HERE WE GO AGAIN. Well, this was a nice little present a week out from the election, wasn't it?
Raise your hand if you've heard Ellen Tauscher's name any time in the past six years.
I thought as much. Why doesn't The New York Times just dig up Carl Albert and ask him what he thinks? He's been about as relevant to the politics of the day as la Tauscher is, and he's a damn sight better Democrat having been dead for six years than she is alive and yapping.
Why, oh Lord, why do Democratic politicians cooperate with stories like this? Mind you, I'm not arguing for freezing out the NYT, or that the story isn't it a legitimate one, but how hard can it be for professional politicians and professional political activists to keep from tossing rocks at each other in public? The correct answer for everyone in this piece goes something like this: "The important thing for all of us is to strike the power from the hands of a corrupt, reckless, and criminally negligent Republican Party, which refuses to police the lunatics in its own ranks because its political success has depended for almost three decades on catering to an extremist agenda and to the worst of our human impulses."
Repeat until reporter's eyes glaze over.
But, no, let's all have a wonderfully productive conversation (again) on what chunk of the privacy rights of 51 percent of the American people we're willing to pitch overboard, and how scary even we find Nancy Pelosi. Or, alternatively, let's line up with the MoveOn guy and talk about why we'd run someone against Heath Shuler, who hasn't even been elected yet.
God, as Woody Allen said in Annie Hall, what I wouldn't give for a large sock full of manure.
--Charles P. Pierce
