I have had a lot to say about a lot of subjects, but the real world has kept me from being able to take the time to say it . . . at least, so far this year. But I do have to make a few quick observations about subjects I'd normally like to cover in depth.
(1) I don't know why everyone is reporting with such sturm und drang about how terrible it is that the Democratic Party has lost its "60-vote, filibuster-proof" majority in the US Senate. If the current debacle surrounding the proposed health care legislation has shown us anything, it has shown us that while the Democrats may have had 60 votes in name, they NEVER had them in actual fact. So get over it, already! A change that makes no difference is really no change at all.
(2) Let's hope the Democrats learn the correct lesson from this, however, and start acting like Democrats again, instead of trying to be the GOP-lite. The minority Republicans who have been crowing that the results of the Massachusetts special election Tuesday show that the country wants the Democrats to practice "more inclusive" politics are full of W%R^&%^**&&^$%. The real Democrats, the true progressives in the party, according to all the post-election polls I've seen, largely stayed home. They want Democrats to be Democrats, not start from the center and move right to try to accommodate a minority that thinks it's still the majority.
(3) Nonetheless, I am not surprised by Martha Coakley's loss in that Massachusetts special election to fill the seat formerly occupied by the late US Senator Ted Kennedy. Rule Number One in politics is: NEVER take anything for granted. The Democrats, at both state and national levels, forgot that. Senator-elect Scott Brown did not. While I find him and his views on the issues of the day odious [let's just say that Keith Olbermann is right and leave it at that.--Ed.], I have to give Brown credit for his political savvy. So far.
(4) My disappointment in former US Senator (and erstwhile Vice Presidential nominee and Presidential candidate) John Edwards is now at 100%. I heard on the news this morning that he finally 'fessed up to being the father of the child that his videographer had in 2008. Way too late and several billion dollars too short, sir. You had an eloquent, effective, and persuasive voice on the twin issues of health care reform and poverty in this nation, and you squandered all of it for the sake of your ego and what you couldn't keep in your own pants. Now that voice has been silenced, and the good you could have done, especially in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death, is squelched. Not to mention the fact that your newly-acknowledged daughter is going to have to grow up knowing her own father denied her for the first two years of her life. Way to go, Daddy-o, she said, sarcasm spewing from her lips.
(5) I'm all for Rush Limbaugh continuing to rant his rabies-froth-tinged rants against all relief efforts to Haiti and against the Haitian people. Maybe he's finally stepped over a line even the tea-baggers and ditto-heads won't cross, and made his racism and selfishness and inhumanity so blatant that even those idiots will no longer follow him. So if his ravings on this subject finally break his apparent stranglehold on the GOP, all to the good. Anything that will contribute to a return to the politics of "we can agree to disagree, but we are going to work together to move the country forward" is a wonderful thing. This petulant, childish, and immature "if I can't have it 100% my own way, I'm picking up my ball and going home" approach to the nation's business must stop, before we find America relegated to irrelevance--or worse--by the rest of the world.
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