Bloodless Coup

i thought it would be good with kerry and i think it would be good now. i'm not against partisanship, and i'd rather see more rather than fewer parties meaningfully in play.

nevertheless, the government approaches utter dysfunction with the inreasingly rancorous tone of, well, everything, and there are lots of guilty parties.

a bipartisan ticket seems to me to offer a fascinating opportunity to mend some fences desperately in need of repair. and i can't say i'd be one tenth as worried about mccain a heart beat away from the presidency as i have been during the five years that the united states book-cooking infant-eater-in-chief has been in that position.

oops, just take my baby-eater-in-chief thing as evidence of the rift between the parties and the absence of civil discourse.

but mccain, e.g., is a republican. cheney's an opportunist, a power broker, a capitalist in the most exploitive inhumane sense of that word. republican's running a distant fifth or sixth on his list of identifiying commitments / characteristics.

for real republicans, i reserve only principled disagreements. i've got no problem, however, calling people assholes whose assholery far exceeds whatever tattered shreds of principle they might claim to have.

McCain better than Cheney? Perhaps. But that's not saying much. I think McCain is incredibly overrated. He's a giant-state, regulatory conservative of the first order, and he's not half (or anything close to half) as independent as he acts like he is. He's an appealing personality that gets great press. And he was a good enough person to stand against President Bush's abhorrent use of racism in the 2000 campaign. But there are dozens of better possibilities.

Am I against choosing a Veep from another party? Not necessarily, though probably. As long as we have a party-based system of government it seems bizarre not to choose a running mate of the same party, someone who supposedly shares the presidential candidate's vision and values. And ... well, if I was a member of the president's party and the president picked someone from the other party for the #2 position in the country, thereby ignoring the qualities of many people who'd devoted years to building up the party, and probably the president himself (or herself) - I'd be pissed.

And of course if you really want more parties - well, a move like this would would take us in the opposite direction.

so what jerks the, er, jerks in D.C. out of their current death spiral?

i don't propose anything as an obvious solution. the only thing obvious is that we need a solution. it's not the nature of disagreements; it's the tone. it's the lack of respect for all three articles of the constitution and the bill of rights.

and at some level it's just the lack of professionals. say what you will about mccain, he's more of a professional than anyone bush would condescend to host in the oval office, or rather rove would ever condescend to allow bush to host.

this administration is boss tweed all over again on so many levels, and the congress doesn't look a whole lot different these days.

i meant the three foundational articles (lest morris beat me over the head with the goofy stick for being a lawyer who is ignorant of the constitution, or otherwise uses what amounts to a glorified typo to avoid the real topic of discussion ;-).

Well, Bush in retirement and Rove in jail might do something to slow the "death spiral". Of course the simplest thing is simply electing serious people who take reality seriously and don't stink of graft and corruption. In such a world Chuck Hagel gets the nomination on the Republican side. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that, so the Democrats will hopefully nominate someone who's responsible - and hopefully that responsible person will win the '08 election. Who happens to be #2 on that person's ticket likely won't make that much difference (it almost never does), but if you want to change the tone - how about selecting a non-politician. No one leaps to mind at this second, but there's no reason to think that the Vice President has to be a sitting governor or senator. There are talented, serious types all over the country.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

"calling people assholes whose assholery far exceeds whatever tattered shreds of principle they might claim to have": assholier than thou?

oh you are the clever one, binky.

assholier than thou. {shakes head}