Two Ways of Dealing with the Tea Partiers

Kudos to the New York Times' Jennifer Steinhauer and Kate Zernike for their complimentary takes on how the Democrats and G.O.P., respectively, should deal with the Tea Partiers. Both drew a muted chortle and a good shake of the head.

From the Democratic standpoint, Ms.Steinhauer writes that dealing with the would-be revolutionaries " is analogous to a family fracas over how to best get rid of your sister’s latest crummy boyfriend." Meanwhile, Ms. Zernike observes that the Republicans are unsure whether "you have to take a stand against masturbation or urge your supporters to gather their bayonets." Thank you, oh thank you, Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin!

"Do you repeatedly point out all the perceived flaws of the new suitor, hoping that they resonate?" asks Ms. Steinhauer, "Or do you insist that the new guy is just like the ex, and suggest that repeating the pattern will only lead to misery?" "The trick is to take advantage of the Tea Party passion and stay away from its extremes," writes Ms. Zernike. Yeah . . . Good luck on that one! That's like telling a bratty Eskimo kid to go stand in the corner of the igloo. The Tea Party is an extreme. Doh!!!

. . . . and on the Left Coast . . .  MSNBC reports a poll showing spaced-out, hash-brownied 70's California governor, Jerry Brown, in a dead heat with terminated, gazillionaire ex-Hewlitt Packard, Silicon-Valley CEO Meg Whittman, to replace the Terminator.

ROTFLMAO (and shaking my head)! . . . And all this over a mid-afternoon coffee. . . .Only in the new 21st-century America!

Have the Republicans Flipped Their Wigs . . . er, Whigs???

I do not know whether to call the Republicans just released "Pledge to America" a mimicry or an unintended mockery of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Either way, its clear that collectively the House G.O.P's (Grand Old Partiers!) have flipped their wigs (or, perhaps, Whigs?) in condescendingly kowtowing to a party base mainly created by the political media.

Wrapping its essentially empty and rhetorical "Pledge to America" in constitutional, federalist terms, they take liberties in equating within the same introductory paragraph the "unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" with what seems to be (in light of the paper's following vacuous generalities) an almost unfettered "economic, political, and religious liberty."

Reading this tripe, one would assume that the country's founding revolution was sparked by "taxation" itself - rather than "taxation without representation." One would think that America is the fiefdom of an autocratic foreign power, rather than a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Blithely dismissing the executive branch as "unchecked", the legislative branch as "compliant", and the judicial branch as "overreaching", the Republican's "Pledge" demonizes the very concept of government, as if neither they themselves, nor the electorate had, (or has) any role in electing the Administration and Congress, the Senate of which, in turn, nominates, ratifies and appoints the Judiciary.


In fact, this clearly over-the-edge "Pledge" seems to challenge the legitimacy of the entire government (all three branches), and tries to perpetuate an idea that the composition of the Congress and the Obama Administration is not the result of the fair and free elections (in times of peace and war) that have characterized the United States since its founding.

The Republican p.r. hacks who undoubtedly authored this mish-mash of a mess, mischaracterize their government as a "government of self-appointed elites [that] makes decisions, issues mandates and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many."

What??? Self-appointed elites enact laws in the United States of America???  I thought there was an election coming up . . .  but I guess there has been a takeover by a Harvard-Law academic, or Wall Street financial junta instead.  I ask: Have the House G.O.P.'s finally flipped their wigs . . . .er, Whigs???

One can only sadly shake one's head, or recoil like the rattlesnake on the American Revolution's seemingly hijacked "Don't Tread on Me!" banner.