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Saturday, June 27, 2009

Where Will the Blue Dogs Be With Fewer Republican Enablers Around? And Where Will We Be?

Given the ongoing suicide of Movement Republicanism via scenes of hypocrites in sex-scandals and via self-marginalizing genuflections to their Crazytown Base on issue after issue in defiance of sense, one wonders if the corporate-militarist capitulation caucus of Blue Dog Democrats will actually no longer have enough Republicans left soon to cover for them or play their reindeer power games with to be quite so frustrating as they are these days, endlessly undermining the progressive popular will that made their Party the majority. The Progressive Caucus already outnumbers Blue Dogs and it takes surprisingly few faces to change to tip power dynamics quite dramatically (especially when you contemplate how many Blue Dogs are also Rats who tend to behave differently in sinking ships). It would be interesting if mid-terms were to give Obama the numbers for a second, better Honeymoon rather than the usual retrenchment, especially given his apparent tendency to play a rather more modulated and longer-term game than we've grown used to lately. Please don't read into this or pretend to read into this that I'm putting the Obama sign back up in the window with stars in my eyes, or that I'm settling for DADT, DOMA, ENDA after the mid-terms (although I always expected the first year priority to be enabling a renewable economy, real health care reform and EFCA), especially since an executive order could effortlessly blunt the injustice of DADT right now for now and since his Administration's gratuitous and ongoing insults to queerfolks in the aftermath of the DOMA brief demand a compensatory re-prioritization of glbtq rights in my opinion. I'm just surveying the scene and taking stock of possibilities is all.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, there are ongoing insults to queerfolk here in the U.S., I agree. But as we celebrate S.F. Gay Pride today without the least bit of fear of persecution, we should reflect on the hell that our LGBTQ community in Iran has to deal with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu_tiFZjNQY

Anonymous said...

Given the ongoing suicide of Movement Republicanism via scenes of hypocrites in sex-scandals..."

Yes, isn't the latest sex scandal involving Gov. Sanford especially delicious?

Dale Carrico said...

If I were at S.F. Gay Pride I'd be plenty scared. After all, I might die of boredom. I try to keep away from shopping malls for much the same reason.

Anonymous said...

Chin up, friendo. Norm Coleman just conceded.. Franken's going to D.C.!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aiUIlfYWLA