Politics

I thought when I started this blog I would be writing more about politics.

But my interest level has waned, for which I am grateful, since I was tying myself up in knots emotionally over what had been happening the past six years. And there are many people with better resources than I for political blogging. Some of them are linked at the right.

But with the departure of Tom DeLay (although perhaps no farther than a commentator's job on Fox News) I thought it was worth saying something.

Part of the reason my level of concern has eased up is because I see the Republican leadership going through this slow-motion implosion that was basically inevitable. The national party has been run by crooks since Nixon's era, and every time they're given power, they come to the same end. I have voted for Republicans at the local level in the past (though not lately) but I can't imagine who the Democrats would have to put up as a nominee to get me to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.

People are beginning to understand, I believe, what a sham the national GOP has become: religious crackpots posing as Christians, medieval feudalists posing as free market capitalists and small-town con men like DeLay posing as statesmen. That's a pretty shaky coalition with which to try to lead a country, and it's no surprise to me they haven't been able to do it.

There have been some complaints that the Democrats haven't been assertive enough in putting forward alternatives. Personally, I think they're doing exactly the right thing, and there's a certain Taoist method to their madness.

Observe and learn, grasshopper: if your enemy confronts you, threatens you, intimidates you and then begins frantically beating himself up like Edward Norton in that scene in "Fight Club," why should you act?

And finally, a big shoutout to James Madison and the other dudes at the 1781 constitutional convention. The final product, though dented and scraped, still holds. Karl Rove may be smart, but it looks like these guys were smarter. Thanks for saving our asses here in the 21st century, guys.