By Owen Paine on Monday January 29, 2007 01:36 PM
I despise Michael Kinsley --
probably because he's clever enough to impress himself sometimes,
but surely not this time,
as he bellyflops into the great bipartisan partisanship debate,
currently cycloning through the beltway punditude like a three-burrito fart:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582315-1,00.html
This postpartisan era everybody wants is not going to happen, and the great longing for it is childish. What Americans say they want--or even what they think they want--needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Their objection, very often, is less to politics than to arithmetic. Do they want our health-care system fixed? Yes. Do they want Social Security and Medicare on a more solid footing? Absolutely. Will they pay for these things? Not a chance. There are no pragmatic, nonideological solutions to the big question of what the government should do and what it shouldn't. You can have your government programs and pay for them, like a good liberal, or you can have your tax cuts and forgo the programs, like a good conservative. Asking for both is the opposite of pragmatic.The Kinsley choice: a competent gubmint means more taxes. Hey, assholes, it's arithmetic -- and I think Mikey is talking down to the great vital infantilizied public "we" here, not just the Bush base. He's not as engaging as Bill Demarest in The Great McGinty, though -- "Ya can't get away from arithmetic!"
Comments (10)
this post had a rear end collision
what in hell is that over compressed bit at the end...
of course
i mean
before the homage to the great bill D
Posted by royal we | January 29, 2007 3:05 PM
Posted on January 29, 2007 15:05
If only we could bring ourselves to think of our managers as professionals, generally doing the best they can with limited material -- us -- then the reasonable people could settle things in some peace and . . . hey! you! get off the lawn.
Now where was I?
Posted by Scruggs | January 29, 2007 3:10 PM
Posted on January 29, 2007 15:10
R we :
it should be perfectly obvious
the fiscal choices kinsley provides are nonsense
we have many
strictly by the numbers routes
out of the Bush barrens
to a .....'far far better place'
and i suspect
this doughfaced
wall street
heel licker knows so
and damn well too...
the 'vinyl ' bond pimp
Posted by owen paine | January 29, 2007 3:11 PM
Posted on January 29, 2007 15:11
Not now, you amateurs. I just got done reading an editorial all about how awful it is that we can't return to the more measured and unified political/editorial exchanges of-- forty years ago. Yes, between Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, and the rest, it was all candied violets on crustless discs of white bread back then.
Actually, I lied. I read the editorial in question over a day ago, but I still can't stop snickering. The barista ten feet from me is about to call the police. Gotta' go.
Posted by ms_xeno | January 29, 2007 3:47 PM
Posted on January 29, 2007 15:47
"..thebarista ten feet from me is about to call the police. Gotta' go "
u pitchin down rye shots at high noon
lady x
.....why u high proofage bottle fly
Posted by royal we | January 30, 2007 1:44 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 13:44
whats wrong with you cat snugglers anyway ???
this lets all sing each others' slop and sob songs...
get a job !!!
a real job where they make you all at least help produce something marketable
Posted by cisco kid | January 30, 2007 1:48 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 13:48
You were a good friend of mine, cisco kid. We ate salted peanuts together, remember? That is, until the Brothers Paine came along: Owen, JS and Royal. That's them. Now Poncho doesn't drink wine anymore.
Posted by Scruggs | January 30, 2007 3:02 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 15:02
The blank verse comments are starting to get to me. I'm not sure who is who and don't really bother reading. JSP's little prank might have backfired.
Posted by Rowan | January 30, 2007 3:03 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 15:03
gettin kinda like:
"i'm sparticus
no i'm sparticus
no i'm sparticus "round here eh rowman????
rowan please my good fellow
if you see these bitched up comment clusters
figure
"that's ole js a funnin with me agin"
there all from the mind of one pea sized
min-alta (sp)
----------------------
ps
t'is not blank verse
writen irregular like this
is a clan tick
of us paines
like a tape worm in our internal
word processing (sp)
programs
we can't write an orderly paragraph
period
not a one of us
not even the girls...
notice the posts look kinda normalized
well the posts are cleaned up
punctuates slicked back
and proper spelt
we believe
by father
smiff's ...." boy friday" ....
i'm sorry
but unless we pass our stuff
thru the sublime fathers sanctum sanctorum
known as ...rick i believe
u gotta take this here scatter shot
pretty damn much
as is
"blank "? sure
but "verse" ?
nope t'ain't that by a country mile
pure toothless prosaics
like moliere's folks spoke
Posted by royal we | January 30, 2007 3:22 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 15:22
thanx for nothin scrugs
now the games spilt out
in the lap of the fbi
i guess that last injection of
goof aroni was more then you could handle last nite
find a new source dill weed
Posted by royal weeeze | January 30, 2007 3:30 PM
Posted on January 30, 2007 15:30