The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Like a Broken Clock Twice a Day …

Posted on | February 18, 2011 | 5 Comments

. . . occasionally Joe Klein is right:

Revolutions everywhere–in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they’re protesting against it. I mean, Isn’t it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting “Freedom, Democracy, Union” while trying to prevent a vote? Isn’t it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process? Isn’t it interesting that some of those who –rightly — protest the assorted Republican efforts to stymie majority rule in the U.S. Senate are celebrating the Democratic efforts to stymie the same in the Wisconsin Senate?

It is that last question, you see, which is the aiming-point of Klein’s column, as he wishes us to conceive the GOP’s filibusters in the U.S. Senate as analogous to the shenanigans of Democrats in Wisconsin.

Of course, the constitutional separation of powers and the ancient super-majority cloture rule in the Senate are such as to make the Senate (usually) an impediment to any sudden shift of policy. Looking back over the first two years of Obama’s presidency, we see that it was the overwhelming Democratic majority in the Senate which enabled his fatal overreach.

If only Obama and Nancy Pelosi had heeded the signal when Scott Brown was elected as the “41st vote” to block passage of ObamaCare — after Democrats had already lost off-year gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey — perhaps the 2010 mid-terms might not have been so disastrous for them.

“If” — the most important two-letter word in the English language.

Contrary to what Klein or any other pundit may have thought, the anti-Obama, anti-Democrat tide is still running high. This tide is still quite strong enough to overwhelm the government-employees unions in Wisconsin and by 2012 may yet be strong enough to wash Obama himself out of office.

That this is not entirely a Republican tide is what so confuses the liberal punditry. The GOP’s Bush-era “brand damage” is still deep enough that voters hesitate to describe themselves to pollsters as Republican, because that label carries negative connotations for so many. Yet when they see the policies pursued by the Obama administration — a wild and reckless binge of deficit spending — these voters do not hesitate to say that the country is on the “wrong track” rather than in the “right direction.”

By happy coincidence, guess which GOP presidential candidate will join Andrew Breitbart and Jim Hoft at a Tea Party rally Saturday in Madison? And just like Herman Cain, Scott Walker represents the taxpaying majority against the tax-consuming minority who seem to be calling the shots for the Democratic Party.

Klein sees the irony of Democrats Against Democracy — a movement that predictably arises whenever Republicans are in the majority — without wondering whether he himself has helped bring about this ironic circumstance. Weren’t Joe Klein and his journalistic colleagues singing in unison from the Hope and Change hymnal all through the 2008 election and on into the Obama administration? If the Democrats and union thugs in Madison think they represent the forces of Truth and Justice marching on The Right Side of History . . .

Well, when did Joe Klein ever contradict that belief?

Organized labor is leading liberalism on a lemming stampede toward a cliff, and it’s probably too late for Klein or anyone else to stop them.

Category: Andrew Breitbart, Barack Obama, Gateway Pundit, Herman Cain, Unions, Wisconsin

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