...it's been a week since my last post. (Sorry. You can take the girl out of the Catholic school, but you can't take all the Catholic brainwashing out of the girl. Thanks, Sister Michael Anthony!) Life, policy debates, and vitriol have conspired into a perfect storm of general ennui.
You may remember me writing about my friend with terminal stomach cancer. (This picture was taken in June, if I remember correctly.) This weekend we moved her to a residential hospice. Kind of brings the debate on health care reform into sharp relief. Perhaps we should have taped the circus of trying to get her admitted, and then trying to figure out how to pay for it, and send it to the ConservaDems. And this is for a woman who has insurance, and works for the federal government. Let's show them a tape of my friend, slowed by pain and medication, trying to use a calculator to figure out if she has enough money for hospice. Let me repeat that: FOR HOSPICE!!! So, I do not care to debate the finer points of health care reform. Instead, look! A prop! Shiny!
Rachel was on Andrea Mitchell yesterday to discuss Afghanistan and race. Here's her tweet about it:
I will say it again. It's been a year now, let Rachel dress how she wants to. And wear the glasses. However, it will undoubtedly cause a shortage in black western shirts. Don't the cowboys ever wear, say, red?
Socialism, Nazism, racism, 9-12ers, birthers, deathers, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, World Net Daily, can all suck it!!! I am so desperately tired of the health care reform debate hysteria that I can barely stand to watch TRMS anymore.
Other than the unfortunate choice of a mule rather than an elephant, that pretty well sums up the current political debate. On anything.
I am somewhat renewed by discussion below, in which Rachel interviews Mike Lux, the CEO of Progressive Strategies, who says what many of us have been thinking: much of this hysterical hatred of President Obama is racism. There are a whole lot of white people who cannot believe that they live in a country where a black man is in charge.
When I was in high school in Jacksonville, the KKK was still meeting publicly at another Duval County High School. Monday-PTA, Tuesday-Latin Club, Wednesday-KKK!!!!! Clearly, Obama is an uppity black, who needs to be put in his place, except that the people who would usually "put him in his place" have no recourse against the leader of the free world. They can't stare him down in a restaurant, they can't bump him with their shoulder as they push past, they can't ignore him and take care of the white customer first. In short, they can scream and carry signs. So that's what they're doing. "You better watch yourself, boy," becomes, "Obama is Hitler." Let's call a spade a spade; (oh yes i did go there) it is ugly, troubling, terrifying racism. The last person who figures out that "that person" is a racist, is "that person."
h/t to my buddy Luke for the heads up on The Family Guy clip
Ok, so it's a little more Maddow than politics, but politics are definitely in there.
I was driving out in the boonies today, and I saw a small, carefully painted wooden sign that said, "No Socialism." No context; no tangential explanation. Politics in America have become a huge game of Whack-A-Mole: If a Democrat sticks his or her head out, whack! "Everyone should have health care!" Whack! "Kids, wash your hands often." Whack! This immediate, reflexive response from the right has to be an embarrassment to every sane Republican. Like Mark McKinnon. Or John Henke, the blogger who was on last night. And who dared to attempt a throwdown with Rachel.
(I am not too proud to admit that my bowels loosened a bit when he challenged her. Flight or fight response, I suppose. Not so good at the confrontation thing.)
When I used to play the shooting type video games, I sucked, because I just shot everything. Turns out, there are consequences if you kill everything. There is absolutely nothing Obama can say tonight that will be the right thing. The Republican half of the Capitol will look like Chuck-E-Cheese on a Saturday night.
And, of course, Happy Birthday TRMS! Amazingly, I remembered this anniversary without any reminders. May not impress you, but I am the same person who could never remember my own mother's birthday. One year I called her and asked, "Is your birthday today or tomorrow?" And she answered, "Ask J______. (My ex) She knows." Ow. And ow. She really didn't care, but enjoyed beating me with it anyway. So yay for a year in the life of Rachel Maddow.
If you're here, you are probably a fan of Ana Marie Cox. She finally got her chance at the big girl's desk tonight! Last time she was scheduled, Michael Jackson had the poor taste to die, bumping AMC. (This just in: MJ still dead. Yahoo headline today stated, "Some weeping at Michael Jackson's funeral." Wow. Crying at a funeral. Newsworthy, for sure.)
Tonight I'm just gonna be a fangirl, and write about AMC's big day. I thought she did a pretty good job. Rocky at points, with some nerves showing through. It's Kent, not Keith. But here's the awesome thing: I could just see how she would be with her own show. She shows a different kind of snarkiness from Rachel. A little more bitter. Which I love. When Alison Stewart fills in, she does an admirable job, but I still hear Rachel. I didn't with Ana. I have no idea how these things work, but she sounded like she writes, so maybe she wrote a bunch of her own stuff. Give her a chance to work out the nerves, and I think she would be awesome on her own MSNBC show. Like at maybe, 10pm. I'm just saying. I was hoping for some post-show Twittering, with a few "Gahs!," but she's probably celebrating with one of the bottles of scotch from Rachel's bottom desk drawer
I do have to say that it irritates me a lot that The Maddow's wardrobe has to get femmed up, while Ana Marie can get away with wearing the blazer and the vintage T, because she doesn't have to overcompensate for The Gay to make her palatable to an American viewing public. I think by now that Rachel has proven her appeal, and should be able to wear her black, western, shiny, shirts if she wants to. And her glasses. Any of the 14 pairs she has in circulation will do.
I'm sure that by now you have all seen Rachel's interview with Tom Ridge. If you haven't, make haste, make haste. I was literally on the edge of my seat. My stomach was all knotted up, waiting to see if Rachel was going to go in for the kill. And she did:
Let's give Tom Ridge some props for this interview. He disagreed respectfully, he argued his position without shouting, the one time he interrupted, he apologized.
Civility aside, she did pretty much eviscerate him. She just kept pressing and pressing. He seemed disingenuous when he backtracked on his statement in the book regarding politics driving the elevation of threat levels at Homeland Security. And at the end, when she says that positions such as his own make the Republican Party unelectable, he's toast. She, and we, are incredulous when he says that we did not invade Iraq for political reasons; that GWB wouldn't spend our "treasure" (I think that's what he says) unless he was sure it was for our nation's safety. Wow.
Did you guys see Rachel on Jimmy Fallon, saying she and Susan had swine flu? At first I thought, now THAT'S a Holy Mackerel story. But it turns out that lots of people are getting it. Like 10% of New Yorkers. She still sounds kinda sick. Last year my doctor said to me, "If you get the flu, you'll di-...be in the hospital." Very reassuring. My doctor almost told me I was going to die. Nice.
"She Started It!" is a somewhat in-depth, daily look at a story from TRMS. Except when it isn't. Like when I'm tired and just want to dish about girls.
I'm a conch, a local Key Wester, but I'm exiled to the frozen north, hence the "ExPat." I'm a political junkie, and wanted to share the discussions I have with my friends who maybe aren't as dorky as I am. But ought to be.
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