Kick Me

I’m feeling Shrub W. Bush right now.

I heard most of his speech on illegal immigration. Truly decent and thoughtful. Political too, in the best sense of that term. Sometimes you’ve gotta do your best to balance things in a democratic republic. I'm sure a lot of folks are gonna feel like he pleased nobody but I thought both the tone and content were spot on.

Where has that guy been? We’ve needed the leader who made that pitch rather than the partisan, ideological hack we’ve gotten.

Strangely conservative Republicans control the House. The Senate tends toward the right but you’ve got something going on there that looks a lot like common sense, at least on this issue.

Local extremists and activists are the swing votes behind the weird politics of the House. Building walls on borders and dividing the country into hostile camps is the deep psychology that has gotten the best of those folks. These are people who are pretty into ‘either/or’ right now.

Many of the “dividers and not uniters” have abandoned ‘The Decider.’ That’s why his approval ratings in some polls have dropped below 30%. He’s not radical and divisive enough for them now.

After listening to the speech I’m guessing the righteous are going to kick him down the block like an empty Coke can on a street corner. Moderates and liberals abandoned his presidency a long time ago. Now he’s a booty target for his base. Poor W.

This is what comes of gerrymandering. When districts are drawn to assure the unchallenged dominance of one party (the ‘gated community’ and ‘saved and lost’ ideas applied to politics) you end up with candidates who have to impress the most extreme right or left wing activists in order to get a chance to run for office. We’re suffering through the right wing version of that curse right now but it could easily be the extremism of the left given a few shifts in events over the past 25 years.

All things must pass. But it’s going to take some effort :^)