Stop Me Before I Vote Again

In a way, the shanking of Paul hackett is a triumph for decency and pragmatism. There are rules which none of us like to obey, but they exist for a reason. The greater good is sometimes served by an initial compromise, an extended, wholesale abrogation of values, followed by an ignominious defeat and then topped with the cherry of feckless accommodationism. While Sherrod's triumph is in every way really bad news, it could be much worse. We have the power, as Howard Dean reminds us, and the fundraising bat is a source of comfort in a time of need.

JAS, what are you saying? I can't sort out your ironies. As I recall, Hackett was simply an ex-military type who was willing to criticize the war and the Dem establishment. Something like a lesser Murtha. Are you saying, it's better to put out the weaker candidate to expose the failure of the system?

Hackett was an amusing fumble by the War Dems. A wealthy attorney who had a brief tour as a civil affairs officer in Iraq (teaching the natives the wheretofores and how-tos of colonization), the jaw was square but in other respects he fell short of what was sought by central casting. Even his mild, meaningless criticism of the war--what a terrible war 'tis my fellamurkins but we're stuck, etc.--hurt him in a season when the party was keen to run Conquering Heroes. His fizzle-out much upset the Democratic Underblurters and Daily Show liberals, who'd fallen hard for their kind of GI Joe: a killer but not too much of a killer, certain to tie up the History Channel and soccer mom votes. Guess again.

bobw, when he was running, I thought Hackett was one of those "anti-thiswar at this time" candidates. Very tepid. On several occasions, I felt uncomfortably sympathetic towards the Kosniks who really, really wanted him to be an anti-war exemplar. The more it became apparent there was little to him, the less sympathy I had. It's hard to get worked up over the shanking of one non-entity by another, who may even qualify as a negative entity -- one whose presence is a net substraction from humankind.

They way this was all done was the big thing, finally. Ethics matter, even when most of the people are far from sympathetic.

The disciplines laid on Hackett and his Kosnik cheerleaders were disgusting. That hyperactive cockadoodle doo, Rahm Emanuel, punked them. Now the Kosniks have gone back for more and increased the pitch of that awful rah rah stuff. The weakness of the system to accomplish something positive has percolated down into the character of people who I believe sincerely want to fix it. Not Kos himself. The Kosniks. They believe things can be made to work out if only they try harder. They get punked, fleeced, disciplined when they express doubts and, the saddest thing, twisted into ratioanlizing it as part of a good process. Hence the angry irony.

Hackett was a star player in Rhamese I's "Band of Brothers" strategery to storm the amurikan heartland by running prowar hero types in red districts. After Hackett did an about-face and came out against the Iraq bloodbath (on the old Majority Report program on AAR, if memory serves) Rahm & Schumer shivved him quicker than a stoolie in the prison laundry.

So now that chicken-hearted Brown has his candidacy back, he's found he still has the same problems in a state that knows he's a gutless democrat wonder. Hence the "red meat to the dopes" vote for torture.

As far as Kosniki behaviour goes, if the Milgram experiment had been run with Kosnikis they'd have tried to kill the "learners" in the first round.