No Place to Hide

From the very start, I've had only one reservation about Barack Obama: did he really believe in the possibility of bipartisanship?

This week, he stood before a Democratic retreat and at least hinted that even if he did, he wouldn't take the opposing BS sitting down. He taunted the Republicans who taunted his stimulus plan. And he did this, I believe, because he recognized that breaking the culture of partisanship in Washington is not a realistic goal...maybe not even possible in any circumstance. The remaining people on the other side have just two goals. First, continue to carry water for the same plutocrats who have pushed our economy to the brink; and second, to discredit him.

Now, I have serious reservations about any stimulus plan. I don't see how anyone could not harbor doubts after we drowned the criminals on Wall Street with our tax dollars...never bothering to ask them, much less require them, to spend those dollars for the common good. Of course, the Republican opposition against the stimulus is largely a matter of objecting that middle class dollars be spent to help the middle class and poor. They believe the only job of government is to funnel the dollars of the non-wealthy to the uber-wealthy.

But there is at least one comic aspect to this drama. As the play moved into the Senate, it became abundantly clear that there simply is no actor to credibly stand before the cameras on behalf of the purchased scum. News channels were reduced to Senate floor clips of the increasingly irrelevant John McCain...and Newt Gingrich was pulled out of his psychiatric ward to blather on about the myth that is Ronald Reagan. But beyond that, who is there left to speak in the 'gentleman's club' for the hate wing of the party?

These people are defeated. They don't matter anymore to the American public. And as soon as the media realize this, we will all be better for it.