It's Going to Take at Least Another Dozen Years.

You will recall, of course, that the 2000 presidential election was decided by what happened in Florida. Here are several interesting little factoids culled from a report about that election:

* About 80 percent of black voters vote Democrat.

* About 11 percent of Florida voters in 2000 were black.

* About 180,000 ballots cast in that election were rejected.

* About half of the rejected ballots were cast by black voters.

Of course, the final results were determined not by a verified, accurate counting of the votes, but by a Supreme Court decision that gave us George W. Bush. When the actual counting of the ballots was stopped, George Bush was ahead by less than 600 votes.

Yeah, it was a dozen years ago. And yeah ... you're damn right I'm still pissed!

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Anthony Weiner: A Day Late, A Dollar Short

The case of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner hit me in the gut. I have always admired this guy. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s articulate, and he’s been unafraid to stand up and, in righteous indignation, call out Republican colleagues in the House for their frequent duplicitous and cynical actions.

And now Weiner has effectively eliminated himself as an articulate defender of his party’s president and as an effective spokesman for liberal causes and legislation. God knows, we don’t have enough people like that.

Weiner’s biggest mistake was trying to escape responsibility for a stupid, juvenile act by lying about it. Everyone screws up, and most of us will usually forgive a politician who owns up and seems to genuinely regret his mistake. But it takes a helluva lot more to forgive someone who tries to wriggle out of responsibility by lying about a transgression.

When a politician realizes that something unpleasant or embarrassing about his or her personal life may become public, there is one -- and only one -- way to deal with it:

Tell it first. Tell it yourself. And tell it all.

Anthony Weiner has just learned that … the hard way.
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When you call me that, SMILE!

Over the past dozen years or so, Republicans have managed to turn the term “liberal” into a pejorative. So we liberals began calling ourselves “progressives” instead. Undaunted and ever ready to spend their time on such vital matters, the Republicans are now busily turning that word into a negative.

Republicans like John Boehner enjoy referring to the “Democrat Party.” It’s Democratic Party, of course, but I guess they do it just to piss us off. (Boehner is going to a lot of unnecessary trouble; he pisses me off before he even opens his mouth.)

Then there’s the issue of abortion. If you agree with the Republicans, you’re “pro-life.” If you don’t, they say you are “pro-abortion.”

This is a lot more insidious and is a deliberate misrepresentation. No one is pro-abortion! Everyone would like to see fewer and fewer abortions. What we do believe is that the decision should be left to the woman, which makes us "pro-choice".

The latest Republican ploy is to label the health care reforms as “ObamaCare” in the hope that the new reforms will prove to be unpopular and a negative for the president. Of course, if the reforms are successful, they’ll start trumpeting the fact that some 145 components to the new law were Republican ideas … prompting the rest of us to say, “But, in that case, how come you voted against it?” And every last miserable one of them did.
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Way Beyond Outrage

I confess I have used it all up – the outrage, I mean – and now each new glimpse into the psyche of today’s Republican Party just gives me another little spasm of nausea.

The latest comes from John McCain’s senate colleague from Arizona, John Kyl, who – for reasons almost beyond comprehension – rose to the defense of Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, who – (there goes another spasm) – had single-handedly held up a one-month extension of unemployment benefits to several million out-of-work Americans.

In defending Bunning, Kyl offered everyone a look at his own personal view of unemployment benefits which, he says, don’t create jobs and “if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”

Good heavens! Do we really want to deliberately deny benefits to the vast majority in order to be sure the small percentage of abusers aren’t cheating the system? That means screwing the many so the few won’t screw us. How’s that for enlightened public policy!

You know why Democrats have a tougher sell with so many of these issues? It's what has become the simple, fundamental difference between the two political parties: Democrats appeal to the better instincts of people, including sacrifice and generosity, while Republicans are appealing to baser instincts like selfishness and fear.

Abe Lincoln would be ashamed of his party today.

They're Serious: Palin for President

In a CNN poll released today, 32 percent of Republican voters think Sarah Palin should be the party’s nominee for president in 2012.

OK, seriously now … what the hell are you people thinking?

Here’s what the candidate you prefer had to say about nuclear (not newk-yoo-lur) war:

“Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.”

And here she is on the subject of Africa:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

During the campaign, she extolled the virtues of John McCain, describing him as “… somebody very, very committed to policies that I believe will progress this country in the right direction.”

Honest to God, if I have to listen to more of that semi-coherent babbling over the next four years, I will progress myself right into the loony bin, screaming all the way.

As a Democrat, I should be rejoicing at the mere thought of Palin-for-President. But I can’t. I am dumbfounded that so many of my fellow citizens could seriously present this arrogant, ignorant, calculating, shallow, inarticulate, immature, incurious, uninformed, hypocritical and disingenuous person as the best your party has to offer our country.

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