Ripped from the Comments

Someone sounding like our own JJV has weighed in on my recent rant about the 2010 midterm elections. I will provide excerpts (while, I trust, staying within context; by all means police me) and comment thereon.

...when your policies drive red ink and also maintain high unemployment you have to suffer the consequences...

So I guess red ink plus deferred high unemployment gets a pass; that explains the absence of Tea Party activity before 2009. At any rate, my understanding is that unemployment would have been worse had a stimulus plan not been implemented, but I defer to the economists in the readership.

The tea party provided the energy for this election and probably lost the seats of Nevada and Delaware for the Republicans but the gains everywhere else would have been impossible without these folks. You can only think them crazy if the American Founding and a limited Federal Government is now deemed crazy.

Agreed to a certain point on the energy, which was directed and coopted for its own ends by the GOP. Regarding the American Founding, I was unaware of any cries of "Taxation without Representation!" except from the DC crowd. Meanwhile, any of those folks truly believing in limited government were strangely silent before 2009. If only we could put our finger on what it was about 2009 that suddenly awakened the great American public to the sudden cataclysmic danger.

Also, any suggestion that the media is pro-Tea Party can only be greeted by calls of mood modifying drugs being applied to the suggestor.

I'm with you on that one. Point me to the blogger who said that and I'll heap derision with the best of 'em. Lest it was unclear, my point was that the media exaggerated the grass roots nature of the Tea Party in its quest to report the conflict rather than the facts.

Democracy in America

It's still relatively early on Election Night but it's pretty clear that the House has gone GOP and that the Senate will feature such luminaries as Rand Paul and Joe Miller, with Sharron Angle thrown in for the Trifecta of Batshit Crazy. The next two years promise little in the way of achievement and much in the way of cynical political theater; those who imagine the sound of articles of impeachment being drafted instead hear the opening of a desk drawer in which said articles have lain since Election Night 2008. With the minor delay of changing the House rules to allow bills and subpoenas composed in red crayon, the next order of business should be a flood of hearings and fishing expeditions which will expose the statistically likely indiscretions as existential threats to the Republic. I am not the first to suggest that the resulting GOP supernova in 2012 will not have been worth it.

The biggest story of this election cycle is also the most clearly false. The so-called Tea Party movement is nothing but the co-opting of selfish scared people by Republican activists and funding. Any other depiction is based on wishful thinking by all parties enabled by the news media, who do have a point: Fat dorks in tricorner hats and Sansabelt knee breeches (white Rockports optional) are a compelling visual.

Thank you, good night, and God bless the United States of America, 'cause man, was that one messy sneeze.

Update 11/3: OK, Angle didn't make it, but substitute Club for Corporations stalwart Pat Toomey in the above.

Keeping Our Priorities Straight

Recently our family traveled to Cancun for a relaxing 4 days or so of pools, beaches and (for the adults) rum drinks. Relaxation was necessary after scanning the TSA regulations for what is allowed and prohibited for air travel. We actually have not flown for a couple of years since 1) we didn't need to and 2) we have small children (see number 1), so we were not aware that, in fact, the terrorists have won. A minor consolation: Cheese-Whiz is allowed.

A great nation has been brought to its traveling knees by a single incident in which a man attempted to blow up a plane using his shoes. Unless I have missed the Business Week stories about the spread of Payless Shoe-Bombs stores throughout the increasing swath of the world that is understandably wondering what the hell is wrong with us these days, the response to this single incident has been disproportionate and I found myself apologizing to my two-year-old son for having to take off his shoes at 5:30 in the morning when he clearly and justifiably wanted nothing to do with it.

However, as long as Ritz Crackers and suitably blunt cheese knives are still allowed, I guess that's just A-OK.