If I Hear the Word Bipartisanship ONE MORE TIME
If I hear the word bipartisanship ONE MORE TIME, and yes, I'm talking to you ... if I hear it one more time your name is going on The List. If you're a Republican, don't worry, your name's already on The List, but for the rest of you, this is your first and last warning.
In fact I'm declaring a new rule: bipartisan has been temporarilly suspended as a member in good standing of the English language. Where does that leave us?
The B-word is out and everyone who's feeling B-word urges needs to strap the pads on and get their heads straight or get the hell off the field.
Bushco took partisanship to record depths, and laughed at us for not being able to stop them. Democrats are weak, divided, flip-floppers. Now we all know that's an incorrect perception, but it needs to be corrected before we can proceed with the important business of governing the nation in a B-word fashion.
Like the Islamofascists they've invented, the theocrats of the right respond only to strength. Thus, restoring their sense of their proper place in the world requires some symbolism. Heads must roll. It needs to be public, and, in the metaphorical sense, it needs to be bloody. It should be unfair as well. And there needs to be an example from every corner of the wingnut-o-sphere - House, Senate, executive, K street, the churches and the corporations.
But how do you do it? With, oh sweet justice, Felix Macacawitz appealing to the video replay booth to overturn the call in Virginia (your father would be ASHAMED of you), I feel the urge to cite one of my favorite football coaches - The Tuna. When Parcell's Patriots needed a wakeup call, the Tuna had a habit of taking one totally non-descript player and cutting him. Nothing personal, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here. No more paychecks for you kid. Totally unfair, guy hadn't done anything wrong. Wrong place, wrong time. People got the message - next time that could be you.
Some thoughts:
- Take an entire House Republican committee staff and fire their asses. Oh, they have lives and families, and good ideas, and clean records, and long histories of public service? Well that should comfort them as they reflect on their part in the Republican reign from the perspective of their new life in the private sector. As The Gay has learned, in the long term, Republicanism is just bad for you anyway. We did you a favor.
- Take Bush's best judicial nomination, the one person that everyone agrees would make a fantastic federal judge, and put a permanent hold on him. Permanent. Sorry pal, nothing personal, but you have the wrong friends. It's just business.
- Take a defense, or intelligence Republican committee staff and suspend their security clearances. Just temporarilly, until say, the temperature in hell drops below 32 degrees. They can't do their jobs without that clearance? Hey, wakeup and smell the civil war chief - they didn't do their jobs with the clearance.
- The churches - ah yes, the churches - somebody's non-profit status needs to be revoked. Not all of them, even though they've all crossed the line. I'm not vindictive. Just one. One with substantial assets too. A big, rich, mega church. I don't care which one, just pick one. There seem to be a zillion of them and they're all the same to me. And I want a big fine too, a big one. What's that you say Nancy? You don't control the IRS? Well, some nice public hearings might be a start, and if Treasury, IRS and DOJ don't get the message, just keep dragging their sorry asses up to Capitol Hill for hours and hours of testimony until one of them gets the message. In fact I suggest setting up a special committee made up of the dumbest Democrats and our least favorite Republicans just to investigate the political activities of non-profits, forever, and ever, and ever ....
- The noisemakers. This is an easy one. Someone needs to be cut off, suffocated, starved of the access that is life and breath to these people. And not quickly, but slowly so that all the other chatterers can see him gasping for breath. You can do it Nancy, come on get into the spirit. This power-wielding thing can be fun once you get the hang of it.
- And I haven't forgotten K street. All good things must come to an end, even the K street project. What better way to end an era of supernatural wickedness than by burning a couple of witches? My idea? Permanent exile for one Republican ex-representative and his ex-staff. Sorry guy, you're off the rolodex. Your camp followers too. Again, nothing personal. It would help if he were a jolly fellow that everyone likes, who "isn't really like all those hard-core right wingers" so that everyone will know that it's nothing personal. Sorry pal, a conscience only helps if you vote it. If you just laugh about it over drinks with your fellow bipartisans that doesn't count.
- And finally the donors. There's one thing that money likes even more than power, and that's money. Money's kinda narcissistic actually. So we take a look at the donor list going back, oh say to 1994, and see who's put their eggs in the wrong basket, not all their eggs, just someone who's done one of those 10 to 1, red to blue ratios. It'd be best if they're a nice fat, public, red-state corporation so that Wall Street gets the message too. Just tilt the playing field in the other direction. There's a million ways to do it, some of which even make public policy sense - maybe a nice net neutrality bill. The message - if you don't even have the balls to stand up to your Republican friends when they tell you that you can't contribute to the other guys, then you shouldn't go around making Democratic enemies because they'll be even meaner to you.
These are just some suggestions for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to mull over as they prepare for the first hundred hours. And one last suggestion. When the blowhard-osphere and B-word-appeasers question these outrageous abuses of power you can tell them anything you like - tell them Jesus came to you in a dream and commanded you to do it - as long as you make it absolutely clear that, for now at least that's the way it is and if you don't like it, we don't care.
It's nothing personal. Just business.
