Walk a Mile Barefoot

While with a title like that, you probably think I'm about to tell you that you need to try what it feels like to be on the losing end in this economy. No, I'm harking back to the adage that you will understand some one better if you walk a mile in his/her shoes. I am actually looking at an account of what our Senator Cornyn is facing. Besides, many of us are already trying to swim in the empty pool that the past eight-year maladministration left of the booming economy of the last Democratic terms.

What would you do if you had the task of getting control of Congress back for a party that represents an electorate certifiable enough to believe the ideology that has proved ruinous to this country, not just economically but in every realm of operation?

Did you pick (a) regain sanity and resign altogether? I would, but then, I've been on the side of reality, proven ideals and principles, honor and individuals' rights for most of my life. No, Senator Cornyn will try to increase the number of elected officials from the Gang that gave us disaster. His task: to delude enough remaining weak minded potential voters to throw his country back down the tubes.

In 2010, citing "public anxiety about spending and borrowing" by the Obama administration and the fact that the popular president won't be on the ballot, "there will be some genuine opportunities for Republicans, assuming we get good candidates, assuming we do our job to raise the money."

That's Cornyn's job. So far, he's doing pretty well. He reports his committee's first-quarter fundraising was up 40 percent over 2007, despite the weak economy. ...He also concedes the GOP faces a tough environment.

In 2002, "we had 55 Republicans [in the Senate], and now we have 40." Regardless of the outcome in the disputed Minnesota Senate race, "we're risking irrelevance to being able to affect legislation in the Congress."

Some independent analysts predict that while the party in power generally loses seats in its first mid-term election, Democrats actually could gain Senate seats in 2010.

Cornyn believes the GOP can succeed by arguing that "all power in one party's hands is not necessarily a good thing." He has 18 months to prove it. (Emphasis added.)

Obviously, the previous maladministration proved that point definitively. All Cornyn needs is to point to the disaster the wingers have brought about to show he's totally, completely right, as to domination by his party. We have unjustifiable, unwinnable wars that began ruining the economy starting in 2001 when wingnut leaders decided to wage war on Iraq through misleading the country. We have a destroyed economy. We have lost reputation with other countries that give services such as health care to their citizens, and observe the Geneva conventions. Does anyone need more proof of Cornyn's point?

Oh, right, he's talking about dominance by the party that fought against the insanity.

Today, Josh Marshall says what I think pretty much capsulizes Cornyn's situation in his description of the mockery of government that ex-Darth imposed on this country;

This is someone who not only organized and seemingly directed a policy of state-sponsored torture. He did it in large part to get people to admit to crankish conspiracy theories he got taken in by by a crew of think-tank jockeys in DC whose theories most even half way sensible people treated as punch lines of jokes. So it's Torquemada or 1984 but only after getting rescripted by Mel Brooks.

This is an extremely gullible man who has just come off being the driving ideological force in an administration that most people can already see produced more fiascos and titanic, self-inflicted goofs than possibly any in our entire history. By any standard the guy is a monumental failure -- and not one whose mistakes stem in some Lyndon Johnson fashion from tragic overreach, but just a fool who damaged his country through his own gullibility, paranoia and bad judgment. Whatever else you can say about the Cheney story it ain't Shakespearean.

Thanks, Josh, you nailed it.