An analogue to this instructive story of political hijinks is asking a man how he feels when he learns, two weeks after his divorce is final, that his erstwhile spouse just won the biggest lottery in history.
More directly, here is reason No. 10,498 why serious people do not become Democrats. Over the weekend, the Dem party leadership ran out of courage. Again. When a tough decision is to be executed, Democrats frequently shift from the left foot to the right, then dive under the venerable desk of good, ol’ Ted (I Ain’t Here) Cooke.
Over in the House of Representatives, where Dems are lighting candles to Gen. Custer, they had one too many people for a prestigious position — a black guy and a white guy, and they hid out for days until they figured a chickenhearted way to slink away of their dilemma.
A Time to Hide
The Democrat media — namely, the Los Angeles Titanic, the Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, and every other network extant except the Fox News Channel — will run through dense traffic, ice storms, shark-infested waters and mother-in-law dinners to tell you when one Republican is critical of a party member. But when Dems dispute, ain’t no media nowhere to record their fights.
The Titanic, for example, has been shlepping daily Joe Miller stories from Alaska over the Senate race with a fellow Republican, and you would have thought they had singlehandedly lassoed a serial killer they are so excited. When D.A. Steve Cooley edged ahead of Kamala Harris, briefly, in the still undecided race for state Attorney General, the noise-sensitive boys down at the Titanic warned Mr. Cooley, the Republican, to stay cool and not to behave boorishly the way those dumb Republicans in Alaska are doing.
The always temperate Titanic devoted barely half a page — ! — to a slightly — by a mile — overblown story as to whether Michael Steele, who is black, will be retained in the next month as Chair of the Republican National Committee. “Critics lobby against RNC’s Steele,” screamed the banner headline unfurled across the top of the page, and ain’t that a knee-slapping shocker. The drop headline: “Some say a re-election bid by the Republican national chairman would mean a bruising fight within the party.” The headline writer was going to add the word “Yippee!” But she told her editor she did not want to seem partisan. The editor promised her a bonus in this week’s pay envelope.
When the Democrats step into shoeshine polish, as they regularly do, my gosh. You have to dispatch a search party into the darkest part of the woods before you will find Dems huddled around quarreling members to keep anyone on the outside from learning that they are conducting themselves embarrassingly. Funny, one Dem never seems to rap another Dem. Must be a uniquely GOP disease.
Such has been the case in the newspapers for nearly a fortnight since the mid-term elections. A few hours after leading the Democrats to their worst defeat since the Depression, the boys favorite centerfold, Joan of Snark, the lovely Nancy (Don’t Ever Blame Me) Pelosi, baker of Custer Pie, announced she was staying on as leader of the party just as Dems were preparing to bury her career. Her controversial, hardly selfless, verdict destroyed the promotion plans of the next two ranking Dems who figured Joan of Snark would have the grace to surrender.
But What About the Other Guy?
Steny Hoyer of Maryland was going to become Minority leader of the House and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was going to be House Minority Whip. If you will pardon the excessive pun, Mr. Clyburn is a minority, a back gentleman.
With the narcissistic Joan of Snark stubbornly clinging to her old job, and her faithful Indian companion Mr. Hoyer attached to her hip — he was destined to be the Whip — Mr. Clyburn was left unemployed. This was going to be embarrassing to our left-wing colleagues because they realized the snub of Mr. Clyburn would correctly be viewed through a racial prism. Right ho, Jeeves.
Instead of making the tough decision, them there smart Dems refused — technically, at least — to overtly choose between Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Hoyer, who had incorrectly assumed he would inherit the House Minority leader’s chair, instead, was laterally shuttled into the job of House Whip. Presto, the Dems were out of glossy jobs, but Mr. Clyburn still was standing in the wings, jobless. As the leading bologna salesgirl in the House, last Friday night, Joan of Snark told reporters: “I will create a new position for Mr. Clyburn.” Eh, wot?
As the conservative Corner at the National Review website headlined the move yesterday, “Clyburn to Become Assistant to the Regional Manager.”
Ms. Pelosi did not announce whether Mr. Clyburn or Mr. Hoyer will retain shoeshining responsibilities.
Hoping not to make the obvious too obvious while she twirled a used shoeshine rag in her left hand, Ms. Pelosi vamped, bemusedly:
“Over the past four years, Congressman Clyburn’s effective leadership in the whip’s office was crucial to our passage of historic legislation on jobs, health care, veterans and Wall Street reform on behalf of the American people. Without Jim Clyburn’s determination, we would not have expanded college opportunities for millions of students, improved community health centers, or promoted jobs through investments in infrastructure, including rural broadband.”
But we don’t have a real job for him, right, Nanc?
And so the L.A. Titanic yesterday hid the pseudo shoeshine rag tag story13 pages past the epic heartstopper on Mr. Steele. Those boys sure know how to play down a sizzling story.
a gotta have heart to be a Dem dese days, and a sturdy back for when they hand you a dirty showshine rag.
