Oh, What a Blustery Day

A lot of folks (okay, imaginary folks) figured I’d go into the whole Senate-floor publicity stunt thing, but I’m not going to give it much more than a mention. See, ’cause it’s not a topic I can really go into without gettin’ all kinds of pissed off. I will say that in an ideal world, we wouldn’t see this sort of thing. The Republicans do have a valid point in decrying the obstruction of confirmation for qualified judges. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world; once the G.O.P. decided to vote in lock-step, no matter what the issue, they became a force unstoppable by normal means — the embodiment of “tyranny of the majority.” This partisan rancor had long been seen in the House, but in the Senate, there had historically been at least a semblance of cooperation. And since allowing an up-or-down vote would result in confirmation not only of the qualified candidates, but also the patently unqualified ones — simply on the basis of their right-wing affiliation — the Democrats aren’t left with much choice. And unfortunately, in this case, I don’t think the Dems can afford to be the ones to hold out the olive branch.

Still, I’m not getting angry...

Some people (yes, the same people I mentioned above) have also been wondering if I’d sound off on the ridiculous restrictions on access being made on the independent investigation into the September 11th attacks. But no, I’ll let that one stand alone...

And a few (okay, you know the drill by now) suspected I’d go into Pat Roberts’s overtly partisan column decrying Democratic partisanship in the Senate Intelligence committee (I guess it’s bad when they do it, but perfectly fine when we do). But nope, not gonna go there.

See? Still calm.

No, what I am going to talk about today is the weather. Boy, it’s a windy day out there. We lost pretty much all the rest of the leaves off the trees in our back yard. Boy, we’re gonna have a lot of work to do cleaning up this weekend.

Thankfully, Pam makes a great soup that’ll be just the thing to warm us all up after a long day’s raking.

There. I told you I could do this whole “keeping placid” thing.

At least for a couple more days.