In the good old days, before Twitter, before SnapChat,
before Google, before YouTube, before FaceBook, before the Internet, before
computers, before Cable News, before Xerox machines, almost before electric typewriters,
when there were three networks, each with a half hour of news a night, it was
possible to think that if you had an idea, and hadn’t heard it on the
Huntley/Brinkley show or in the orotund tones of Walter Cronkhite, it was
probably original and worthy of expression, even perhaps of the immortality of print. But then, everybody on earth got a megaphone,
and it turned out that America was chock full of people who had your idea, some
of whom had been so impolite as to express it before you got a chance to.
I was going to write a blog post explaining that Pelosi’s
decision to delay transmission of the impeachment vote to the Senate was yet
another master stroke, designed not at all to put pressure on McConnell, but
instead to drive Trump wild until he
demanded a trial with witnesses so that he could get the acquittal he so
desperately craves. I was going to, that
is, until I spent a little time this morning reading today’s spate of opinions,
and discovered that my shrewd observation was already old news.
Well, if I may paraphrase Rick in Casablanca, I’ll always have the Subjective Deduction.
8 comments:
But politics isn't about originality. I was looking for something original, I'd read poetry.
In politics you say what has been said before, first of all, to show your support for certain ideas or ways of thinking and second of all, to stimulate political conversation with your immediate peers, that is, in this case the readers of your blog.
So when you want to converse about something, post about it, without worrying whether others have said it beforehand. Plagiarism is not penalized in politics.
Along those lines, Nancy's masterstroke didn't originate with her, it seems. DIdn't John Dean and Lawrence Tribe tee that up for her? In fact, back months ago, when she was against impeachment, several people were pointing out that there's no reason to send along whatever is sent along to the Senate anyway. How long can we wait? Why not just wait to see if he gets re-elected and bring the whole thing up again at the beginning of his second term?
I must confess, however, I didn't think she would play hardball. Good for her. I hope she slaps Trump around some more. That she's good at and it is fun to watch.
Somewhat on topic:
https://publicseminar.org/2019/12/nancy-pelosis-leverage-over-mitch-mcconnell/
Well I don't care whether it might have been said before- when you say it, it has far more credibility with me than any of the talking heads on the media.
Pelosi can bat with the best of them, but what captivated me was that she seemed like the only adult in the room.
I like thinking that what Rick said was "We'll always have tsuris".
Anonymous,
Perhaps, and that's the problem. There's a reason why HRC lost, McConnell does as much damage as Trump, the public doesn't really get "Ukraine" and Trump's approval ratings are going up in the face of impeachment. It's the "adults in the room" syndrome: from the Clintons on through Obama, Pelosi, and now Biden. Here's an example: Pelosi when asked, years ago, if Bush should be impeached over the Iraq war, responded...words to the effect..."That's about intelligence, that's my wheelhouse. I knew there were no WMDs (as a member of the Gang of Eight). I don't think President Bush should be impeached for" - and then she stopped, searching for the right word, no doubt wanting to say "for lying us into war" but of course she couldn't say that, especially given that she was in on the lie, so she finally said, "for misrepresenting" the facts." Imagine, not impeaching a president for lying us into an incredibly costly war. You're right. She's one of the adults in the room whose endless calculating/instrumental reasoning helps explain the rise not just of neoliberalism but of neofascism. And she knows how to run tactical circles around Trump; but get him out of office, after the big left leaning, blue wave of 2018? Can't do it. Adults in the room always need to tamp down and block progressive, left impulses that regularly breach corporate "guard rails." The fact that we have a watered down impeachment with no time on the clock to genuinely pull the curtain back is because of the adults in the room.
@David Auerbach
That's a good one.
Doesn't fit the context of the orig. scene of course, but still funny.
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