House of Eratosthenes

I’m not in the habit of calling out what’s going to happen so I can say, later on, “Ah hah! I told you this would happen!” This is a popular gimmick with talk radio hosts, particularly of the conservative variety. Where it succeeds, the point that is supported by the success is something I personally don’t endorse — that our country’s political theater has become so shallow, simple-minded and uninspired that it is flat-out predictable. Yes, it IS shallow and simple-minded. But not predictable. I’d be a lot happier if it was predictable. People’s actions are predictable when they think rationally and methodically, with a sincere desire for success. They become unpredictable when they ignore that goal of success in favor of an ulterior motive to please others.

Also, it’s somewhat disingenuous. Nobody cares about what someone else writes as much as they care about what they write themselves — or as much as that someone-else who did the writing. And that goes for everyone. Even for a living icon like Rush Limbaugh, as much as his transcripts are scrutinized by people who oppose everything he stands for in hopes of finding some kind of “gotcha” — Rush, being himself, is the primary authority on what-Rush-said. Once he makes a prediction, he will talk about the prediction more than anybody else. But only if it comes true. I would expect that as meticulous as he is about correcting misstatements of fact, if he ever gets a prediction wrong, then nobody will talk about it. A prediction is not a statement. Nothing to correct.

The same luxury of commenting on past predictions, only if they have since borne fruit, would be available to me if I chose to use it. That’s why I think the tactic says so little.

But this time I can’t resist. I’m going to call something, even though at this late date, I’m still waiting to see if the last thing I called has worked out the way I thought. This contradicts all of the above. I don’t think predictability is a big help in this area, and I wish to make a point that our political system is too predictable here. The politicians we elect to represent us, think we are stupid, and they must be right or else they wouldn’t be there. This is a bad thing.

Here is the prediction: Sometime around the third quarter of 2007, you’re going to see the following come out of our Democrats in Congress. I’ll put some money on all of it, but I’ll put more money on the words that are in bold.

My fellow Americans…
You sent (or returned) me to Washington to represent you, so that we could at long last put an end to the corrupt regime that is the Bush administration.
“lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq”
Political cronies outed Valerie Plame Wilson.
However, I am also mindful of the emotional burden under which Americans have been laboring since the administration’s misguided decision to invade Iraq in 2003
We all know now that there never were any Weapons of Mass Destruction
#### servicemen killed, ##### wounded, ##### Iraqis killed and ###### wounded, since hostilities began — and xxx much of this since Bush announced the Mission was Accomplished the following May
Vietnam type of Quagmire
We abandoned them in their time of need (if we have left by then, or) they want us to leave (if we haven’t)
Mothers, like Cindy Sheehan, have been forced to send their children into battle, only to have those children return in a body bag.
The nation needs a healing time
As Abraham Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”
We need to get back to the work of the people
Make the minimum wage a living wage
Shore up Social Security, mend it don’t end it, and save our labor unions (they may or may not use the word “unions”)
We deserve an education system that will address the needs of all our children
The constitutional crisis created by hearings (they won’t use the “I” word) would distract from this legislation, just as President Clinton was distracted from his important work eight years ago, and if President Bush is left in office he will stay there only (between 500 and 600) days before his term naturally expires. (You’ll hear lots of quotes about how many hundreds of days before President Bush’s term naturally expires.)
Additionally, the issues involving the people President Bush has chosen to succeed him, are not to be ignored. (Insert a bunch of slander directed toward Vice President Cheney, here.) (Insert some ignorant and/or misleading comments about the President’s right to choose his own running mate, here) …womens’ right to choose.
President Bush’s successor is likely to choose three Supreme Court justices, maybe more
(Insert slander directed toward Justice Samuel Alito, here.)…womens’ reproductive freedom.

If you can read between the lines, you see where I’m going with that. They’ll run for election, or re-election, on a platform of throwing Bush out of office. And within a year of winning, they’ll tack to a different course. Aw gee…it’s such a gut-wrenching process, it’s just going to leave us with Dick Cheney in there. And, c’mon, we only have to put up with this guy for 500 days if we leave him in.

They aren’t playing to a crowd of reasonable moderates who simply want the country to change direction slightly to the left. That would necessitate an a mission of finding out what such an electorate would want, and then actually doing it. No, they’re playing to a crowd of leftist extremists. And extremists don’t really want their agendas to be enacted — not unless you re-define the word “want” to mean “they get to loudly complain and act all put-upon when it doesn’t actually happen.” Extremists thrive on noise. The noise of politicians promising to do what the extremists want done…and the noise of the extremists, themselves, as they complain that things weren’t actually done that way. Delivering on a campaign promise? That’s just something you do for the moderates. Moderates, as in, people who don’t give a rat’s ass whether Republicans or Democrats control something.

That is the definition of who used to decide elections for the rest of us. That no longer seems to be the case. That’s a good thing, in the sense extremist groups aren’t actually exercising as much control as they pretend to. But it’s bad in the sense that, whereas the delivery of our political figures traditionally falls short of their campain promises, but at least used to drift in the same direction…now those deliveries have become completely unhinged from that specified direction, or any other.

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Calling ItThursday, February 9th, 2006

Calling It
Thursday, February 9th, 2006