I am actually apolitical. Sort of. I think for the most part most politicians are good people working hard, the whole thing about Tory financial planning capacity aside. I also pretty much think that it is a difficult thing to translate the experience of people in another country and try to align it with what is going on here. The detailed ground rules are too important but practically speaking unknowable. I may be happy to watch the UK's Question Period from Westminster on CPAC for the spectacle in lucid wit but we don't really understand the context. Yet there is more than a moments entertainment for me when reading what Ian writes in his fuming foaming moments:
...you all got what you wanted, and in the eyes of progressives, you got what you deserved. Now your President has an approval rating of 37%, even in the usually-more-conservative Time Magazine poll. Roughly translated from the 2004 election returns, that means 14.2 MILLION people who voted for Bush now disapprove of him. Well, fourteen-point-two-million, you have nobody but yourselves to blame, you pathetic boobs.Oh my. When I read or hear commentary like that I am really happy that I live in a country with more than two parties. I think that the greater complexity of us versus them helps focus on actual policy more than platform, on action more than words. So it is not without some hope that I watch this week's return of the minority in different form to Ottawa. If you think about it, the nation has been locked in a set of facts that have been around compared to where we were about 1990 with Chretien and Martin fighting for the Liberal leadership and Reform was well on its way on its share of the plan to break up the then somewhat squalid conservative movement with the NDP and Bloq holding their own but not breaking away. Now, in a reversal of fortunes, we have conservatives actually being the ones saying they are going to clean up government and a bunch of the untested are competing for the Liberal leadership, all the while the NDP support solidifying under a more acceptable platform and leadership than has existed for decades and the Bloq actually starting to wobble as the old guard get older. In one way this is a new start but in another it will be less than a change as the ideas being shuffled are largely the same and, mortality being what it is, it is all downhill from here.Yes, I called you "pathetic boobs". You deserve it. You left us with this guy and only now bother to show righteous indignation? You make me sick. You had access to the same information as the rest of us. At least real conservatives stick by their guns, but you're the worst kind of pusillanimous, wobbling imbeciles. I hope your stomach lining eats away what's left of your digestive tract.
Comments
SayNay? - April 3, 2006 1:43 PM
Ian says: "Anyway, tonight's (West Wing) episode was the "Election Day" special, and...(it brought)us back to our own Election Day experience in 2004. Brought it back so hard, in fact, that I had to fight back emotion on the couch, and Tessa was in tears."
Ian needs to get a grip. His statements clearly show that when you completely demonize your opponent, his motives, and his supporters, his victory becomes your pathology.
Alan - April 3, 2006 1:46 PM
How do you deal with deep unhappiness and an unaccepted point of view that later become more clearly valid and accepted, then? Makes one wonder where the pathology lies - that nation?
SayNay? - April 3, 2006 2:05 PM
I would think that the sane thing to do would be to accept that people make errors in judgment, and use their change to move on, building on the turning tide. Sort of what you tell your children when life appears to be unfair.
Simply crying when art imitates your view of life, is unhealthy and unproductive - as is calling those who have now apparently subscribed to your point of view, "pathetic boobs".
Chris Taylor - April 3, 2006 2:06 PM
SayNay nails it -- someone's got a very misguided conviction that politics is a zero-sum game and a loss means the end of the world as he knows it. Politics is one facet of life; it's hardly the most important, and certainly not worth any tears.
I didn't like Bobby Rae as Premier but I was certain that Ontario, laissez-faire economics, and sunny days would still exist after his term was up. No tears were shed, none were deserved.
Flea - April 3, 2006 2:20 PM
Americans seem to have a passion for hyperbole that I am delighted to find lacking in Canadian - or British - electoral politics. I expect it is hardly worth pointing out to Ian that many people who supported the President are now relectant to do so because his second term has demonstrated insufficient enthusiasm for blowing the bad-guys to kingdom come. But with his fantasy election to comfort him I doubt he feels much need to change opinions in the real world.
Alan - April 3, 2006 2:49 PM
Why do find it discomforting to note that we all seem to be in agreement to a large degree?
Chris Taylor - April 3, 2006 3:23 PM
Because it's <i>Lord of the Flies</i> playing out in blogland. Nobody likes a crybaby, especially one that's still an Aaron Sorkin fan.
I on the other hand am gratified that it is still considered beyond the pale to cry because a TV show's pretend political drama dredges up searing, life-altering memories of election-time loss. I mean hell, I have friends who have been assaulted and held at gunpoint, but that's <i>nothing</i> compared to seeing your team lose the election...
Perhaps if the trauma and the reality were more proportionate, there would be more sympathy.
Alan - April 3, 2006 3:38 PM
Implicit in this edgy new concord, of course, is an awareness that we all similarly shun and spit upon any uses such as "The Left" with equal furvour. Just as no one likes a pop-culture crybaby, no one likes a two dimensional fingerpointer.
Chris Taylor - April 3, 2006 4:18 PM
Surely one can find similar crybabies on "The Right" or anywhere along the political spectrum.
The only difference is that on "the Right" we're allowed some leeway to kick the crybabies because it fits the profile (mean and uncaring).
Alan - April 3, 2006 4:19 PM
I can quit blogging now as I have finally obtained the admission I was looking for.
Ben (The Tiger in Exile) - April 3, 2006 5:44 PM
If I were polled, I'd say that I disapprove of President Bush's performance.
But I'd still vote for him in a re-vote of November 2004.
I suspect there are many such.
***
Actually, it is not unlike Canadian politics -- we all could agree on the fact that the Liberals deserved to be kicked. There just was disagreement over whether the present government deserved to be kicked even harder during the last Parliament.
Watching these two governments has taught me a few lessons. First and foremost, there's some justice in electoral outcomes. Next, there may be a giant boot winding up on the southern side of the border to deal with the present Congressional leadership...
It's a fun sport to watch. :-)
portland - April 3, 2006 7:36 PM
well remember that ian and his ilk are to blame too. i mean if the left in this country would just quit jumping up and down, being indignant, and calling this guy dumb and evil, and in it for the oil, and instead just focus on the sheer incompetence of this administration and exactly what mistakes they have made (big ones), we might have something different to talk about.