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I should say, up front, that I think Democrats are going to lose a few seats in the Senate, but that they will regain control of the chamber after the votes are counted. But while the House remains volatile in this respect, the landscape for the Senate has noticeably improved for the Democrats. So there's a little good news and a little bad news for everyone.
Since we've had quite a number of very contentious columns for the past few weeks, I thought we could all use a break, so that I may present a totally and utterly self-serving column.
President Barack Obama, in a White House Ramadan address last Friday, expressed his thoughts on the "Ground Zero mosque" debate, and in doing so not only got it exactly right, but also managed to change the debate in a considerable way which few have noticed yet. Because in his comments Friday (and in his off-the-cuff comment the next day), the president refocused the debate from the notion of "should be allowed" to the question of "should." In doing so, Obama elevated the level of the debate for both him and the project's detractors.
Because before we get to that, we simply must begin our column the way we do every week here, which is to call for the abolition of the Pentagon. Yes, as we've done consistently for the past 133 weeks, we demand that the Defense Department's budget be zeroed out entirely. Oh, and also that we immediately adopt a Canadian-style health care system. Can't forget that, as we've been railing about it for ever since Friday Talking Points, Volume One. And lest we forget, President Obama is nothing more than George W. Bush's third term. As I said, none of this will come as any surprise to faithful readers, since we've been saying this sort of thing all along, ever since we were massively disappointed that Dennis Kucinich didn't win the presidency.
But those are just the lessons of the primary. You could draw facile conclusions from them -- "Tea Party Ascendant, Progressive Defeated" -- but the real question is what it all means for the general election.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently expressed his frustration with what he called the "professional left," in no uncertain terms. Which, ironically, means the White House and the "professional left" have now achieved parity in that both sides express withering contempt for the other. The irony lies in the fact that both are probably thinking the exact same thing about each other: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
Last week, a federal judge handed down his decision in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which said (in no uncertain terms) that gay marriage was a civil right, and should be guaranteed to all -- no matter what voters thought about it -- in much the same way that interracial marriage is a constitutional right guaranteed to all (which happened via a similarly-contentious federal court ruling in the 1960s). While this ruling was rightfully hailed by gay rights supporters, everyone knows that there is still a long road ahead until it reaches the Supreme Court, where the matter may be fundamentally decided.
August in Washington means the beginning of the official "silly season" of politics. This is because Congress takes the whole month off, and political news stories become rather thin on the ground. Intrepid political reporters, wishing to be on vacation themselves, get lazy and start going crazy over non-stories hyped into political wildfires seemingly overnight -- over the silliest of subjects. But these fun and games have not quite yet begun, because the Senate wrapped up work this week, and a few legal decisions of great moment were in the news.
There are certain court cases everyone schooled in America at least recognizes the names of: Marbury v. Madison, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and, most recently, Roe v. Wade. Even if you don't remember the particular details in these cases, chances are you'll at least have heard all of these names before. And we could be on the brink of another landmark case entering this pantheon of pivotal legal decisions: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Yes, California's "Governator" may go down in history as being on the wrong side of this case (even though he personally supports overturning Proposition 8).