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Yesterday was a momentous occasion, but I was steeped in crass horserace politics, and so failed to mention it. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago yesterday, the United States Constitution was adopted by the convention called to create it.
The second item of note is that today marks the fifth "birthday" of this column series. September 14, 2007 saw the very first Friday Talking Points column ever (although the name and the column format wouldn't solidify for a few months). Since then, almost every Friday, we've been attempting to provide Democratic talking points for politicians to use to get their point across in a snappy and memorable fashion. How much success we've had doing so is open to interpretation, but we're still here doing it, which tends to indicate that Democrats still have a ways to go to match the Republican ability to keep "on script" during interviews. To put this another way, it's the old Democratic "herding cats" problem.
Another madman, another massacre, this time in Aurora, Colorado. When will it end? The Supreme Court has guaranteed an individual's right to bear arms -- how does that end? Do we wind up with private armies, owned by rich individuals and corporations? Is that where it ends?
No matter where you stand on gun control, this is where the country stands politically -- like it or not. Democrats learned, back in the 1990s, that they could get thrown out of office when they voted for new gun control laws. You can quibble over whether the assault weapons ban was the sole motivating factor for any individual lawmaker's defeat, but in this case perception has become reality, at least in Democrats' thinking. "Once burned, twice shy" is the party's mantra now on gun control.
[Program Note: I'm having computer problems today, so couldn't manage to get a new article out. I wrote the following a few months ago, and it seemed like a good week to revisit it.]
Where are the grand messages of the campaigns? Being held in reserve for the post-convention season, perhaps? That's at least an understandable answer, but ultimately not a very satisfying one. Neither Obama nor Romney has yet clearly articulated what their big ideas are for the next four years, and both of them are missing the chance to pound their message into the American psyche for the next two or three months.
Memorial Day is the time to memorialize all the brave individuals who served our country throughout its history, and sometimes paid the ultimate price for doing so. But, in particular, this year I'd like to focus on all those who did their duty for their country, and fought for the American ideal of equality for all citizens -- even while they did not enjoy such rights themselves, either in the military or in American life at the time. These second-class citizens, one would think, would have even less reason than citizens accorded full rights under the law to risk death on a foreign battlefield, and therefore would not have volunteered to do so. One would be wrong in thinking this, however.
Liberals are apparently being mean to the Supreme Court, which (as we all know) Republicans would never in a million years think of doing... (pause for extended laughing fit)... (wipes eyes)... seriously, you guys just crack me up sometimes.
Luckily for all of us, this is never going to happen. Even if New York Republicans had their way, and actually passed their so-called Internet Protection Act, once it arrived in a federal court it would be tossed out in a "New York minute" (as they say).
Jimmy Kimmel is right... sort of. In this past weekend's schmooze-fest between media organizations and the president (and, for some inexplicable reason, Hollywood), Kimmel performed a comedy routine for the president and the assembled crowd. Towards the end (around 19:40 on the video), Kimmel made a few marijuana jokes. He started by directly asking the president "What is with the marijuana crackdown?" Of course, being a comedian, a few punchlines followed. But the most notable one -- like all good comedic roasting -- had a kernel of truth in it: "You know, pot smokers vote too. Sometimes a week after the election, but they vote."