by Molly Ivors
A serious question: what the hell is up with Barack Obama?
I don't get the guy. Is he a Dem? Or is he prepping to run with Michael Bloomberg should this whole "Democrat" thing not pan out?
I realize Iowa is two days away, and people are getting edgy, but between his health plan, attacks on Social Security and unions, and now Al Gore and John Kerry, he sounds like nothing so much as a Republican.
We here at the Whiskey Fire Institute are quite sympathetic to the argument that politics as usual is not really, shall we say, working. The Dem majority in Congress wears on their collective forehead a bigger buckle than John Fucking Alden's hat. But the answer to this problem is to be proud and unapologetically progressive, not to attack your teammates and fuck over the people putatively on your side.
Let me state the obvious: Dude, the people you are trying to appeal to are never going to vote for you. Despite what David Broder says, there's not really some mushy middle waiting to be addressed by you. If acting more like Republicans were really the key to victories, then why is Harry Reid not King of the Fucking Universe?
I'll tell you why: because it's a bullshit argument. People know that we're in a heap of trouble in this country. The planet is melting and our jobs are evaporating and we're in a stupid fucking war breaking young men we aren't bothering to help fix. It sucks. And sucking up to and adopting the framing of the people who brought us global warming and rewarded outsourcing and lied us into war and smeared vets who dare to speak out is pretty fucking useless, and no way to actually address any of these problems.
So what the fuck is up?
PS. Give some kudos to our buddy Jon Swift for his NYTimes link. Well done!