“7/30/2010, 11:17am EST”
Update: Read Congressman Weiner’s related op-ed in the New York Times.
Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is the new breed of progressive. Much like Alan Grayson, he’s principled, media savvy, and courageous. Contemporary Democrats are famous for running scared even though the other side is repeatedly shown to be bluffing about everything under the sun — their supposed intellectual prowess, their supposed political acumen, their supposedly innocent motivations.
What I’m about to say is very nearly true: Republicans lie and front about everything. They adopt double-standards as a matter of momentary political convenience everyday. As Congressman Weiner rails against in the above video, Republicans demand and receive concession after concession, and then they vote no anyway. In the Senate, Republicans have broken all filibuster records by a longshot, to the point where the media literally say, without explanation or further comment, that bills require 60 votes to pass in the Senate. (They don’t!) Naturally, in 2005, when Democrats filibustered a small percentage of Douche-In-Chief George W. Bush’s pernicious and insidious lifetime nominations of federal judicial appointees, Republicans waged a media war painting Democrats as “obstructionist,” and that was just the nicest thing they said.
Ironically, all it takes is a little courage and principle to win elections. Democrats have recently gotten by on the increasingly obvious ineptitude of Republicans. But that tactic doesn’t win large-enough majorities to steamroll the habitual filibuster of the unity-at-all-costs Senate GOP, and it doesn’t get the right kinds of Democrats in office. Meanwhile, it depresses their voter base, which is forced to infer that Democrats will never enact uncompromising progressive (read: effective, nuanced, realistic, and compassionate) policies, even though that is exactly what our country- and world-in-crisis require. And that depressive effect on Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters is exactly the GOP’s mission!
So I say: Fuck yes, Mr. Weiner. Keep it up.
Never leave home without it.
