Wednesday, February 09, 2011

The Delaware Grifter

Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Grifter, is at it again, fund raising that is. This is a woman, somewhere now around 40 years of age, who has never had a job (or masturbated?), and, aside from some apparent talent for getting on TV shows, has no particular qualifications for office of any kind, let alone the U.S. Senate. She has run for office several times and never even come close to winning. Nonetheless, she wants people to send her money so she can “defeat the left” and save our country from something-or-other. I rather suspect she also needs money to pay her rent, but perhaps not. It seems you don’t need any qualifications whatsoever to run for public office, and running for public office has now apparently become a career in and of itself for some. Think also of Sharron Angle, and the absolute Prince of this kind of “con,” Alan Keyes. Actually, the Housewife from Hell, Sarah Palin, has probably worked this particular racket much more successfully and profitably than anyone in history. Short of starting your own Church of the Appallingly Demented this would appear to be a fine career choice.

Republicans have been in charge of the House of Representatives for more than a month now, during which time they have done absolutely nothing in the way of creating jobs or improving the economy, other than threatening to cut budgets indiscriminately and wherever found. They appear to be absolutely obsessed with trying to denigrate women and overturn Roe vs Wade, long established law in the U.S. Was there some secret understanding on the part of voters to vote for candidates who would attack women and their rights? I thought they were elected to “take our country back,” create jobs, and reduce taxes and government influence over our lives. Boy, was I wrong! I wonder, is there going to be some voter’s remorse?

I have been trying to think of when it was that I began to believe Republicans were either stupid or crazy or both. I know when I began to believe they were criminal. That was even before Bush/Cheney, when they attempted to destroy President Clinton by any means possible. And of course this criminal approach to politics continued with the Bush/Cheney administration, especially under the guidance of Karl Rove who perfected the technique of “roviation,” the absolutely unprincipled attack on anyone who stood in the way of their attempt to create a permanent criminal empire. Happily they did not succeed in this attempt, and the present Republican Party is so inept it has now become a completely lost cause.

However much I did not agree with Republicanism throughout my lifetime I did not until fairly recently begin to believe they were stupid and crazy, not even during the last years of the Bush/Cheney catastrophe. I might have thought they were criminal, perhaps even evil, but I didn’t think of them as stupid and crazy, not until more recently. I guess this change really began with the election of President Obama and has to do, in part at least, with the fact that he is Black, or Black and White, or at least “Other.” This fact seems to have completely “unhinged” some people. I don’t see how else one might explain the “birthers,” for example. I do not believe that if a White person, raised in Hawaii (or even Indonesia for a time), had been elected President, anyone would have questioned his citizenship (or the state of Hawaii). Nor do I believe anyone would have been concerned about his being a Muslim. The fact that Obama’s father was a Kenyan, and that as a boy, Obama, went to school for a short time in Indonesia, is apparently too exotic a background for many Americans to fully accept. There is an element of racism involved I am sure, but it is his “Otherness” that seems to be the most important element making people suspicious of him. There are still, even now, citizens who do not believe Obama was really born in the U.S., and there are apparently fully 46% of Republicans who believe he is a Muslim. There are also those who believe he is a Marxist, socialist, communist, fascist, or alien “plant,” as well. As there is absolutely no truth to claims that he was not U.S. born, or that he is a Muslim, and as there is apparently no way to convince these unbelievers, I can only conclude the they are either stupid or insane, or both. This poses a genuine problem for Obama and his administration, because while it is possible to deal with criminals, one way or another, it is not possible to deal with the insane and the stupid. I still believe in the 20-20 rule, 20% of the people think you are wonderful, 20% think you are awful, and the remaining 60% don’t really think much at all, but unfortunately, that is where the future lies.

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