That explains it

Thanks to Wonkette for the link to an aol.com article that explains everything. If anyone's been wondering why conservative males have behaved like morons and maniacs for roughly eleven months now, it's because their gonads withered up and fell off. Oh, the scientific study doesn't put it quite that crudely, but I can read between the lines. The good news for conservatards is that their manhood may grow back in another year or so.

Afghan hounded ?

Meanwhile, back at the war. It was obvious that the person who replaced W. would have his (or her) hands full trying to clean up the ungodly mess that was being left behind. That, more than any other reason, was why I had reservations about Obama's election. My honest preference would have been President Ace McCain, held in check by a congress that was solid blue. Let McCain take a four-year stab at mopping up the joint. That idea went out the window when Sarah, the trailer park queen, plopped into the picture.

Anyway, the war in Afghanistan was one of the few ideas coming out of W's administration that looked halfway sensible on paper. Of course, like everything else, it got totally fucked up, not least of all because of the diversion of resources to Iraq.

Now Afghanistan is being thought about as Obama's war, and like every other paper sack full of dogshit left on his desk by the previous tenant, it's causing him some headaches. Regardless of what he does, a bunch of voters are gonna be pissed off. I'm gradually reaching the viewpoint that we need to start thinking about getting the hell out of that dump.

More dysfunction

From January 2001 until January 2007, the Republicans owned the federal government and nearly everyone agrees (now) it didn't work out too well. Things got so fucked up that in 2006 Democrats regained majorities in the House and, more or less, the Senate. For two years, we were back to divided government. By then, Bush was seeing his job approval swirling down the crapper and his popular support reduced to deadenders. The damage done, he put it on automatic pilot and started mailing it in. He did one good thing, replacing Rumsfeld with Robert Gates. Otherwise, his only purpose in life was to veto whetever Dems in congress wanted and play golf.

Anyone who saw the train wreck at the beginning of the Harrison Ford movie The Fugitive has a good metaphorical reference point for the eight years of President George W. Bush. By November 2008, things were so totally fucked that the country worked off some frustration by electing a guy whose middle name was Hussein (overwhelming irony). The Democrats increased their majorities in Congress, too.

As a rule, I'm against single-party federal government, and prefer to see one party controlling the executive branch, the other running the legislative, and (ideally) a neutral judicial branch. We haven't had that exact combination in a long time.

The reason the Democrats control the House and Senate is that they won elections in red states and red (or purple) House districts. Consequently, there are many conservative Dems in Congress and almost no liberal Republicans, producing what effectively amounts to a divided government.

Obama can forget seeing his agenda slicing through the Senate like a hot knife through butter. That may or may not be good for the country, but I personally prefer no legislation to bad legislation when it comes to trillion-dollar propositions.

A battle worth watching

For most of the last week, Wondermom's resignation has been a hot topic on the internet, with substantial typing devoted to the issue of what it all means. One analysis I thought was interesting was this one by Rick Perlstein at Newsweek, dealing with the schism in the Republican party between its intellectual elite and its support base, which nobody would call intellectual.

The latter years of W's administration established approximate dimensions of the hardcore dead-end social conservative crowd. They were the ones sticking with W long after everyone else had moved on, presumably because they were too dumb to realize they'd been wrong about him or too vain to admit it. They kept W's job approval rating hovering between 25 and 30 percent while I kept waiting to see if he would finally zero out.

It's been noted by astute observers that Palin is basically W, Version 2.0. She has most of the same deficiencies, and appeals to the same people who supported W for eight years and probably still wish term limits hadn't forced him into the shadows.

There are signs the natural constituency for conservatives like W and Palin may be a diminishing demographic segment, thus the battle within the GOP between the smart Republicans who want to retool and seek new directions and the rest, who believe the only problem is that Palin wasn't the head of their ticket in 2008.

America is the land of A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). Short attention spans have become a regular epidemic, like obesity, and Americans are too impatient to wait things out. Obama is at a disadvantage as he wades through the mess W left behind; it'll probably take a long time to get the economy back on track, meaning the political pendulum may swing back in the Republican direction in 2010 and 2012. That's what I expect, and it's why I'm watching the current struggle. If Palin sinks into the obscurity from which she rose, it will indicate things are moving in the right direction.

The long division

There are two kinds of people in the world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't.

My bro in Houston writes to say that on the AM talk station down there, yesterday's topic was how Ace lost the election because he wasn't conservative enough, and if it weren't for Trig's mom the pounding would've been even worse. My bro says he hopes the Repubs keep thinking like that, and I agree.

There are two kinds of Republicans - those who are convinced Trig's mom is the future of the party, and those who will start voting Democratic in 2012. Unless something totally unforeseen happens, Palin is going to scare off everybody who has the capacity for analytical thought and the electoral map will continue to look the same as it does today. That'll suit me fine.

A lot of people who vote Repub these days are getting up in years, and before long they'll be moving on to their heavenly rewards. Barry grabbed a big chunk of the younger vote Tuesday, the people who'll be voting the next 40 years or so, and I'm not seeing a desire for hardcore conservatism in that crowd. The Republicans are like old men on park benches, remembering their glory years as the world passes them by. They can't let go of the Reagan era, which ended twenty years ago, before many new voters were in preschool. Since my political identity is Rabid Anti-Republican, I hope they'll continue to live in the fantasy world they're in today.

My bro and I both think American government works best when it's divided between the parties. It always seems like the periods we perceive as America's good times occur when one party controls the White House and the other controls Congress; it's worked out that way during my adult years. My bro thinks maybe the Democrats will screw things up by pushing an agenda that's too liberal and open the door for a GOP comeback in two years.

He may be right. If it happens, we'll be back to divided government and we can see where it takes us. On the other hand, there's a basic difference between the GOP and Democrats that may keep that from happening.

The psychological factors that make them conservative cause Republicans to have an easy time behaving monolithically. Like sheep, they tend to flock together around their leader and have no problems moving in lockstep. This tendency accounts for the predicament the GOP is in right now - if the leader is a worthless dipstick, the whole party's moving in lockstep with him and they all get blamed for his fuckups.

The psychological factors that make them liberal cause Democrats to be incapable of behaving like Republicans. Democrats never move in lockstep and have a hard time uniting behind any leader. I can already see evidence of this fact in the public fretting among Dems over Barry's selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. In Congress, a lot of the Democrats elected in 2006 and this year took their seats from Republicans or in red states. The Blue Dog Dems aren't about to line up behind the Dennis Kucinich agenda, and Obama has proven he'll look for compromises and pragmatic solutions. Right now, I'm just enjoying the idea that we're finally rid of Bush and Cheney, and I'm not ready to start worrying about President Obama.

More post mortem

Looking at reds and blues from my left to my right, I see Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida and they're all blue. Can anyone seriously tell me that Ace would've gotten his ass whipped worse if he'd picked Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman as his running mate, and left Joe the plumber in obscurity ? I have a feeling that the Speedbump-Snowbunny-Skinhead combination was just too much for intelligent, moderate fence-sitters to deal with, so they swallowed hard and voted for Barry instead. Just my hunch. Leaving Speedbump and Bob Barr to fight it out over the low information primates in Dixie and prairie dog country and The Real Americans, always described as older, lower income, and less educated. Limbaugh's audience, in other words.

ADDED 3:40 PM:

I've been listening to Limbaugh and Hannity this afternoon, and the message coming from talk radio is that Them Two Mavericks lost because the Republican party hasn't been conservative enough. I can't imagine living in a country that met the standards they apparently envision. According to Limbaugh, conservatives are still the majority, so a lot of them must have decided to vote for The Most Liberal Senator In Congress. Why they did that is unclear.

Where to now ?

I've been pursuing blogging as a hobby since 09-28-07 and during the last thirteen months there's been enough political activity to keep me working on the four jailbee blog siblings fairly regularly. When I started, W was edging into lame duck status and had already caused the GOP to lose its control of congress. In early 2008, the election campaign got underway for real and that naturally satisfied my need for topics to write about, particularly the prolonged primary contest between Barry and Mrs. Clinton, neither of whom I believed had any chance at winning in November.

After Ace McCain won the Republican primary, I started thinking of him as 44 and began to weigh the possibility that we might have four more years of divided government, a circumstance I actually favor philosophically.

As the campaign dragged on, Ace went totally negative. His first argument was his experience. Unfortunately all those years of experience came wrapped in a package that looked like an old white-haired grandpa, then his selection of Trig's mom made the point moot. Experience ? Never mind.

His next argument was about how he'd bring much-needed change, but everything he claimed he'd do sounded like what we'd already done for eight years: tax cuts, offshore and ANWR drilling, stay the course in Iraq, and of course some tax cuts. Keep the change, buddy.

His cases for experience and change having crumbled, Ace turned to the strategy that Republicans have relied on since 1988 - fanning fears about the Democrat. The problem with that approach was the three debates, where potential voters could see Ace and Barry side by side and make head-to-head comparisons. Barry didn't come across as frightening; sometimes Ace did.

Now the election is over and Barry won. Sweet Pea goes back to Alaska, where her minimal skills are appreciated, and Joe the skinhead goes back to much-deserved anonymity.

Unfortunately, all the low-information primates who get their worldview from Limbaugh, Hannity and Fox News will renege on their promises to leave the country if Obama won. They'll still be around, pissing and moaning and wasting space. So even though the easy targets are gone or soon will be, I imagine there'll still be things to write about.