Some Helpful Hints For the GOP to Get A Clue …
It’s pointless to kick people when they’re down, no matter HOW rewarding it might seem, nor how much kvelling it makes in the pupik.
Listen:
Republican Congressman Insults Nancy Pelosi’s Appearance: ‘There’s No Facelift With John Boehner’
Scott Keyes / ThinkProgressAn outspoken Republican congressman castigated House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s looks during a radio interview Friday. — Speaking with guest host Larry O’Connor on the Dennis Miller Show, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) argued that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was functionally equivalent to Pelosi because both held one-on-one backroom negotiations with the president. Gohmert then went on to deride Pelosi’s appearance: “Well, let’s give him credit. There’s no facelift with John Boehner.” […]
Helpfully, you can listen to the audio to catch the subtle nuances that mere stenography has missed in this grade-school-bullies-on-the-playground interchange.
The notion that Republicans on the radio would show good manners is, itself laughable. This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rush Limbaugh showing GOPs how to do the political equivalent of cursing without ever quite crossing the line. Asking a Republican to show good manners is kind of like asking an aardvark to do trigonometry. Except that you might actually run across a mathematically gifted aardvark.
But here’s a little something that Louie can perhaps wrap his brain around in between coming up with witless witticisms — bon-bon mots, so long as the bon-bons were rabbit pellets — first rule of woodcraft.
When you realize you’re lost, sit down.
This is kind of a corollary to the First Law of Holes — When you realize you’re in a hole, STOP DIGGING! — but is a great place to start for any human above the age of three years, which is when I learned it. But, like walking, or tying one’s shoes, just because it’s an early learned skill doesn’t mean it’s not an essential skill.
MItt Romney repeatedly violated the
First Law of Holes, 2008 AND 2012
After the election, the Republican Party was lost. Several wildly differing factions strained in several wildly different directions.
And, rather than sitting down, the GOP has mindlessly shot themselves in the collective foot so many times that it’s sort of pointless to even try to keep count.
The reason you sit down when you realize you’re lost is that you won’t get MORE lost. This is usually the critical moment in which confusion can turn to tragedy in the forest or the halls of congress.
You sit down because you need to see where you are. You can often, at this moment, retrace your steps back to where you started. And if you remember one tree, it’s usually enough and you’re not “lost” anymore. Or, you can decide what you need to do. But FIRST you sit down.
The Republicans didn’t sit down, and have started to pull their own version of the hike in The Blair Witch Project.
That’s first, Louie.
Second?
Whatever anger you feel, don’t take it out on the voters, the hurricane victims, the poor and old, or, for that matter, the Democrats. You did it to yourselves, and if you want to belittle, sneer and ladle out your pain and anger on anyone, ladle it on your own head. YOU caused your electoral problems. Man up, figure out whatever crazy malarkey you believe in and move forward.
And that brings me to my final piece of advice, which I begin with my little limerick on Ayn Randians:
There once was a Randroid idjit
Who claimed the gum’mint illegit
But when his house caught on fire
Rather than be called a liar
He just stared and stood and fidget.
In other words, deal with what’s in front of your face FIRST, and then worry about ideology. Or, helplessly watch your world burn.
For the past four years, while fiddling with ideological purity, Rome has burned.
Because you can’t seem to deal with the HERE AND NOW as a priority.
This is not the moment to discuss whether it
was a mistake to vacation in the desert.
The military graveyards of the world are filled with those who were too worried by theory to move expeditiously in practice. I think it was US Grant who said that the most important thing he learned was to never make a decision until he had to. Because the “plans” of the campaign had to take the day to day into account.
As the fairy tale goes, as the girl with the eggs in a basket on her head fantasizes ahead about what she’ll do with the money she’s going to get from selling the eggs, and how she’ll show off her new hair ribbons at the dance, she is so swept up in the fantasy that she tosses her head at the imaginary dance, and the eggs are crushed as they strike the ground.
Don’t be that girl. Or, rather, don’t CONTINUE to be that girl.
Conservatives have some good ideas. They aren’t complete retards, no matter how hard they try to behave that way.
Focus. Sit down. Worry about fixing the country today, THIS year, before you worry about imaginary fiscal disasters years in the future. That’ll do more for your grandchildren’s financial security than your fantasies about how you’ll show your new ribbon at the “Entitlement” dance.
So, while you’re trying to come up with more searing commentary that will gain you credibility in the junior high school bathroom, take a moment to sit down, figure out where you blundered off the path, and prioritize the actual lives of the voters you represent.
Not just the voters who elected you.
You are only responsible for today. Do that well, and then you can attempt the same thing tomorrow. But don’t continue to toss your eggs while you dream of a dance.
It’s Epiphany, and, god willing, you might even have one. Here’s hoping and hinting.
You’re welcome.
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.