Bingo
Voting Without the Facts

What the Democratic Party needs above all is a clear message and a bold and compelling candidate. The message has to convince Americans that they would be better off following a progressive Democratic vision of the future. The candidate has to be a person of integrity capable of earning the respect and the affection of the American people.

This is doable. Al Gore and John Kerry were less than sparkling candidates, and both came within a hair of defeating Mr. Bush.

What the Democrats don't need is a candidate who is willing to shape his or her values to fit the pundits' probably incorrect analysis of the last election. Values that pivot on a dime were not really values to begin with.

So sayeth the voice of reason, Bob Herbert, who should consider running for office himself.

Talked with my mother last night, a to-the-core Yankee born in Maine now exiled in the south, who is literally frightened of her future and that of her grandchildren. "I don't see where what people do in their bedrooms concerns anyone," she says. "I don't see where what a woman and her doctor talk about is anyone's business," she says. "And why did they approve Vioxx, make us rely on it, and now say it's been killing us all this time?"

But she adds that I'm the only one she can say these things to. She's in the south, after all. (I count the southern tip of Illinois the deep south).

Herbert's piece also touches on ignorance. Thank God we won't be Leaving Children Behind come this new administration, though perhaps they'll only fund creationist agendas. Hey, Wisconsin! Do I have to come up and talk to you again?

GRANTSBURG, Wis. -- The city's school board has revised its science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.

School board members said they thought a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum ''should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory [ed. hmmm. I was unaware creationism was scientific],'' said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.

I have a theory that the universe was invented by a gay woman following an abortion. How about teaching my theory?

Good morning, people. I will get to art very soon now, but I'm afraid you'll have to put up with 4 more years of political snarkiness too.

- posted by Cynthia @ 10:06 AM | | | Link |