Swing And A Miss

Following up on this morning's post on political hypocrisy, the above is about as blatant as it gets.

There's a qualitative and quantitative difference between Republican and Democratic hypocrisy. Rs do it without batting an eye, without creating the slightest sense that they're embarrassed by it -- or even recognize it. And they do it all the time. Ds are hardly blameless; but it's not a game plan fundamental to who they are, the way it is on the other side. And it makes them twitch a little.

Look at Nancy Pelosi: when she tells a whopper, her face screws up, her eyes blink, and it looks like she's shitting a brick. Rudy? It melts in his mouth like butter.

Baseball As Metaphor

Watch a pickoff move to first base, and you'll learn all you need to know about politics. Particularly (but not exclusively) as practiced by the current crop of Republicans.

Without fail, in every single ballpark around the country (and in Canada, as it turns out), when the home team's pitcher flings it to first, the fans are pretty quiet; maybe a complaint about a safe-call. But when the opposing pitcher does it, from the booing of the fans you'd think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was in center field taking a bow.

And if you think that's hypocritical, wait until Rs take control of the Senate, and listen to what they (and their RWS™ and their Foxified flock) say about Ds filibustering. It'll be the most unAmerican, unconstitutional, destructive action not only in the history of the US Congress, but in the six-thousand year history of the planet.

Sorta makes you wish it'd happen when Mitch McConnell is still around (well... no). It'd be jowly entertainment at its finest, assuming it doesn't make you want to slit your own throat.

Balls

It's like waking up on another planet (maybe one in which there's oxygen but only, say, about 10%; and, you know, weird plants and animals with ten legs and seven eyes, yeah, and you're not sure how you got there and maybe there's no way to get back unless it's a dream but it's not but it could have been something you ate) when hearing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemn Moammar Khaddafi (pick your spelling, who cares) for shooting at his own people. Really, he did. I don't think the word "hypocrisy" even applies to something like that, any more than "damp" applies to the ocean.

I must say, though, that I felt a little bit of astral projection when I heard that John Boehner was on a golf-gig in Florida, after having condemned President Obama for distracting us from the people's work, during the most impactful budget debate in all of history, on this planet. Because, remember, he's the one that famously said this, about President Clinton. Not long before Clinton balanced the budget over the no-votes of every Republican, leading to the surpluses which Bush turned into unprecedented deficits, leading us to where we are now.

I couldn't care less who plays golf, or when. But he's the one that threw down the marker.

Boehner's no Ahmadinejad. There are matters of degree, of course. But there's still something nearly incomprehensible about people who are so easily able to do the very things they criticize in others, without even a suggestion of irony. I won't claim that it's only tyrants and Republicans who do it. But in them there's a certain ease, a facility, comfort, that speaks of a special kind of mind...