time. It added just a frisson of macho swagger to set the troop's blood running, without risking anything so vulgar or dangerous as actually stuffing castor oil down somebody's throat. And Dems never did figure out how to handle it: they feared that any attempt at response would smack of prissiness or thin skin. But as James Carvell so well understands, not to respond is taken a sign of weakness which just angries up the blood. So you're stuck either way.

But you know what? It's old. Old not in the sense of "venerable," or even "traditional" but old in the sense of "lame." It's become an index of the bankruptcy of the old guard. They're a busted flush at this point, an empty suit, and it shows. They've lost the war--no, they've lost two or three or wars, in the sense that every time they redefine the war, they go ahead and lose that one too. They've been exposed over and over as incoherent frauds on domestic policy, and they've given every evidence that they don't understand the simple arithmetic of budget management at all. They've got nothing left in their hand but a piece of shopworn faux bullying.

Well you know what, kiddies? Despite appearances, politics is not tetherball. It isn't even water polo or soccer. It's a desperately serious business, and our very lives depend on it. You've made a right royal mess of things, and it is time to pay. Which means we need some grownups at the table: some people who have at least a beginning sense of the pickle we are in, together with the sense of responsibility (saying nothing of the energy and, dare one hope for it, the wisdom) to work with other people of good will to try to pull some of these grenade-sized chestnuts out of the fire. Do that--even hint at doing that, I don't ask for much--hint at doing that, and I'll give the President back the last two letters of his name.