The Anchoress

Over at Pajamas Media, Dr. Melissa Clouthier is having trouble integrating after Hurricane Ike even though, as she quickly admits, many are much worse off than she.

Every home — and that is not an exaggeration — had at least one tree down. The community is called The Woodlands for a reason. Trees define it. The question was where the trees went. Many went through the roofs of their owner’s homes causing flooding.

Saturday morning brought unrelenting rain, so a hole in the roof meant water damage, too, which means mold. Once the rain leaves and holes are plugged, there is heat. So while the homes might not be total losses by being buried by water, they will be a big mess for a long time.
…
Heat was rising in the refrigerator and the house, too. My anxiety and that of my neighbors rose with the temperature. Toughing it out with cans of tuna and a shotgun might seem fine without kids, but with children, the notion doesn’t seem so palatable especially considering Entergy’s three-week estimate for returned electricity. Two days without electricity felt like a long time. Two weeks?

…We packed clothes, kids, dry food, and the dogs before dark — no light — and we left.

For 60 miles the communities alongside I-45 sat dark. The drive was eerie. Traffic was light leaving Houston, but a steady stream of cars drove toward the city. Did these people realize there was no gas? No food? Why were people coming back already? Past Huntsville, every hotel was packed full. Until Dallas, hotels had no vacancy.
…
Perhaps the most challenging part of this experience is the lack of good information. Even as an evacuee, the national news is worthless. People need solid information about their neighborhood and their community. Specifics. Families outside the area want direct confirmation that their family is safe. With no communications from within the community, this is impossible.

You’ll want to read it all.

Glenn Reynolds has a really good round-up regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, with emails from people letting him know how the recovery is going.

He also wonders why there is so little interest in the devastation wrought by Ike, versus Katrina, which we’re still talking about.

A friend of mine emailed me the simple answer, which I borrowed for the header. Boiling down her rant, what she said was this: Katrina got tons of coverage, crying newscasters, incorrect but dramatic stories of “roving gangs raping babies” at the Superdome and Sean Penn in a sinking boat because it was a hurricane that hit a Democrat city, with and incompetent Democrat Mayor and an inept Democrat Governor. Bad local and state governance, and the woes betiding Democrats in general = handy hammer to beat Bush and GOP in ‘06. So much coverage we’re still talking about it.

Ike got little coverage, no crying newscasters, no fake horror stories and no celebrity attention because it was a Hurricane that hit a bunch of Republicans in cowboy boots, who’d elected a competent Republican Mayor and a capable Republican Governor. Good local and state governance, and no woes betiding Democrats in general = no hammer to beat Bush and GOP in ‘08. No coverage.

Yeah, it’s partisan in the extreme, I agree. But, I can’t see where she’s wrong, either. I mean, have you seen the pictures from Galveston? It looks like a bomb went off there. And for the press, it is all a bit of a shrug. Not interesting.

It is indisputably a good thing to ask a possible future Vice President tough and substantive questions. What is bothering many (my email is bulging) is the seeming unwillingness of the press to subject a possible future President to the same rigorous examination.

Bill from Ahwatukee Musings passed this along to me, from a Hillary Clinton forum, of all places. I don’t know anything about the writer, Nancy Kallitechnis, but she makes some interesting observations about the difference between Charlie Gibson’s interview with Obama, when he became the presumptive nominee, and his talk with Gov. Palin:

Even the camera angle was designed to be prejudiced against Palin. She is filmed from the side and slightly with her back to the camera. …In contrast, the film crew placed the long shot camera facing Obama so at all times when he is speaking the camera looks him in the face rather than looking at his back.

…Obama was asked much easier questions mostly about feelings about winning, breaking the glass ceiling and 2008 campaign decisions. In contrast, Palin was asked numerous specific policy and military strategy questions that required extensive knowledge about treaties, U.S. anti-terrorism strategy and world history. And Gibson misquoted Palin… The following is a breakdown of the questions asked of the nominees:

Obama interview:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Palin interview:
Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

There’s no doubt the Charles Gibson interviews showed extreme prejudice against Palin and extreme favoritism towards Obama…He constantly questioned her ability to lead but never questioned Obama’s ability to lead, all the more amazing considering that Palin was the only one with executive experience and the presidency is the highest level executive job in politics.

Don’t forget the nonsense about Sarah’s big Holy War! There is more of same at Newsbusters, and here.

The Bush Doctrine: Josh Trevino has an exhaustive look at what it is, and decides Palin, not Gibson, got it right.

Meanwhile, Okie is taking apart Newsweek’s cover story on Palin. What struck me, immediately, was that the press is using exactly the same script over Palin vs Obama that they used in Bush vs Kerry, that being the Democrat candidate is “the sophisticated world traveler who does nuance” while the Republican is “the backwoods simpleton too stupid to experience existential angst.” You do remember how they tied Kerry to “nuance” often that some of us dubbed him Pope Nuance I?

Newsweek:

Palin is not regarded as an introspective or intellectual type—not the sort who likes to mull the deepest nuances of every issue. In that sense, she’s the anti-Obama. While Barack Obama of Hawaii, Indonesia, Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Cambridge, Mass., Chicago and now Washington has been on a well-chronicled lifelong search for his identity, Sarah Heath Palin seems just fine being a woman of Wasilla.

Okie:

Maybe it’s because Sarah Palin has always known who and what she is, unlike the confused, confounded and still searching Obama? Maybe because she’s her own woman, and a damn strong one at that — and Barack’s looking in the national mirror to find out what kind of man he really is?

Do ya think? I just touched on this very theme the other day:

…what I’m getting is a sense of man who is looking to satisfy something inside himself, and his satisfaction (or validation) cannot be found within, so he is looking externally - and taking action externally - to bring it about. He needs to “save” the whole country, to “save” himself.

People do this all the time on a small scale, but to want do it on a large scale - a “world-changing” scale, complete with grandiose pageantry - suggests an appetite that cannot be sated in “ordinary” and “authentic” ways. And that is a little troubling.

Related to that, Vanderleun’s Monsters of the Id and how they are in control of the Democrats.

Speaking of authenticity: Ed Morrissey points out that Palin is an authentic reformer

“Should I worry about being a slave, again?” Dear God in Heaven! My Li’l Bro Thom (center-left, but moving rightward more every day) wrote asking me if I’d heard of Whoopi Goldberg’s absurd and deliberately distracting “concern” about becoming a slave if the evil Republicans get in the White House and start appointing judges who base their rulings on the constitution, rather than legislate from the bench. He sent me a link to Huffpo with the video clips from this mornings broadcast of the execrable “The View.” I couldn’t watch more than a few seconds of it, but found Ms. Goldberg making her faux point here.

Note Barbara Walters’ “joke” to Whoopi: “…us white folks, we’ll take care of you…” Egad. I is astonishing to me that this is how Barbara Walters wants to finish what had been a distinguished career. Whatever.

McCain has more patience with these women than I could ever have. Oh, and he’s supposed to be the “hothead,” right? He’s not cool like Obama!

Don Surber says bring back Rosie. I wouldn’t go that far. Goldberg is smarter and funnier.

Quick question: Do you think any “big time professional journalist” will ever ask Obama about how he’s threatened to sic the justice department on inconvenient writers like this one? Or, you know…ask him about what Stanley Kurtz is reporting?

Closer looks are good ideas, for both parties, but this article by the always great Gerard Baker urges Europe to

You’ll want to read it all

So there, you have it - another utterly insane day in American politics, where “big time professional journalists” ask Presidential candidates how they feel about being so great while drilling vice presidential candidates on Russia, where old scripts that didn’t play four years ago are being hauled out and replayed because there is a dearth of both imagination and understanding in those same journalists. Where authenticity must rule the day because in the end, it is all there is left after this 19 month masquerade. Wherea a rich, privileged African-American woman with a successful American life can turn to a public servant who has never betrayed the least bit of racism in his whole career and declare that she’s worried about “becoming a slave again” (to a round of applause, mind you) while her white, even more privileged and successful boss-lady says, “us white people will take care of you…” Yeah, it’s just a stupid joke, but that’s some appallingly childish stuff before our eyes. All neutralized, of course, by the fact that the offenses are being committed by the elite, noble and morally authoritative Blue Americans. Meanwhile a candidate can get testy with a journalist who dares to bother him with actual investigative questions, and the country ignores its own substantial disruption of her enemies (probably because it is too busy misidentifying “the enemy” as “each other”) and also misses a seeming admission of election-results tampering in the last election. Troops are being withdrawn in Iraq by a most reviled president who - in the midst of this insanity - just keeps doing his job and avoiding the spitballs.

Oh, and there is a contingent out there - who apparently do not find things dramatic enough - who, watching The One travel hat-in-hand to The Don, have decided that the bottom of the Democrat ticket is about to be thrown under the bus. I don’t believe it, for several credible reasons. But it would certainly be the cherry on top.

That’s just one day - barely scratching the surface of one day - in the surreal election of 2008.

Whew. Who wants a Guinness?

Some of my friends and I are wondering at the utter silence of Hillary Clinton since Gov. Palin’s introduction last Friday. Aside from her generic “we should all be proud” statement, Mrs. Clinton has been pretty mum, and my friends and I have been wondering about it, in a “so much for sisterhood” sort of way.

You’d think Hillary - a “lifelong advocate for women and children” - would be stepping up, mildly, even, to ask her Angry Left friends to at least pretend - give a little lip service - to the long-standing idea that women and their choices, and their children were sort of, you know…to be respected, a little? Where is Hillary? We don’t know.

BUT…the National Enquirer, which if I remember rightly is published by a FOB/FOH, is going to try to pimp Troopergate into “the scandal that will rock America”. I’m thinking Hillary is quite aware that no less a leftie smarty than Camille Paglia heard Gov. Palin speak last Friday and then enthused:

“We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat, I am reeling…That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is as tough as nails.” [emphasis mine - admin]

Kinda can’t help thinking that Mrs. Clinton does not want to have to deal with Gov. Palin in 2012, especially if she is Vice-President Palin.

And I’m sure Hillary does not want the “first female president” mantle on any shoulders but her own. So, Gov. Sarah Palin must be destroyed, by whatever means necessary.

Speaking of the press, one of my readers, noting that several major networks did not bother broadcasting Fred Thompson’s really excellent convention speech on Tuesday, sent this to me:

“…Liberty lives only when the press is free and unencumbered - when it is detached from events instead of entwined in them…”

The emailer said liberty can also only live when the free press is open instead of closed, and committed to presenting, not to editing and hiding. I agree. As to the quote, I thought it sounded familiar; turns out I wrote it.

The Editors at NRO, not writing specifically about Clinton, nevertheless say:

This shameful but predictable media performance stands in marked contrast to the rigorous “hands-off” privacy policy dutifully honored by the press throughout the Clinton years for the president’s then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. Indeed earlier this year, though Miss Clinton was now well into her twenties and an impressively poised surrogate for her mother’s campaign, NBC News suspended reporter David Shuster for asserting that Sen. Clinton’s campaign was “pimping” her daughter — a classless formulation, to be sure. But where’s the hyper-sensitivity about a candidate’s child now?

When Al Gore’s son was arrested on narcotics and speeding charges in 2007, moreover, the national press was a model of sympathetic restraint. The muted coverage was devoid of calls for a national “teaching moment” on drug abuse or responsible driving. The message was plain and correct: No news here, move along.

One also recalls that during Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, the press was told to stay away from Chelsea and not to burden her with requests for interviews, and the press complied. Chelsea, poised and quite lovely and capable-seeming, is still given the sort of kid-glove treatment reserved for royals, while Gov. Palin’s pregnant 17 year old daughter is to be hounded and held up to national ridicule and scorn.

And for what? For politics.

It is shameful, shameful stuff. Are they thinking at all of the fact that she is pregnant and they’re putting absurd pressure on her, because they must…because her mother must be made to go home?

I keep wondering what Tim Russert would say if he were alive. Or Tony Snow. Or Mike Kelly. I can’t think any of those men would be looking kindly on what the press has been doing, in these 144 hours of the Palin family’s national exposure. I can’t help wondering why Russert’s colleagues, so desolate at his death, do not try to honor his memory and his professionalism by doing better, fairer, calmer, work - with a touch of humanity left to it.

It’s so tiring, you almost don’t want to bother saying it. But we have to keep pointing it out, this mad descent of the press, and not grow weary or complacent. The only way to keep the press honest is to keep it accountable; that is our responsibility - yours and mine - a free press is an unencumbered, detached, open and honest press. And we must have it; we must insist that our press be free - unaligned with any cause or movement - because a free press is the hardy spine of liberty.

Our hardy spine, burdened by the demands of corporate interests, excessive attachment to distinct agendas and heavy competition from all sorts of media, is bending and crooking. It is not, at present, healthy, straight and strong. There is cause for concern.

Related:
Hillary’s Righteous Anger; Bill’s Obliviousness
An Apology Should Not Be Mud-Groveling
You keep using that word…I do not think it means what you think it means
I couldn’t watch this poisonous hate
Matthews Apologizes to Clinton

MSNBC - The We’re Sorry Network

:::This is a repost of a piece from December of 2005, which I came across while researching this post. I reprint it here to give a little perspective on just how determinedly the press has been talking down the economy, and for how long. It’s really staggering to consider.:::

THERE GO 800,000 JOBS? NOT REALLY!

Joseph at Straight Shot of Politics has decided that he is a consumer of news and information, while I and others like me are not so much consumers of news and informations as philosophers about how news should be reported.

When I saw this, I thought to myself, “Now I know why most blogger critics of news coverage [whatever their political views] and I are simply not on the same page!” I am interested in news. They are interested in “news coverage”. I am interested in fact. They are interested in “media”. I am interested in information. They are interested in a Philosophy of Journalism.

Not quite right, I think. Is it not possible for me and others and even the much-maligned Pajamas Media to care both about news and information and also care about how that information is disseminated?

For example, take this story on housing. Check out this headline: There Go 800,000 Jobs Out the Door.

OMG! 800,000 people have lost their jobs? That’s awful! I saw that headline and my heart skipped a beat and I read it with a sense of panic.

Except…aside from the headline which most will see and digest without ever reading the story…the thing has not happened. And if you read the story the thing may NEVER happen. The whole thing is a big “maybe someday this might happen, and if it does, then maybe as many as 800,000 people will lose their jobs, and never ever have a means of replacing them…but…even with these awful possibilities…it STILL won’t put us into a recession.”

Get this:

The expected downturn in the housing market could end up costing 800,000 construction and finance jobs, putting a big dent in economic growth over the next two years, a report from UCLA said.

Yes, the “expected downturn” could “put a dent in economic growth…” Because what’s more important these days but talking down the economy or at least the public’s perception of it?

But even with economic growth slowing as much as 1 or 2 percentage points, the nation should be able to avoid a recession, according to the widely watched report from UCLA Anderson Forecast.

See that? “…even with economic growth slowing as much as 1 or 2 percentage points…” what a nefarious little line that is! If you are not aware that the economy has been growing by 3-4 points each quarter, you could read that as “even AS economic growth slows…” If you are only casually reading this piece you’re thinking things are going to hell in a handbasket!

The authors of the report admitted that they had forecast earlier this year that the slowdown in the housing market was going to start in mid-2005, which now looks like it was a little premature. But they noted that recent reports from home builders, real estate agents and the government indicate the slowdown may have now begun.”

May! MAY. Except last month’s figures were record-breaking, and traditionally housing starts and resales now slumber a bit until February, but it MAY BE HAPPENING!

The report, released Wednesday, forecast a loss of 500,000 construction jobs and 300,000 jobs in the financial services sector from the housing slowdown, but noted that job losses would not spread across many industries, other than some limited pullbacks in manufacturing.

Unreal. The report, by people who haven’t gotten it right yet, is full of terrible news, but we still won’t be in a recession (dammit! And we’ve been trying so hard to talk America into one!). This is a big story full of nothing but supposition and guessing…but man, that headline -that’s a beaut, eh? And that story, real information, eh?

I crave news and information, too. That’s why I am so appreciative of sites like Gateway Pundit, and tons of blogs and some larger news outlets as well as some foreign news services.

But to suggest that how information is delivered is irrelevant is not quite playing the hand. That report could have been written in a very different way.

Dr. Sanity, Via Bizzyblog gives us another example of news and information that is disseminated - if at all - in rather questionable light:

BizzyBlog reports on some extremely good economic news for Americans (news that made it into a Chinese newspaper, but not into any American paper except the WSJ:
In a separate editorial later in the week (requires subscription), The Journal noted that household net worth has increased $10 trillion since the Bush tax cuts took effect in 2003. That’s a 24% increase in roughly 2-1/2 years. The negative financing gap means that companies were, on the whole, able to finance their capital expansions out of profits instead of borrowing money or selling stock.

Ask yourself - would you have to look to a Chinese newspaper to get this information if, say the president had a D after his name, or if the president’s name ended in Clinton?

Puh-leese! Before proclaiming that the “reading” of news is sublime while the examination of its deliverance is somehow vulgar, let’s at least acknowledge that all things are not equal. And uh, why isn’t this frontpage news, indeed?

I do agree with Betsy though, that the Bushies do a deplorable job of getting this news out.

:::UPDATE - 2008::: Here is a second and very succinct example of the talk-down:

Our pals over in the MSM certainly do know how to confuse an issue. Check out these two headlines from the SAME news service, and the SAME writer, one day apart:

Greenspan Gets High Marks Despite Economy

U.S. economy grows at strong 3.8% rate in third quarter, despite hurricanes

That second headline, of course, is from the Canadian press who I suppose have less invested in trying to continually portray the economy as “troubling.”

Related:
The Economy “slips” into a “sweet spot”
Times admits good economic news
The Rodney Dangerfield economy
“Despite?” Just Spite
Did you Know Bush is still in Africa?

“We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values … Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?” she said.

MRS. CLINTON: Bill, I don’t know what — that’s why I said I don’t know what I’m in favor of. And I don’t know enough to know what to be in favor of, because I think it’s one of those new issues we’ve got to address. We’ve got to see whether our existing laws protect people’s right of privacy, protect them against defamation. And if they can, how do you do that when you can press a button and you can’t take it back. So I think we have to tread carefully.

So, after 6 years of listening to people on the left tell us how the terrible, nazi-ish Bush administration was “crushing dissent” (where?) and “silencing opposition” (where?) and blowing a “chill wind” which would cost us our right to free speech, etc (I believe Tim Robbins, wagging his finger, wrote a play and a speech on this issue, all of which were spouted off in public and widely disseminated belying his very claims), we did not have to wait long to feel the real “chill wind.” And it’s blowing from the left via Mrs. Pelosi, although I’m quite sure Mrs. Clinton will happily ride on it, if it helps her ambitions.

There IS a chill wind blowing…we felt it stirring this year, when the Democrats tried to shut down a film it didn’t like, but went silent on another. Pay attention. The right didn’t like the “kill Bush” movie…but it never tried to shut it down. It objected. It did not try to “silence.” That’s pretty telling.

Some might think that quieting down the right side of the blogosphere will be a good thing.

But if the right side gets silenced, the left will soon be shut down, as well.

As I wrote here, bloggers adore the first amendment.

Ed Morrissey says be calm, but beware the grey areas. He quotes Tapscott who says: “…mere registration is never the only thing the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington want. After registration will come regulation of content, followed by prohibition of some kinds of content officeholders find threatening.”

Morrissey adds: I’m not sure I buy into the doomsday scenarios painted by Smith; after all, anyone making any political contributions already has to “register” with their legal name and full address, so anonymity has mostly gone by the wayside. Let’s focus on getting the politicians to fully and immediately disclose their contributions and their earmarks first, and then see where else we need to work to reduce or eliminate corruption. The Senate would be a good place to start.

But yeah, watch out for those grey areas. There be monsters. And um…mediating intelligences who know what you ought to be allowed to know much better than you do.

And I have no idea where I found this, but it’s a sort of primer on notions of “tolerance”, and it’s interesting.

Also, Scott Ott writes a real - not satirical - letter to an editor.

AJ Strata has a must-read piece up. I hope he is wrong about what he sees as a coming split between conservative factions, but I must say what he has written (brilliantly) is everything I support and have supported these past few years. And yeah, to me, it still sounds like classical liberalism. Maybe AJ has defined the place where stands the liberals who were chased out of the Democrat party over the past decade or so, and have never quite known what to call ourselves:

Bush Conservatives not only believe in Reagan’s 11th commandment to not speak ill of fellow conservatives - we live it. From the Gang of 14, to Harriet Miers, to Dubai Ports World and to the immigration issue - there has been a brand of Republican which eschewed the 11th commandment. So let the Republicans be defined by that group - Bush Conservatives will be defined by their antithesis. Bush conservatives are not afraid of the word ‘compromise’. They despise the word ‘failure’. If there is a good idea, we do not care what party gets credit - we care that the good ideas get enacted. It is not Party uber America anymore.

Bush Conservatives, like Bush himself, are for lower taxes and focused government (someplace between liberals and libertarians is the proper role of government). They are not for destroying the public education system, they are for making it work. And they understand private school access is one option. They understand that a prescription drug benefit for Medicare/Medicaid will reduce overall costs and provide a respectable end of life for our seniors who came before us. Yes, it costs a lot to care for our elderly. But it doesn’t represent big government. It represents a big heart. I am not for throwing money away. The prescription drug benefit was a nice optimizing solution to a broken system. It was consumer driven (which is why the liberals should not be allowed to go in and insert bureacratic price controls) and it will save money that was being wasted in emergency room treatments for normal problems.

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

I’d say if the conservatives do split, it may well be on the immigration issue. A while back I wrote this here:

70 or 80 years ago, my own ancestors were coming in, legally, and learned to hang drywall and fix automobiles and fight fires. Yes, they were legal…the nation had well-run, functional programs to handle a huge influx. Had such a program not been in place, they would have come, anyway…and they would have been illegal!

That might be helpful, you know? Make ‘em legal, get ‘em paying taxes…Sure, some people called my grandfather a “filthy wop” and my other grandfather a “lazy mick” and they bitched because the carousel at Coney Island suddenly played Italian hurdy-gurdy instead of genteel songs from the gay 90’s, but everyone adjusted. The nation grew stronger

Meanwhile, it’s back to work for me.

Related:
Living the Creed
Harriet, Bring the Cannoli!
FT, Buster on the Dubai question
Can we say “Ellis Island West”
Illegals hysteria and the place I can’t go
Because REAL Americans never do this stuff!
Immigration: Solomon asked for an understanding heart
Text & Reax: Bush’s address on immigration
Blog Meltdowns and Echo Chambers
The Essential President Bush

:::UPDATE:::SCROLL DOWN FOR ORIGINAL PIECE:::
Pelosi goes down in her first defeat. Dems vote in Hoyers. Not a great start. The Dems don’t much like Murtha, too. John Stephenson has the first round-up on it, I think. So, place your bets…still think she’s long for that chair?
:::END UPDATE:::

Shortly after the elections, I wrote three small predictions, here. Many agreed with my second and third predictions, but took issue with my first:

Nancy Pelosi will not be the Speaker of the House. Partly because she’s too far to the left, partly because she really doesn’t “play” well to the ordinary folks who will not want to watch her on Russert week after week, and mostly because she’s not going to be two heartbeats away from the presidency where if - God forbid - something were to happen to Bush and Cheney, she would become the first female president of the US. Oh, no. There’s no way Hillary’s gonna let Nancy sit in that chair for two years and possibly get the “First Woman POTUS” gig to which she, Hillary, has felt entitled to (and been groomed for) for the last 30 years. Uh-uh. I expect Rahm Emmanuel will get the job. And I think he’ll be a whole lot smarter than to suggest Alcee Hastings for anything.

Today, I read this in the Kaus files. My prediction seems less silly?

When I made that prediction, I was thinking it was a long way ’til January - and I’m going to stick with what I wrote - but allow me to clarify my meaning: Nancy will make her historic ascension to the Speaker’s chair. She “earned” it and the Dems rather like owning the “First Woman Speaker” bit (because heaven knows, Republican women are never “first” at anything). But she will not be there long. I figure 6-8 months - a year, tops - when all the hype and hysteria have died down, Rahm Emmanuel will be slipped into that seat and start putting everything in play for November ‘08. He might even smack down this thug and say “quit dictatin’ to us!”

There will be, btw, lots more hype and hysteria about Nancy. She’s had a few weeks of beautiful press, the sort usually reserved for a Clinton, and now she’s stumbling and making Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post and even ultra-loyal Joe Conason gasp a bit. Words like “unintelligent” are being murmured and put away, as Nancy wraps herself around John Murtha and Alcee Hastings, seemingly oblivious to the reports that “corruption” swayed the recent votes.

Jules Crittenden says sit back and enjoy all this and I agree with him that when you’re licking your wounds and trying to remain philosophical, watching this can be mildly amusing…but only for as long as you can make yourself forget that - as Jules correctly notes - “Lives hang in the balance. Possibly thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives…All of it carries the threat of grave consequences.”

Once you recall just how very serious are the times and the issues, it is very difficult to take much pleasure in the spectacle of joint-house muddled leadership. It’s not quite on the level of being told if rape is inevitable you may as well lie back and enjoy it, but it’s not too far off, either, thanks to that sense of helplessness.

Things are now out of the immediate control of the American public, who last week were told to feed their futures with a choice of either unfresh fish or transported dairy. Cheered on by a relentless and single-minded press, they chose the dairy, having no idea that the curds and whey were so near-expiration date they wouldn’t even carry into January without media help.

But, thankfully for the Democrats, there will be enormous amounts of media help in the coming months. While the GOP certainly did all it could to lose the mid-term election, one cannot help but wonder if the Democrats would have won both houses were it not for the press helpfully playing up - and even distorting - some stories and playing down others. Between now and and the third week of January, there will be lots of hype to keep you distracted from the Dem in-fighting and disorganization, and from the fact that the incoming majority has no real plan for Iraq, or the War on Terror.

Hence, Pelosi has risen, now she stumbles, she’ll soon rise again, before she falls. We’re going to be treated to pageantry and spectacle, gushing bios and Oprah-esque pronouncements and re-assurances. The ascendancy of Nancy Pelosi will be the country’s dress rehearsal for the year-long parade/procession - oops, I mean campaign - and Coronation - oops, I mean Inauguration - of our human Statue of Liberty, Hillary. You know, a chance to work out all the kinks and bugs, because as Hillary wrote in her own book, Living History, (paraphrased) “I love the parades and the pageantry…”

Clintons are much larger than life, and the pagantry is going to have to match. Thanks to the dry-run rise and fall of Pelosi, it will be flawless.

UPDATE: DJ DRUMMOND, who is very, very smart says Media fantasies aside, a Republican will win the WH in ‘08. A little early for the prognosticating, but he makes an interesting case. But it must be noted that Dem Contenders for ‘08 are pulling out… well, they’re pulling out like Democrats facing a difficult battle. Something to keep in mind.

It’s just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it’s the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
Let’s do the Time Warp again!
- “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Believe it or not, the reason that song popped into my head is because of Helen Reddy.

I can hear you now: “Hella-whaaa?”

I ran out to get a cuppa java from a deli that really does serve “The World’s Best Cup of Coffee” and had the radio on as I drove, and I was astounded to hear the sharp nasally voice of 1970’s Political Music Icon Helen Reddy singing the anthem of her time:

“If I have to, I can do anything!
I am strong! (Strong!)
I am invincible! (Invincible!)
I am WOMAN!”

Understand, it has been decades, literally decades, since I heard that song played over the airways. And I think it’s significant that I heard it today.

A few days ago I wrote that Democrats never seem to know what time it is. They seem a little like Fitzgerald’s Gatsbians who “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Here we are in the 21st century - persumably time has moved forward, and yet with the ascendanc