Last Wednesday evening, the Wizard spent the hours in the way he likes most - wiling the hours away with the Wednesday Knights, playing several rounds of 10-20 minute chess at a Houston area restaurant. The Wizard won one game and lost two, but due to a peculiar set of circumstances, I still took home the third place pidling trophy for my efforts.
Since the Wizard was doing something more important than watching TV or paying attention to politics Wednesday evening, the Wizard missed President Barak Obama's nationally televised address on whether the United States government should pass legislation on mandating that Americans must have universal health insurance coverage.
The reason why the Wizard didn't bother to watch the President's televised address was because he knew that he wouldn't miss much. That belief was validated when I picked up my old fashioned, fish wrapper version of the Houston Chronicle yesterday morning before I headed off to work. The front page story, carried from over the news wires, was of South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, who cried out "You Lie!" when President Barak Obama stated that the new universal health insurance legislation would not cover or benefit illegal immigrants.
Much commentary has been inked and typed over Congressman Wilson's outburst, which he later offered an apology to the President that Mr. Obama accepted. Fairly typical of the commentary offered was by this guy, who complained about the halls of Congress no longer being a place of civility. The Chronicle editorial board spoke of the idea that there was no room for such rudeness in the debate over the future of health care and one-sixth of the American economy.
The Wizard takes a bit of a different view over Congressman Wilson's outburst. It wasn't that Mr. Wilson was rude to the President of the United States - he was. But plenty of people are rude to the President (or for that matter, just about any politician) every day in many sorts of ways. Often that rudeness towards others could be justified in some way. Sometimes we read about it in print, or we never hear about it as they may be words whispered between friends in private. To the Wizard however, it had a lot more to do with the idea that one man called another man a liar to his face in public.
Politicians do lots of stupid things, much like the rest of us. Age is no barrier to doing stupid things, thinking of stupid things to do, or for that matter not knowing how to run your own life. Back in 2001, the Wizard worked many hours on the City of Houston TABOR / Revenue Cap proposition drive. After City Secretary Anna Russell failed to verify, after 48 days, that we had 20,000 valid signatures to place the proposition drive on the November 2001 ballot, I suggested to our most prominent plaintiff in our lawsuit against the City of Houston that we get a mob of people out and drive our cars in circles around City Hall, honking our horns as we went. This gentleman, who happens to be older, much wealthier, and wiser than I was (and am) threw water on the idea. He said to me something that I never will forget. He told me that "Republicans just don't do that sort of thing."
I got the message, but it's a message worth repeating to myself. Even when something does not go your way, try to learn from it and move on. Don't try to act like a jackass.
So, fast forward eight years and what do I find Republicans doing? Well, I find that lots of people who call themselves Republicans acting just in the same way that I suggested they do eight years ago in front of City Hall. They are running around holding rallies, flash mobs, and acting like a bunch of jackasses. Those mobs and rallies are being attended by Republicans who tell me that they deserve their Social Security check because they've paid into it, or that they don't want politicians to touch Medicare because they like it. Every time they do that, they're acting like a jackass. Every time a Republican politician proposes some expensive new public welfare entitlement, they're acting like a jackass. In my view, that means that both Bush the elder and Bush the younger were a pair of jackasses. Arguably, the last politician who wasn't a jackass was Ronald Reagan.
And so it is. Hearing things like Congressman Wilson's outburst, or learning that California assemblyman Mike Duvall having to step down because he was caught on tape telling salacious stories of his romps with mistresses lobbyists, point to a political party that has been electing too many guys who turn into jackasses once they get into office, but has not been doing enough intellectual thinking, offering new ideas, alternatives, nor is it a party with members who have spine. Otherwise, the future of the Republican party will belong to the Mike Duvalls, and the Joe Wilsons of the world, and that's not a party worth paying attention to or voting for. Why? Because deep down, those guys (and they constituency they represent) are no different from the jackasses who happen to be sitting on the other side of the aisle.
Wizard
Addendum: In today's Houston Chronicle, the newspaper carries the AP wire story about President Obama now holding the bullhorn. The story states that
Keeping Americans safe, the president says, is "the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning; it's the last thing that I think about when I got to sleep at night."
Bush used to say the same thing.
That's too bad, because both men didn't swear an oath upon ascending to office to keep Americans safe. They swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Further addendum: A story just came across the wires from Politico. It wonders whether petty GOP cranks are dominating the public debate.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at September 11, 2009 10:55 AM