Brutally Honest Rant - 08/23/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Lieberman the Spoiler?
Audio Transcripts
08/23/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Okay folks, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I have a HUGE streak of Schadenfreude when it comes to politicians!

I’m serious! I take GREAT pleasure in watching these self-righteous people squirm.

And this 2006 mid-term election season has already downed several key politicians, so of course I’m in a really chipper mood so far.

You probably heard about Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, who hit a cop and got away with it. Well the good news is that the voters in her district decided that they had enough of her antics and they voted her out in the primary run-off… for the second time this decade.

Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, also lost his bid for the Lieutenant Governor nomination, and again, I really enjoyed his downfall. Even if he’s never indicted for his role in the Jack Abramoff scams, that albatross will weigh on him for the next few years.

Speaking of the Abramoff scams, Tom DeLay, the "HAMMER", the grand thug of the House of Representatives, dropped out of Congress, but the Republicans can’t take his name off the ballot because of the asinine rules that THEY THEMSELVES drew up for Texas! Now they don’t have a Republican on the ballot for November! I LOVE IT! Hey, you know, Tom, THIS is what happens when you and your friends try to remake Texas politics in your own image. Remember that little thing called the RULE OF LAW? You used to make such a stink about it ten years ago. Well now the stink is on you, and BOY does it REEK!

Well that brings us to the one politician who got voted out of office that the cons and neo-cons really didn’t want out… Senator Joe Lieberman.

You remember Joe, don’t you? He was on Al Gore’s presidential ticket in 2000. Whined a lot about family values and wanted to put the Entertainment Industry and the First Amendment on trial.

Joe is what we call a DINO. That’s a Democrat In Name Only. Some folks like to call that a "blue dog Democrat" because Joe’s the kind of Democrat that used to define that party about fifty or so years ago. You don’t have too many of them left in the DNC, but they do exist. That’s a part of that "big tent" idea that the Republicans love to preach about but couldn’t even begin to practice if their lives depended on it.

Well Joe also lost his primary election a few weeks ago. He got beaten by a guy named Ned Lamont. Now for folks like Cynthia McKinney, who couldn’t get a job without the DNC, that would be it. Game over. But not Joe! No, Joe is still fighting to keep his job, and he plans on running as an independent to stay in power.

The funny part is that he STILL considers himself a Democrat, even though his own party is asking him to step aside, and even though what he is doing will harm his party.

Now if you’re wondering why Lieberman is getting thrown under the bus, I want you to go back in time two years to when you had ANOTHER blue-dog Democrat with a beef against the party. Another US Senator by the name of Zell Miller. Remember him? Zell was SO passionately against the Democratic choice for president that he actually went over to the Republican National Convention, and in a Prime-Time address to the party and to the nation, he BLASTED the Democrats – his own party – for their stances and on their candidate. And that one stunt not only helped the GOP keep the White House in 2004, but it also helped to solidify the GOP control in Congress.

Now the DNC couldn’t go after Zell. He was leaving Washington anyway, by his own choice. But now, two years later, when the Democrats are in a position to take over Congress again, they have ANOTHER blue dog Democrat who is incredibly buddy-buddy with the Bush Imperium. I mean we’re talking KISSING close! I mean close enough to you have to wonder if a tongue was involved! We’re going into "don’t ask, don’t tell" territory here folks. Do you REALLY think that the Dems would let that stand?

Guess what Joe? As far as the Democratic Party is concerned, you’re name is now Zell, and they get to do to you what they couldn’t do with him.

So now we have what is essentially a three-man race. You have Ned Lamont for the Dems, you have the no-name token Republican, and you have Joe "Zig-Zag Zell" Lieberman as the spoiler.

And I don’t know who to feel sorry for the most!

On one hand you have the GOP… they’re torn between voting for their token nominee to help lessen the threat of a Democrat takeover and backing the solidly conservative incumbent who’s buddy-buddy with the Bush Imperium who just happens to be a Democrat-yet-not-a-Democrat.

Then you have the Democrats, who got rid of Joe in the primary, and who have really run out of patience with the DINOS. They see their chances of keeping a Democrat in that Senate seat splintered by Joe’s continued desire to run as a renegade Democrat, which they believe will SUCK votes away from their chosen candidate and instead let the no-name token Republican get a chance at winning.

And then you got "poor Joe". The man who has to literally DESTROY the Democratic Party just to prove that HE was right and that THEY were wrong. And by "they", I don’t just mean the party players and the party bosses… I mean the very Democratic voters in Connecticut that bothered to take the time to show up at the polls in the first place and actually VOTED for Ned Lamont over him! Joe Lieberman is gambling that these same voters either won’t show up in November, or that the true bulk of the electorate who DO show up for these things actually support him.

Aw hell, let’s get brutally honest here… I’m not sorry for ANY of them! Not in the least! I’m laughing my ASS off over this turn of events!

If Joe Lieberman gets re-elected as an independent, it would be a huge kick in the nuts for both Democrats AND Republicans. It would send a message through both halves of the two-party duopoly that they don’t want to hear… namely, that if you’re popular enough then YOU DON’T NEED either party to get elected! Now that is a DEVASTATING message to these two parties because it means they have to clean up their act and figure out who the hell they REALLY represent.

I think it’s great! I think it’s about time that this happened!

Joe Lieberman is a true political spoiler now. He’s not just running as a renegade, he’s actually running IN DEFIANCE of the very voters that said in the primary that they don’t want him in Washington anymore!

Think of the sheer GALL involved with that kind of action! The pure ARROGANCE to believe that YOU know more about what’s best for your voters than the voters themselves! That’s the arrogance of Congress, and Joe Lieberman has it coming out of his EARS! That just shows you what kind of a person he really is underneath that dull whiny exterior.

A truly humble man wouldn’t do that. A truly humble man wouldn’t presume to know better than the voters that put him in office in the first place. A truly humble man would accept the primary decision, admit that the voters have spoken, and either backed the guy who beat him or else simply fade away into obscurity.

But then again, I don’t think that a truly humble man wouldn’t get ahead in politics. Not in today’s political environment, anyway.

(Computer – some interesting clips that you have to hear to appreciate)
(Fade Music In – "Mythodea" by Vangelis)

The most common sin in politics is that of hubris. Now once upon a time the act of committing hubris was considered to be a serious offense. Indeed, in the days of Aristotle, it was actually a CRIMINAL offense, similar in scope to a physical assault.

Unfortunately in today’s over-encroachment of moralistic and theocratic mentalities, not to mention the gross abuse of fear mongering from a certain political segment that we won’t mention here, hubristic actions are treated more as virtues than vices. As a government official, whether elected or appointed, you are EXPECTED to know more than your average citizen, and certain idiots actually EXPECT politicians to do everything on their behalf. And I mean everything almost up to picking their noses and wiping their asses.

It is understandable, then, to have those same politicians arrogantly believe that they can do no wrong; that they can be convicted of no crime; and that the voters wouldn’t know how to tie their shoes without a government program to do it for them.

It’s understandable… but it is still not acceptable. Nor should it EVER be.

In fact I would love to bring back the days to when hubris was a criminal offense. I think that would keep a lot of politicians honest… not to mention a few ministers, a couple of news anchors, and a few dozen special interest groups.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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