My impression as this year ends is that each right-wing mouthpiece, mouthing off his or her distortions and mischaracterizations and deflections and defamations as each hour creeps at its petty pace, is like a little hole in the dike that separates chaos from sanity. We're over here on the dry side at the moment, but we sense that the water is many feet higher than our pathway, and presses relentlessly against the big steel plate wall the engineers erected long ago, before they packed up and left due to budget shortages and pure disinterest. It's easy enough to plug an individual hole. Chewing gum will do the job, or a used band-aid. Put up something temporary, till you can get the torch lit, then do a bit of spot welding, or for a change, try some of that fix-all compound you can buy at the Ace for a couple of bucks. Comes in a little roll, works like modelling clay. Nice stuff.
Every day I ride to work, or somewhere, to do some errand, or make some money, or whatever. Since what's on the radio is usually boring, I turn on some right-wing station just to see what they're saying today. Here in RTP we have a station actually called "Rush Radio." Our former "Rush radio," WPTF (used to stand for "We Protect the Family," which was an insurance company slogan, and used to run wonderful live shows of Hank Williams style country music, or live bluegrass), poor old WPTF was AM, and Rush left 'em in a flash after they helped build his tin-pot empire for twenty years around these parts. Now they're stuck with the old garden show, and the swap shop. Poor Bart Ritner. He's still there. Meanwhile, over on the official Rush Radio, yesterday morning I got to hear J.D. Hayworth, just defeated AZ candidate, ranting about the Mezcans and selling his book, "Whatever It Takes." There's a title for ya. I listened for a couple of minutes, then just turned it off. Then I had to listen to the noises I don't much like coming from my right front wheel, and from the heater motor when I have to run the blower to keep the windshield from fogging. Coming home it was a black sounding voice, same station, ranting about Obama, claiming black people won't just vote for him because he's black. There's a little area they haven't worked too hard yet, so they've put someone on it. This morning it was Mark Steyn, arguing that Republican Mayor Bloomburg was too smart to be mayor of New York City, because the snow didn't get removed on Steyn's schedule. You think that's stupid? It's already become some sort of right wing theme of the week, parrotted on our local right wing "bulletin board" before Steyn even got his teeth into it--or to be precise, before he got his auger running properly, like the little cabin boy who sank the Golden Vanity.
There's not much to do about this problem of the crumbling dike. There was so much going on back in the '80s, when Reagan removed this thing called the Fairness Doctrine. Who cares, everyone said. And who is going to be the arbiter of "fairness." And that's of course a real question. Oh, it's also a spurious, hypocritical defense--used by people who have no interest at all in fairness, who see everything as a war, down to the core, a battle of opinions with no bottom. Those people will use that argument, and if it works, great. It's a bullet among many. But don't ask them to be fair. Not when there's a Kenyan Imposter in the White House. Who might be a muslim, if he's not a born-again parishioner of Reverend J. Wright, who said, one time, from the pulpit: "Goddam America."
What happens is, after a while, riding along under this shower, a whole lotta folks get wet. The snow's melting here. The snow itself is proof there is no human assisted global climate change. Tomorrow some guy down at the Texaco is gonna say, "Looka there, told you it was gonna melt. It allus does."
Update: And on the other hand, I heard Christine O'Donnell, former failed candidate from Deleware, might actually have some legal problems of consequence coming her ways. Certainly she's a small fry grifter and Karl Rove deserves the ole Perp Walk more than this almost mentally ill perpetual candidate, but given the damage she's caused, it'd be nice to actually see something legal affect her eventually. Which isn't to deny, either, that Tbogg is probably right in the following comment:
When it comes to the misuse of campaign funds, I think O’Donnell sincerely believes that the people who gave her money to run for office gave it to her with the understanding that she is doing God’s work no matter how long it takes and a rent payment here and an evening of bowling there are just a place to stay and a thing to do during The Perpetual Campaign of Righteousness, for she is the embodiment of the contributors hopes and desires. They want her to use it as she sees fit.
Sure she’s making a living off of the yokels much like Sarah Palin does, but she lacks the white trash feral cynicism of a Palin. O’Donnell’s no Grifter Grizzly, she’s more Blanche Dubois; spiritually pure, lost in a fantasy and depending on the kindness of strangers.
Second and final update. Check out the Col.'s website. It must be citing Tbogg.
