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The "Leaders" Of Our Great Nation

You know, speaking of unjustified self esteem and overpraised Senators, like royalty, I suspect that members of "the world's greatest deliberative body" (OK, I'll wait a few minutes for you to stop laughing)...often cocoon themselves with such simpering sycophants as staff that they have no concept of how idiotic they can come off when performing unscripted. George Voinovich being a case in point. When a dim bulb like Sean Hannity can make you sound like a fool, you're a blithering idiot.

Well, at least he didn't cry, as he did during the Bolton nomination.

That creatures like this get elected to such high positions is a shameful commentary on the state of the nation's electorate.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of overpraised Senators, Jonah Goldberg makes a good point about fluffy, meaningless political rhetoric (in this case, from the Great White Whale of Massachusetts):

Sen Kennedy just shouted that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between "voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!"

I don't quite understand why voting your fear is obviously wrong or why voting for your hopes is necessarily right. Fear is often quite reasonable. I have a reasonable fear of alligators. Hopes, meanwhile, are often irrational and goofy. I hope eating lots of cashews will give me laser-vision and super-strength.

Yes, phrases that seem to sound good in an impassioned speech often break down under even a trivial analysis. My pet peeve on this score is Kennedy's "not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." in explaining why go to the moon. I've discussed this in the past.

[Update a couple minutes later]

By the way, just in case no one noticed, for the clueless, I've been bashing Republicans today. Not that that's in any way unusual for me, but some myopic people seem to only notice it when I go after Democrats.

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 28, 2007 08:02 AM

Comments

I'm embarrased to call this idiot my Senator.

The 2008 election exposed the rest of the country to what we've struggled with in Ohio for the last decade or so. Statewide, we are presented with a parade of squishy Republicans who masquerade as conservatives. Anyone who pays attention knows it's BS but the alternative candidate is usually the worst kind of pandering, big-gov't/union Democrat. But we hold our nose and vote for Voinovich/Taft/DeWine et al because they're the least bad of two bad choices.

Well, in '08 that tactic finally ran its course for DeWine. I guess people are deciding that if we're going to continue getting Republicans who behave like Democrats, you might as well vote Dem. Even if you think they're full of it (as I do), they're at least being true to their misguided principles.

Case in point: during the previous 14 or so years of Ohio state gov't being *completely* controlled by Republicans, we became the 3rd highest-taxed state in the country. With, by the way, state gov't spending growing by almost 50%, while our net population growth was less than 1%. Much of this occured during King Georgie's watch as Governor.

Posted by Pat C at June 28, 2007 08:15 AM

I heard this clip of V^HHannity getting the better of him and realized what a bunch of out of touch, vain, pompous fools we have elected. Sigh.

Posted by ech at June 28, 2007 08:20 AM

The bill is dead. Where does Bush go from here? I feel genuine sympathy for him. Every major effort he makes fails.

Posted by Offside at June 28, 2007 09:55 AM

That's not true. He got No Child Left Behind. He got the prescription drug program for Medicare. He got the tax cuts (though we'll probably lose them, barring some kind of political earthquake). And Iraq hasn't failed yet, unless we give up. He certainly deserved to lose this one.

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 28, 2007 10:01 AM

The bill is dead. Where does Bush go from here? I feel genuine sympathy for him. Every major effort he makes fails.

Bush certainly deserves some of the blame for this god-awful bill. I'm glad it failed. However, Harry Reid and Teddy Kennedy also deserve a good portion of the share of blame. So far, they have not had a very good track record getting legislation passed. It seems every major effort they've tried has failed, at least so far. Here's hoping for a continued lack of success.

Posted by Larry J at June 28, 2007 11:03 AM

during the previous 14 or so years of Ohio state gov't being *completely* controlled by Republicans, we became the 3rd highest-taxed state in the country.

Considering I was a state worker during 8 of those years, and talking to others that have been there longer, it's become too damn expensive to run a gubernatorial campaign anymore.

People are donating bunches of $s, and they expect to be paid back. That's another problem. So it doesn't really matter who gets elected, they spend $s back to whoever backed them. It's not a difference about how to govern, it's now just a difference on who is going to receive state $s.

Privatization may sound great, but the long term savings just isn't there, and from what I've seen in this state of Florida, the services have gone downhill at the same time the cost spirals up.

I remember when the feds were passing out money left and right to get underground storage tanks regulated with construction specifications and sensors and all that. That was a nice 8 years, and then the money stopped, and it seems to me that 80% of the staff for that regulation were either layed off or moved into other bureaus.

I've been gone for 6 years now, and they still haven't decided to move the State Fire Marshall's Division to the Department of Public Safety and are still keeping it at the Department of Commerce. Part of that is actually a technology issue. The State Fire Marshall's office actually runs on an IBM AS/400. Public Safety used to run on Burroughs, and I think they are now on IBM Series/Z. And that talk started when Voinovich started as Governator in '91. Talk about a bunch of people that didn't have a clue as to what they were doing.

Pick your poison.

And quite frankly, I'm much more happy when Congress isn't passing bills left and right.

Posted by Bryan Price at June 28, 2007 12:01 PM

Speaking of immigration;

(CBS/AP) While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

Posted by US Gubmint in Action at June 28, 2007 02:04 PM

Pat C: You keep mentioning 2008. I'm reading this in 2007; in the off chance that there's some sort of temporal glitch going on, do you want me to mail anything to your 2007 self, hopefully before the primaries in 2008?

Posted by Phil Fraering at June 28, 2007 03:11 PM

That's not true. He got No Child Left Behind. He got the prescription drug program for Medicare. He got the tax cuts (though we'll probably lose them, barring some kind of political earthquake).

Add to that Health Savings Accounts and a working missile defense system.

Mike

Posted by Michael Kent at June 28, 2007 04:52 PM


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