Opening Of The Eyes

Where were these guys during the campaign? Now a bunch of conservatives are saying it's necessary to raise tax rates on the rich, that it's a matter of fairness, that you can't balance a reasonable budget without it. Funny how that works. Or, rather, how the hell did that work?

I've said here -- not that it's rocket surgery -- that proper budgetary balance will need to include raising revenues in ways that conservatives might not like, and cutting spending in ways liberals might not. And, since it must include cutting defense spending, ways that conservatives won't like, either. It's not ideology so much as math.

But it's pretty amusing, all these people piping up and being reasonable. Maybe it's really true that elections have consequences. Now, if only the teabaggRs in Congress could get the message. Because to listen to McConnell and Boehner, ain't much in the way of coming to Jesus.

Was reasonableness the real winner of the election? Did preference for facts finally rise above its opposite? Not on Fox "news," of course, which is now in full dudgeon, pumping out dark and dastardly Obama-Petraeus conspiracy theories faster than Staten Island basement sumps. Not in Texas and the rest of the red states, of course, where talk of secession is competing with news of the latest $60 million dollar high school football stadium; but maybe, just maybe, there's a secret stirring among those few remaining Republicans actually interested in the success of this country more than just that of their party. Etherial as the latter may be.

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