Bachmann-hysteria overdrive

I mean, I can't swear she's consciously and actively engaged in a contest with Palin, but we can all be forgiven reaching the conclusion.
This on the climate change bill the House passed Saturday:

But what is worse than this is the fact that now because of this underlying bill, the federal government will virtually have control over every aspect of lives for the American people.

Does that include grammar? Because if the government can clean up the way Bachmann speaks, I might be willing to sacrifice my Twinkies or light spanking or whatever it is Bachmann thinks they want to take away from me.

I've also reached a new hypothesis about the representative for the lucky state of Minnesota: Is it possible she just is lazy? If she overreacts like this to passage of a climate change bill, it seems reasonable to assume she would oppose, if more temperately, just about any bill. She clearly thinks the role of the federal government is not to make law or, you know, govern. And yet she's a U.S. representative! Why did she become one? What is it she thinks she should be doing with her time, short of campaigning for re-election? If they come for me in the night, you'll know I was on to something with this.

Me, I smiled on Nov. 4

The twit:

Smile AK! Signed Adult Dental bill (HB 26) over weekend. Now more AKns can get checkups & prevent costly dental problems before they begin.

I don't know. That sounds dangerously like socialism.

The world is full of energy

The twit:

EIA estimates US energy consumption will INCREASE by 44% in next 20 yrs. We MUST utilize our local energy sources.

Oh, totally. Either that, or, you know, maybe rein in our energy consumption a little.

'More and more frightening'

Congrats to Shep Smith for putting this together.

The guy who's not Shep Smith leads Shep Smith over to the blogosphere, and Shep Smith follows him, but he's already connected the dots. Sure, bloggers have said some crazy shit, and I don't restrict that to right-wing crazyblogs. But 'socialist' -- that didn't start on the Net. That started with McCain, and Palin, and Bachmann. Certain politicians acted in concert with the crazyblogs to whip people into a frenzy, and by the time McCain looked startled at his rallies and scolded his supporters that no, Barack Obama was a good man who happened to disagree with him, it was too late. Seemingly normal people were already yelling 'Kill him!' at the rallies of the Republican candidate for President of the United States. And the lunatic fringe was way too far out there to reel back.

I am not blaming any politicians directly for the madness at the Holocaust Museum, or the shooting of Dr. Tiller at church. Neither of those guys was a sane and rational man expressing his views coherently. (Although if you wanted to blame Bachmann, I'd probably hear you out for a while.) And I don't want to politicize this too much, not today. But McCain and Palin, they pandered to people like this. The last president, he spoke in code to people like this. I take no issue with serious criticism of liberal or Democratic politicians, and I don't claim that the right has a monopoly on the unserious criticism. But the unserious criticism of Republicans doesn't get people killed. Al Gore and John Kerry were far from inspirational in their campaigns, but they weren't going for a frenzy of hatred. If Bachmann and the others get what they want, there will be a great, great deal to mourn on that day.

Purple prose of Cairo

Just kidding. I'm a fool for wordplay.

I've read the President's speech, and a lot of synopses of the reaction to it, mostly courtesy of Andrew Sullivan. I thought the speech hit all the right notes. I also think that it's sad that this is such a big deal. As Obama himself said, these were only words. Yet they reveal the clearheaded, honest, and right thinking of which no president has been capable in my 38 years. Some wanted more constructive proposals, and in theory, so do I. But high-level meetings, more than this speech, are probably the place for them. And like so many things about this president, our past shame makes his baby steps bigger than they seem to his detractors.

Most of the criticism I've read -- especially from Israeli hard-liners -- misses the point tragically. It betrays the expectations the speakers had of the speech going in, and they come off like some idiot parent making noises of disgust when his kid strikes out in his first Little League at-bat. More, it betrays a complete lack of nuance. Nuance was the subtext of the speech; it was a call to see things in shades of gray, if not color. Many of the critics you can read today failed to answer, showing a lack of some combination of imagination, integrity, fairness, and intelligence. I now see why Sullivan is spending column inches writing off the Israeli hawks; they sound increasingly like the wingnuts in this country. The wingnuts are draining their party of supporters; fewer identify themselves as Republicans every day. Politicians and commentators in Israel, which I once supported blindly, would do well to pay attention, in the interest of survival, if they can't manage any interest in fairness.