Why, with overwhelming majority control of Congress, are Democrats still sucking up? Because it feels natural.
The Last Republican
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Overwhelming majority control? If it isn't filibuster proof, it isn't overwhelming. Do you want Democrats to be robots that fall into lockstep like Republicans?
Why do I feel that some kind of "Spanish Civil War" is in our future?? Dorme bene…
Overwhelming majority control? If it isn't filibuster proof, it isn't overwhelming. Do you want Democrats to be robots that fall into lockstep like Republicans? Hey genius, you ever heard of Spector, Snowe, or Collins?
Anon 8:18am;
Some kind of Spanish Civil War? What do you call Iraq and Afghanistan. The were both started by yellow journalism.
Anon 6:58am;
That is the inherent problem with the Democratic party. It's a hodge podge of ideas strewn together and made fit by loose ideology. A Republican knows what he stands for and fights for it. The Democrats are too busy quarreling with themselves to make anything a reality. Their whips are jokes and this is the reason why the Democratic party will more than likely be split up in the future.
Lack of discipline destroys a party. The Republicans have lasted so long because of great discipline.
Ted,
Maybe you should write your next column about that. The complete lack of discipline in the Democratic party.
Yeah I don't get it either, Ted, they completely buy into the idea that an overwhelming mandate given to them to change things means that they should pander to the republicans in the name of bipartisanship.
It's mostly rhetorical though, the bailout package was just about exactly what Obama asked for, and the changes were, in my humble opinion, fairly reasonable.
I don't think it will fix anything, but I didn't think anything they did would. I didn't vote for a Lord and Savior, I voted for slightly less insane, and so far I've been fairly satisfied. Are we doomed? *beard stroke* yeah, but what else is new.
Do we want Dems to march in lockstep like Reps? How about once in a while? Just to actually get something DONE?
Naw. Better to split hairs amongst ourselves and fall all over each other trying to appear *reasonable* to our opponents, ending up with a hobbled, half-assed compromise.
Maybe Senator Bob, could start his own country. Then if we needed him, we would first have to ask Where in Tarnation is he!
I almost laughed out loud. No offense, but it's been awhile.
You forgot a basic fact. The Democrats and the Republicans are
the same entity with two different
masks. It is all theatrics and make-belief bullshitting but there is a BASIC script that has to be followed.
BTW the supreme court is 9 judges and not 12.
Sleeping Anon @ 2/16/09 8:18 AM, why not a peaceful secession, instead of a bloody civil war? Why are you lefties so bent on spilling blood?
And now for something totally different, while the Americans got rid of the awful Bush II after a measly eight years (but sadly, will not see him behind bars), the Venezuelans, who have been stuck with the buffoonish demagogue for ten years, will have to endure him for a lot longer. Probably forever.
Either you've already done a comic like this, or Tom Tomorrow did. I know I've seen this exact theme before, recently.
Ted, you are dead-on about the Democrats. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and die-hard, lockstep, tape-recorded Republicans, make no mistake. This comes from a Democrat who considers liberal-bashing the time-honored NOTHING that is the base of the Republican Party. Democrats are like the team whose coach lets a friend's son be the starting kicker on the football team, even though the friend's son kicks straight up and BACKWARDS! What can help? The Democrats simply need to turn their heads and cough, and cough, and cough, and if they cough enough times, their BALLS might descend. As for female Democrats, they need to take most of the shoulder padding out of their power suits. Girls should be girls.
I don't want to be a stickler, but the Supreme Court has nine justices, not twelve.
The joke was that, in the future, there would be 12 justices. Oh, well.
'And now for something totally different, while the Americans got rid of the awful Bush II after a measly eight years (but sadly, will not see him behind bars), the Venezuelans, who have been stuck with the buffoonish demagogue for ten years, will have to endure him for a lot longer. Probably forever.'
The difference: Venezuela is in a much different situation than the US. Chavez is popular because he provides roads and hospitals while his opposition tend to be the pro-Washington/oil conglomerate bootlicks Chavez describes them to be. The only way there can be a resistance to Chavez is for a real, pro-Venezuelan option to arise.
Well Taken, Ted, maybe Obama will try to pack the courts like FDR, just for old-time's sake?
Incitatus, the simple point is that the hard right has all the weaponry in the United States at this time. It'll be bloody because more than anything the right wing in the United States is so authoritarian that they are ready to snap. Any opportunity to start massacring the people they don't like and it's AWN….all they need is permission. All they need is for someone like Rush Limbaugh to take the gloves off and start calling for it.
Aggie Dude,
"Incitatus, the simple point is that the hard right has all the weaponry in the United States at this time. It'll be bloody because more than anything the right wing in the United States is so authoritarian that they are ready to snap."
As Thomas Jefferson said, "Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
He also said, "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."
The left has always had a phobia of guns. They indeed hammered their guns into plows.
However, for some reason we always forget that we are Americans. These political parties and affiliations as you just proved show us that the leaders at the top are doing a great job. Instead of putting fear in the government we try to put fear in other parties. The government should be afraid of us. Not the left of the right and the right of the left.
Forget the right and make the government fear you, not the other way around, or a tangent.
Aaron, the oil conglomerate bootlicks all work for PDVSA! But you're right on one thing: Venezuela is in a much different (read, worse) situation than the USA.
Aggie, I believe the US is a little bit more complex than frothing-at-the-mouth Limbaugh dittoheads on one side and dovish, Mother Theresa cum Gandhi liberals on the other side. The point of my tirade was that secession is in the best interests of both the mostly conservative, but not aggresive evangelical from Iowa and the mostly leftist, but not too Bolshevik, designer from NYC.
Not so for the pundits on the NY Post, though….
Ted,
In your columns, for two straight weeks you have hammered home the rise of a new left in France that is truly threatening to unravel the French status quo.
Why do you not address this in your comics? I realise you have a lot of topics to cover, but the comic being the uniquely North American art form it is, is very well placed to deliver the news of the resurrection of a Militantly French Left. The prospect of Communist Revolution in West Europe deserves that much.
When you I read your first column on the militant left in France I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then I forgot it as you went through the week drawing comics on this and that but not on the possibility of a French Revolution.
Then you wrote your second column and I remembered what a week of following the news in NW Pakistan made me forget; that france has "militants" too.
Ted, please seriously get the word out on the situation in France.
Address it in your cartoons; force it into the American consciousness; write a Newsweek/Times/Harpers piece on it and infect the Inboxes of every member of the US Green Party with news from France.
This is your country; you're going to have to brig the pressure down on the people who matter as citizens and as yourselves.
Sincerely
Y_S
Pakistan
I think secession is a great idea, Incitatus, the US is too big and should get smaller. Just as banks are too big and should be smaller. The problem that I see is that this course is almost certainly going to look like Yugoslavia rather than Sweden.
Actually, what we truly need, is to design political borders around watersheds and foodsheds, where environmental policy can adhere to environmental systems, rather than the mess we have now.
Of course, this country can't even figure out whether or not is supported an illegal war….
"Anon 8:18am;
Some kind of Spanish Civil War? What do you call Iraq and Afghanistan. The were both started by yellow journalism."
– Santiago
That was the Spanish-American War of 1898, not the war that ground up Spain from 1936-39. And it was government lies creating a yellow journalism by proxy in 2001-3, not Hearst and his competitors in New York trying to cajole the US into Cuba.
– Strelnikov
> As Thomas Jefferson said, "Every citizen should be a soldier. This was
> the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
>
> He also said, "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."
funny thing to say from a guy who had Negroes to do all HIS plowing for him