December 14, 2006
LIKE SNL, BUT FUNNY:
Inept Democrats face failure with poor start in Congress (Bronwen Maddox, 12/14/06, The Times)
It’s a bad start, and the risk is that the Democrats are going to throw away their big chance.This week has brought comedy to their efforts, as the new Democrat head of a congressional committee on intelligence proved unable to tell Sunni from Shia, incorrectly maintained that al-Qaeda belonged to the second persuasion, and stumbled into paralysed silence when asked the same question about the Shia group Hezbollah.
An entrepreneur could make some cool dough by getting started on the t-shirts: "I voted Democrat and all I got was two years of hilarious incompetence."
And folks thought we were just whistlin' past the graveyard when we said they'd be funny enough to make it worth losing the midterm....
Posted by: oj at December 14, 2006 8:05 PMFor all the justifiable concern about Jefferson and Reyes being inappropriate choices to head the Intelligence committee, isn't it telling that these two clowns are even members in the first place? Is it standard Congressional incompetence, racial beancounting, both, or what? Harman seems up to the task, but somebody on the committee unclear on the Sunni/Shiite/Al Qaeda/Hezbollah thing five years after 9/11? Has Reyes been paying attention at all?
Posted by: PapayaSF at December 15, 2006 12:30 AMI told this to my mom and she said I'm wrong, no entrepreneur would sell a shirt that declares the wearer made a huge mistake. What say you? I say it's a hilarious mistake. If I had voted Democrat (which I did not do, by the grace of God), I'd buy one.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at December 15, 2006 1:27 AMHow about "Charlie Rangel for President"? Chris Matthews might wear it on the air (if he can get past his fascination with the Breck Girl).
Meanwhile - only 5400 hits at BJB to 2 million. Sometime Monday the threshold will be crossed, I expect.
Posted by: ratbert at December 15, 2006 1:34 AMIs it standard Congressional incompetence, racial beancounting, both, or what?
It's standard Congressional incompetence and blights both parties. I've worked there among them. Many of them are remarkably incurious beyond the confines of their district and party. This is partly understandable, but not five years after 9/11 and two wars.
Somebody quizzed the new Republican House leaders about this stuff after the election, and they didn't do much better on the details. Democrats might be a bit worse overall, because I think they tend to discount the general threat posed by the jihadis.
We are not putting the cream of the crop in Congress, which might be okay for humdrum times, but it's a hinderance in days like these.
Posted by: Twn at December 15, 2006 12:19 PMThe leaders in the 40s thought Nazism was the global enemy and Communism an ally.
Posted by: oj at December 15, 2006 12:44 PMThe National Socialists were voted seats in the Reichstag precisely because they hated communists. The fear of the spread of communism into Germany was one factor that led to Hitler's rise to the chancellorship.
Posted by: Bartman at December 15, 2006 1:53 PMAll you have to do is look at West and East Germany to see which was the greater threat.
Posted by: oj at December 15, 2006 2:00 PMRegardless of which was the greater threat, communism was feared more than Nazism.
Posted by: Bartman at December 15, 2006 7:16 PMYes, Communism was more to be feared.
Posted by: oj at December 15, 2006 7:58 PM