Rove was right. “When he said Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; [and liberals didn’t],” he was right.
Rove, absolutely, was right. When the time comes, we don’t “brandish steel,” and run off like an ignorant ass. We put a little bit of damn thought into it first. It’s like this, when someone pulls a gun on us, or friends, and our family, all we think about protecting them. But it seems that if the gun was pulled on the Bush’s extended family, all they can think about is their own dick. They just want to hurt the guy who would pull the gun on them and take their manliness, their masculinity. I’ve seen this in lowlifes and deadbeats before. “Brandish steel” indeed.
I’ve had three friends with very, very nasty stepfathers. They had a few things in common.
1)They thought that they had a RIGHT to run the household.
2)That right to rule bought them infallibility.
3)That right to rule bought them primacy in their wants.
They were all three righteous. They were all three evil. In high school, after a savage beating was applied to one of my friends by his stepfather because he didn’t like “that stupid theater shit you do,” I had to do something about it. I took my favorite bat over to his bar across town. I told my buddies to wait in the car. After I came out, the asshole never laid another hand on him.
And no, I didn’t hurt him. I don’t know if I could. I played baseball and was 15 years old. But I did point out to him that the two VERY large linebackers sitting in the car outside were his stepson’s friends too, and they’re much better at violence than me. So, he could either lay the hell off the kid, or step outside with me anytime. His buddies mocked him. The bartender said he’d get the ambulance on the way if he needed it. As I said, the asshole never laid another hand on him.
What does this have to do with politics? Lots. Rove doesn’t understand that there are people like us that are immune to his Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt campaign. What he doesn’t understand about us is that our passivity is not mutually exclusive of concern, ability, or mettle. I’m with Reid and Dean in showing our friends and families just that. It’s time to tell them we won’t take this shit, and if they’d like to step outside (to the voting booth), we’ve got a nice bat (some decent candidates for next year), and a few very large friends enemies of theirs hovering outside (Iraq, Taliban resurgence, Uzbekistan, North Korea) that’ll put them in a hard and very embarrassing position with their buddies.
And we aren’t going to do it like a lioness protecting her cubs. We aren’t the Mommy party any more than Republicans are the Daddy party. They are the stepfather party- they carouse, waste all their money on guns, beat up on their wives and women, and bum money from their kid’s pockets. And guess what else. We’re the REAL Daddy party. Right now we’re on the front porch with a 2×4, and we’re real unhappy about what they’ve been doing to our family.
I also posted this at dKos, but all my favorite people are here now. Because getting to read and know many of you really brought me around. Not only will I not vote Republican in the next election, I’ll be out helping the Democrats too.
That’s a great story – I’m glad it worked and that you didn’t get hurt in the process.
As far as the analysis: I was with you until you referred to the Taliban et al as our ‘friends in the car’. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but that’s really not a helpful thing to say. The Taliban, Kim Jong Il, the insurgency in Iraq – these are not our friends. The old saying “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” just doesn’t apply. We fight the neocons, not just because they are ‘the other guy’, but because they espouse some nasty shit – the same nasty shit that the Taliban espouses.
Now, maybe it was just a rhetorical flourish, and all you meant was that their own mistakes would come back to bite them in the ass, but I’d think pretty hard before introducing that kind of language into the public debate.
Yea,you’re right. That’s probably why I’m NOT a politican.
I meant the metaphor as something that scares THEM, not necessarily as something that helps us.
As I said at dKos, If the enemy of my enemy was my friend, he’d just be my friend.
We need a metaphorical baseball bat in the form of decisive, clear language. I think the Dems are finally getting this, but it has been long in coming and they still have not really mastered it yet.
It involves, not backing down, always reframing the debate, not answering stupid questions from stupid right wing interviewers, but moving on to the points they want to make and forcing the other side to be on the defensive.
We have so much ammunition to challenge the right, I just don’t get why more of the Dems are not using it.
I wish I could donate money to the DNC with the stipulation that it be spent ONLY on hiring clever PR people to write good spin.
And it’s too bad it has to be about spin, but that’s what it has become.