Vote For Kodos
My father failed in his bid to win the Republican nomination for Michigan's 5th Congressional district; had he succeeded, despite her spongy left-leaning politics, my mother probably would have voted for his doomed candidacy out of marital loyalty. However, his tea party-fueled insurrection in an overwhelmingly Democratic district having failed, she's free to vote for whomever she pleases. Having watched Sunday's debate between the various candidates for the Michigan 5th, she is now leaning toward voting for the Green Party candidate instead of our ancient Democratic congressman, Representative Dale Kildee, who went to kindergarten with Methuselah. This abandonment of her habitual support for the Democratic* Party is not without historical precedent: despite having voted for then-Governor Carter in 1976, in '80 my mother voted for the independent candidacy of John Anderson, a formerly left-wing Republican. So, if she does end up voting for the Green Party candidate, it won't be because she supports the national Green Party's duplicitous partnership with the Socialist Party U.S.A., it will be nothing more than her own mild brand of protest vote.

Obamboozled
One particularly interesting facet of the midterm elections is how many lefties of my personal acquaintance have adopted President Obama's preposterous rhetoric about "the failed policies of the past." Hey, guys, I hate to be the one to have to break this to you, but {a} Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac weren't policies of President Bush's design, {b} the securitization of mortgage-backed assets wasn't a policy of President's design, & {c} President Bush isn't on the ballot for Congress anywhere in the country. Also, hey, sorry again, but President Bush wasn't on the ballot in '08; so, when then-Senator Obama rallied against the policies of President Bush, he wasn't even remotely describing the policies advocated by the Republican presidential nominee for that election, Senator McCain. I know, that has to come as a shock to many of you. Take a few deep breaths, you'll be okay.

In an interesting recent example, in an I.M. conversation about President Obama's & Attorney General Holder's running of the Department of Justice, my conversational partner engaged only in a discussion President Bush's & Attorney General Gonzales's running of the D.O.J. There was no discussion of the issues of the present & their implications for the future, only a continued rehashing of the past. History is my first love, I will never deny the central role the past plays in shaping the present & the future, but an enlightening discourse is impossible if the immediate past & its implications in the present & the future are declared out-of-bounds. I wouldn't ask anyone to violate their conscience by defending A.G. Holder, but how is constantly steering a conversation back to the disastrous tenure of A.G. Gonzales going to help stop or mitigate the harms of A.G. Holder in the present? Two wrongs—those of A.G. Gonzales & those of A.G. Holder—do not make a right, nor does misfeasance by the one in any way excuse misfeasance by the other. Pointing about that Gonzales was a bad Attorney General (he was) doesn't make Holder a good Attorney General (he isn't).

My question, then, is this: If President Obama meant what he said during the '08 campaign about creating a new kind of politics, of eschewing partisanship, why is he so eager to talk about the "failed policies of the past" & so very unwilling to discuss whether his policies of the present have failed or are failing? The answer of course is that he does not think attempting the impossible feat of defending his own failed & failing policies would gain him & his party any electoral advantage, but that doesn't explain away his betrayal of the campaign rhetoric that tricked so many into voting for him in '08. Oh, wait, except it does, by pointing out that the earlier rhetoric was nothing more than a low down, dirty trick. How does it feel to have been so thoroughly Obamboozled?

*I shudder whenever one of my fellows on the right speaks of the "Democrat Party" or the "Democrat agenda." It's intended as an insult that we all know is grammatically incorrect, but I've never quite understood how the error is meant to be insulting or why that provides sufficient justification for such an obvious error.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Roots featuring Malik B. & Dice Raw, "Here I Come" from Superbad: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)