Moving Congress into the White House.
I’ll try to do some more blogging this weekend while Mike recovers from a crazed attack by a bunch of disgruntled rightwing bloggers who were screaming, “Long live Sarah Palin!” They broke his hand and mashed up his face pretty well, but Mike managed to kill one and maim the genitals of another. He would have maimed the genitals of both, but as you already know one out of two rightwing bloggers are eunuchs.
The crazy thing is that only the part about the broken hand and the face is true, and it was a mugging at a cash machine in Fort Dodge, Iowa, folks. Fort Dodge. I blame the rap music. Okay, actually I mean Dana Pico blames the rap music. Let’s all hope for a speedy recovery and nice strong pain pills to tide him over in the meantime.
In other news, while some have made the strange conclusion that since Obama is hiring people who have experience with the Clinton White House that he’ll be the same triangulating son-of-a-gun who put a little Democrat finish on Republican policies. I think this is wrong for several reasons. First of all, Obama leads them, not the other way around. Secondly, I think the times and the public are ready for much more liberal policies than in the ’90s, and it stands to follow that these people have been paying attention the last eight years as well as anybody. Thirdly, Obama is fighting Bush’s unitary executive snake venom by essentially moving Congress into the executive branch. Bill Clinton faced an entrenched Democratic Congress that was fat and slow, one quickly taken out two years into his first term without giving him any love. Obama is starting out with a Democratic Congress that is newly strong and empowered, in part due to him. He comes directly from Congress with many friends and allies, and now he’s giving many of them jobs and a direct stake in the outcome of his presidency. Congress knows very well that a successful Obama presidency means more victories for them in 2010, 2012, and so on. Maybe when Obama is succeeded by another Democrat they can get fat and complacent and we can start the cycle over again, but these next eight years don’t present a single moment to be wasted.
Democrats have an excellent window here to enact policies that are both liberal and popular. Even better, they’re pragmatic. Republican are going to have a hard time being as obstructionist as they’ve been the past two years (in record breaking numbers) without convincing the public that 40 Republican senators is a few too many. Until they go through a rebirth and come out a sensible libertarian counterbalance to Democrats instead of a gang of know-nothing religious authoritarians, they’ll be making the case that 40 Republican senators is 40 too many.
I think we’ll best be served, however, by taking a deep breath and waiting until Obama is at least sworn in before we start making too many declarations. I’m not sure if the 24-hour news cycle even understands the concept of a president’s first 100 days anymore, but can we at least get out of the gates before the immolation begins?
-jb
November 29th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
While I’m certainly happy that I got the link, perhaps you should have been more specific: where did I blame rap “music?”
Now, admittedly, I know nothing about the demographics of Fort Dodge, but when I read:
it almost seemed as though you had gone out of your way to imply — not directly state, of course — that Mr Ganzeveld had been attacked by a Negro.
Well, perhaps I inferred something you did not mean to imply.
More interesting is this:
Mr Obama is the first member of Congress elected top the presidency since 1960, and, other than four years in Congress the elder George Bush served back in the 1960s, no president since Gerald Ford had ever served in Congress. It’s not terribly strange that Mr Obama would pick some people he knew to work in his administration.
My guess is, though, that our next president will be more moderate than you hope precisely because he doesn’t want to face the fate President Clinton did in 1994.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[...] Jeromy Brown was unable to avoid his usual snarkiness, he has conveyed some unfortunate personal news concerning Mike Ganzeveld of the Iowa Liberal: I’ll try to do some more blogging this weekend while Mike recovers from a [...]
November 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
http://commonsensepoliticalthought.com/?p=3372
I don’t know the race of the assailants, but white people do listen to rap music, Dana. Mike and I were listening to old school hip-hop when we were in high school in the late 80’s, cruising around Ft. Dodge in my Dodge Aspen. SO he got what he deserved;)
I think we’d already graduated and gone to college by the time we heard of the first gang shooting there, and I was heading out of the state by the time the meth binge was taking off. Nowadays you need to watch your step wherever you go, but it’s surprising to hear about that when I’ve been scooting around the mean streets of Cali for ten years without a scratch on my beautiful skull.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Well, if you looked up that one, I’d hope that you’d realize it was about an offender not being able to listen to good music, more than it is about his listening to rap. I also hope that you’d open the YouTube and listen to Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Air’ from Suite No.3 in D major.
November 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Uh Oh JB, Mike will be a Conservative soon if the old adage is true: A Conservative is a Liberal who has been mugged!
Anyway, all kidding aside, get well soon Mike.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Rap and “good music” are not mutually exclusive events, Dana. Stop hatin’
November 29th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Yorkshire: I’m sure Mike appreciates your well-wishes, but does Dana appreciate you ripping off his joke twice?
November 29th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I’ll make this quick b/c I have to type with one hand. Thanks for the well wishes. unfortunately, I’m still feeling a little concuss’d though my broken hand hurts worse than anything else. No Limbaugh size portions of oxycontin either! Just some Tylenol 3…what a gyp. I’ll post pics when I get access to a high speed connect.
November 30th, 2008 at 8:21 am
That’s good: we definitely need pics!
Of course, I’ve seen pics of Mrs Ganzeveld, and she looks more than capable of uploading the pics for you — and she’s better looking!
November 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am
By the way, one-handed typist Mike: we know that it’s your right hand which is broken, but are you right or left handed?
Of course, by all rights you should be a lefty!
November 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
*groan*
Mike’s not married either. I’m the one getting married. You’ve been fact-checked, yo.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Yorkshire: I’m sure Mike appreciates your well-wishes, but does Dana appreciate you ripping off his joke twice?
Nah! He feels if it is repeated enough, it may become true. Mike, you need percoset for pain. I can’t take T3 in multi-doses. I get a reaction.
November 30th, 2008 at 11:13 am
And thus the right-o-sphere is summed up!
November 30th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Yorkshire> yeah, they forgot to tell me that T3 would amplify my nausea. I’ve got insurance…give me the good stuff!
November 30th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Yorkshire> yeah, they forgot to tell me that T3 would amplify my nausea. I’ve got insurance…give me the good stuff!
Mike, get the perc, you’ll be happier for it
I have T3 on my charts as a no-no. Call the doc and complain, and then “smile”
November 30th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Get better quick Mike!
November 30th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Here’s something much better for the pain.
November 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
just opened a bottle of this:
http://www.argonautliquor.com/r/products/paul-masson-grande-amber-grande-amber-vsop-brandy/?utm_source=google;utm_medium=base
November 30th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
That’s better than anything I have.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:57 pm
ugh…i took onewhiff and it made me sick. i think i still have a concusion
December 1st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
ugh…i took onewhiff and it made me sick. i think i still have a concusion
Well, that sucks.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
[...] our loyal readers who hang on our every word know already, a few weeks ago Mike was the victim of a brutal mugging while taking out some cash at an ATM to go Christmas shopping for his family. As I previously [...]
December 16th, 2008 at 6:40 am
[...] most of you know, Mike Ganzeveld of the Iowa Liberal was mugged a couple of weeks ago. He has a broken hand and serious damage to his right eye. Well, he’s going to require eye [...]