I see Rahm Emanuel’s been living up to his nickname “Captain Buttinski J. Cynicalmachinepoliticsguy”

To clarify: I don’t know anything about Maloney and I don’t really have a problem with Gillibrand—-a little Blue-Doggy as a congresswoman for my taste, but she’s proven herself perfectly capable of pandering to the more left-leaning statewide electorate, and like I always say, nothing wrong with pandering as long as you’re pandering to me. I know the initial discomfort with her appointment was because of her stances on gun rights and immigration, and I’m not sure how far she’s strayed from those, but as to the former, being an absolutist about the First Amendment but not the Second requires mental contortions I’m just not smart enough to pull off, and the latter? Well, I’m for open borders, but I’m also a rabid anti-Catholic bigot.* You can see the spot I’m in.

Anyway, for all I know, Gillibrand’s the superior candidate. That’s not the point. The point is screw Rahm, screw Schumer, and screw Obama. Dude, you stumped for Lieberman, you’ll have to forgive me for thinking I’m a better judge of your potential allies than you are. Havin’ a hard time imagining Lamont trying to kill the public option.

Also, screw Reid, but you knew that. Screw all these cats who think us pesky voters have too many choices, true as that may be in the cereal aisle. And the senate? Any insititution that thinks a retired Admiral’s too far-out for its carefully-cultivated bipartisan bonhomie 1) can go screw itself, to return briefly to the screwing theme, and 2) desperately needs a dose of whatever chaos it thinks it’s guarding against.

I’m sure they’ve got their reasons, insofar as being a bunch of flinchy human-terrier hybrids that can’t handle the idea of a general election with an outcome that isn’t 100% preordained can be considered a “reason,” but I’m just sick to death of the party that named itself after democracy acting like we can’t be trusted with it.**

I keep thinking I hate Washington insiders, but I don’t, really; I hate what Washington does to people inside it (has anyone ever run a successful insurgent candidancy and not immediately embraced the system he railed against?). Hell, I guess I should be happy they didn’t back Coleman.

*I’m sort of kidding, but my family’s mostly Irish and Italian, so not really

**oh, I know we’ve proven over and over that we can’t, I just wish they’d stop acting like it

Posted by gil mann on 07/01/09 at 10:09 PM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Bedwetters •

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”...and like I always say, nothing wrong with pandering as long as you’re pandering to me.”

Ah, but there IS something profoundly wrong with pandering. Namely, that pandering is the opposite of true commitment, so panderers rarely live up to their promises—see Obama and the Dem leadership’s shameful retreat on queer rights as an example.

Comment by Judas Peckerwood on 07/02/09 at 12:35 AM

“has anyone ever run a successful insurgent candidancy and not immediately embraced the system he railed against?”

Yes, Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold leap to mind.

Comment by Judas Peckerwood on 07/02/09 at 12:37 AM

Ah, but there IS something profoundly wrong with pandering.

Yeah, I know, I was sorta poking fun at my own jadedness there.

Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold leap to mind.

Leapt to mine, too (just those two, so I’m going with the “rule-proving exceptions” dodge), but their constituencies are/were such that I wasn’t sure either one really counted as an “insurgent,” and I was plum tuckered out so I decided that what I meant was national office; that way I could stop looking up old dot-govs and go to bed.

Judas Peckerwood: a rather more serious fellow than the name would imply.