alexandraerin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexandraerin) wrote2011-07-27 06:00 pm
alexandraerin) wrote2011-07-27 06:00 pm
Entry tags:
One does not simply campaign into Mordor.
I remember on the night of Barack Obama's election, when they said they were going live to the McCain campaign for Senator McCain's concession speech.
And I saw a man I had heard a lot about but I had never seen -- a dignified man of apparent integrity and conviction -- get up behind a podium and speak.
And I thought, Where has John McCain been hiding this guy? This is the guy who should have been giving all his speeches, not that angry grandstander who ran his campaign based on gimmicks.
This post isn't to speak to John McCain's finer qualities as a person, but as a politician every once in a great while he does manage to knock one out of the park:
Before anyone gets up and gives him a standing ovation for that... well, first of all he's quoting from a Wall Street Journal editorial. I thought on first reading that only the first line was that, and the rest was his own elaboration, but it's all from the editorial.
But still, the man quoted it on the senate floor.
We must note, though, that he's saying it in defense of Boehner's job-cutting and growth-destroying plan, but he does a great job of explaining the kind of extremist thinking that has both the Republican plan and the "competing" Democratic plan to give them exactly everything they've ever asked for being rejected as being insufficiently conservative.
The current showdown in Washington is being prolonged because there are parties to it that don't want to avoid a nation-threatening crisis, because they have been convinced since November of 2008 that such a crisis was already at hand and its culmination is their chance to shine, their chance to defeat the Forces of Darkness and win.
In the process, they've maneuvered us into a position where it looks like we're going to go from a nation that doesn't care for its citizens, doesn't feed its poor, doesn't allow many opportunities for social advancement and personal improvement, and doesn't take care of the least among us to a nation that doesn't do any of these things and also doesn't pay its debts.
This outcome is neither Christian nor is it fiscally responsible, but it's being driven by people who claim to be both.
*Yes. **
**You're right. ***
***Yes, I know. ****
****Really, just... just let it go, okay? It doesn't really detract from his point.
And I saw a man I had heard a lot about but I had never seen -- a dignified man of apparent integrity and conviction -- get up behind a podium and speak.
And I thought, Where has John McCain been hiding this guy? This is the guy who should have been giving all his speeches, not that angry grandstander who ran his campaign based on gimmicks.
This post isn't to speak to John McCain's finer qualities as a person, but as a politician every once in a great while he does manage to knock one out of the park:
"The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . . Barack Obama," McCain said, quoting the Journal article. "The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth * having defeated Mordor."
Before anyone gets up and gives him a standing ovation for that... well, first of all he's quoting from a Wall Street Journal editorial. I thought on first reading that only the first line was that, and the rest was his own elaboration, but it's all from the editorial.
But still, the man quoted it on the senate floor.
We must note, though, that he's saying it in defense of Boehner's job-cutting and growth-destroying plan, but he does a great job of explaining the kind of extremist thinking that has both the Republican plan and the "competing" Democratic plan to give them exactly everything they've ever asked for being rejected as being insufficiently conservative.
The current showdown in Washington is being prolonged because there are parties to it that don't want to avoid a nation-threatening crisis, because they have been convinced since November of 2008 that such a crisis was already at hand and its culmination is their chance to shine, their chance to defeat the Forces of Darkness and win.
In the process, they've maneuvered us into a position where it looks like we're going to go from a nation that doesn't care for its citizens, doesn't feed its poor, doesn't allow many opportunities for social advancement and personal improvement, and doesn't take care of the least among us to a nation that doesn't do any of these things and also doesn't pay its debts.
This outcome is neither Christian nor is it fiscally responsible, but it's being driven by people who claim to be both.
*Yes. **
**You're right. ***
***Yes, I know. ****
****Really, just... just let it go, okay? It doesn't really detract from his point.