The Curmudgeon

If a hapless person has the misfortune to listen to republicans and their apologists, that person may come away with the notion that somehow, the republicans have been victims. These poor right wing nuts have been targeted by the media, forced to the back bench politically, disenfranchised by black booted thugs- not that they're complaining, mind you- but nonetheless, to be republican is to be well-nigh powerless, voiceless. They're the silenced voice of the underdogs.

That line holds traction only so long as the aforementioned hapless person pays no attention to the reality of the world, and has been blindfolded, hiding in a cave for the last thirty years, plugging their ears, and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU". Even the briefest, most cursory examination yields immediately the truth that for far too long, the GOP has been the advocate of the bully, if not a bully in its own right.

Here in Minnesota, Governor Scissorhands Pawlenty isn't about to keep being the victim. For too long (which has been a long, grueling never in reality), Timmy has been thwarted, spanked, and left wedgied in his gubernatorial locker, and so he had to take a stand with his selective veto. Timmy's been cheap-shotted, and so his own political goon squad (headed by, uh, Timmy) has to take the vanguard for some sweet retribution.

On the national level, McSame tries a similar, albeit a far more confused, tack. The problem with the maverick (a political newcomer for over a quarter of a century) is that he's been vicitimized so hard for so long, everybody seems like a former attacker. Backed into a corner only he himself can see, McSame always comes out swinging. Then he issues a correction, accepts the media's silent apology for his mistake, starts swinging in the opposite direction, and thus begins his cycle anew.

It is a rare feat to take as many contradictory stances as fervently as McSame, and to get it so wrong so consistently. But that's exactly what he does, whether it is battling al Qaeda or terror or extremists in Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran or wherever. Or fighting the crumbling economy by doing nothing or bailing out thieving institutions.

McSame's latest battle is about the high price of gasoline. He's calling for a tax holiday, and halting the maintenance of the strategic reserve- for now...

The hapless person- and by now the Curmudgeon expects you to realize that means everyone- must be getting the impression that when (or, in the event of optimism, IF) the McSame bully gets around to making his fantasies flesh, we will all be suffering for ever 'victimizing' yet another right wing nut job by letting it near power.