• The cowboy way

    In some circles he’s been described as the conservative evil genius. In other circles he’s just evil. This is the political climate of the day… but I’m not here for name calling… well, maybe I’m not above a little name-calling by proxy.

    The point of this morning’s verbal concoction is to analyze comments made by Karl Rove on NPR a couple days ago. My boy Karl was discussing why he thought the Grand ‘Ole Party was going to retain control of our bi-camel legislature this November. He made some excellent points. I’m not sure they warranted quite the level of confidence he displayed, but they were some of the same points I’ve worried about myself (what with me being a treasonous liberal and all). The comment that brought up that morning’s coffee (in a nasal geyser that could fetch a hefty appearance fee from any major traveling circus) came when Karl was asked what the White House plans were in the event The Dems DID take control of one or both houses of Congress.

    “We don’t have a plan because we’re going to win.” (Paraphrase based on my best recollection)

    Funny how history repeats itself… it reminds me of something Mark Twain said,

    It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.

    How has recent history repeated itself? Let’s see…
    No plan for an Iraqi insurgency… we’ll be greeted as liberators not occupiers.
    No plan for an alternate legislative agenda… Social Security reform will pass.

    Those are two pretty big ones and I didn’t even have to check Google (or try – at all).

    A few years ago I would have ascribed these kinds of comments as macho-Texan-cowboy bravado… a couple guys aiming for a little self-fulfilling prophesy. It’s a strategy that’s worked in the past, so it’s not a bad way to go. But you know what they say… fool me once – shame on me…. No, I wouldn’t be surprised if they really didn’t have a plan for a Democratic congress. By now that’s their well deserved M.O.

    Pity Karl might just be right this time. A big money advantage will go a long way towards swaying opinion in many tight, local elections. Imagine two weeks of GOP TV-ad, saturation bombing. If you’re really lucky, you don’t have to imagine it; you can watch it on your local TV station.

  • Closure

    For a few weeks in 1990 there was a real-live boogey man in my life. He had a name, but at the time no one knew it. For a while everyone thought it was a mentally ill young man named Ed Humphrey, but a while later we learned his real name: Daniel Rolling.

    I remember a partially deserted campus as school stared that fall. I remember ID checkpoints and off-campus housing security meetings. I remember the creepy guy my apartment complex hired to patrol the woods around my school year home. I remember my (then) girlfriend’s mother (now mother-in-law) hesitantly “allowing” a visit several months later.

    The occasion for this entry is Danny Rolling’s death. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection twenty-five minutes ago. According to the St. Pete Times, he was pronouced dead about eleven minutes ago (at 6:13 p.m. EDST). Although it doesn’t take the memories away – faded and partly forgotten though they may be – I hope this gives the families of his victims some relief.

  • The daughter of all deathwatches

    I was sitting with Beth at the allergist’s office, helping her with her “gifted” homework. In the span of a 20-minute shot watch we discussed mid-term elections, the separation of powers, the merits of a bi-camel legislature, term limits, and the unique nature of prime numbers.

    Throughout this light conversation I stole a few glances at the folks sharing the waiting room with us… and they were unsettled. What? Doesn’t everyone discuss the nature of representative government and math theory with their nine-year-old daughters?