Some of you know that I struggled a lot with the first news of Russ introducing his Censure Resolution. I, like every other Democrat in the United States, know that under the best of circumstances we would be out voted on the floor of the Senate. The best of circumstances implies that all Democratic Senators would stand shoulder-to-shoulder on this issue, which was not ever actually in the cards. So we wondered, out loud and in print, just what strategy Russ had in mind for this effort.
Is this an exercise in futility?
Is this a Quixotic quest which will amount to nothing?
Actually I'm beginning to think it's more like Cool Hand Luke
s a description about how Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman) operates while in prison:
He also proves himself a hero and endears himself to the inmates during a poker game. With a winning hand of 'nothin', easy-going, stone-faced Luke successfully bluffs his opponent. After winning the pot, Luke is anointed with his prison name:
Dragline (laughing): Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. (To the losing, card-playing convict) You stupid mullet-head. He [Luke] beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke: Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real Cool Hand.
Well, that's what we've got: a hand of "nuthin"; not even a pair of dueces.
But what if we make the Republicans defend the President's actions? There's an old axiom in politics that says "if you're explaining, you're losing. Maybe that's Russ's master strategy. Make the Republicans explain. Maybe they can only explain by using nuance god forbid!
But, you may ask, didn't Russ give the Republicans a reason to say that Democrats are "helping the enemy?" I've got a news flash for you.
They're going to do that no matter what
So if we're going to lose anyway., we might as well just go down swinging because the voters will actually respect us more for standing up for what we believe in than standing for nothing.
Yep
Sometimes 'nothin' is the coolest hand you can have.
e
2 comments:
You are absolutely right. Republicans will make us look like traitors no matter what. If it isn't over censure, it will surely be over something else. We can't think of any little actions we are taking as being futile. If all of us thought that way all of the time, we would certainly be defeated. One of these times, something small that we do will grow and become a tipping point, so to speak. Feingold himself has not given up. The NY Times editorialized against his action, yet this morning he answered them right back in a letter to the editor. We ALL need to seize this moment!
Hey LoLo
Hey Sara....
Blogger has been acting strange all afternoon...still can't post pictures and I don't know why.
Sara,
I've never heard the analogy of Cool hand luke as Jesus but I can see where it would come from...I didn't mean to imply....well anyway....
good to see you folks....
e
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