It also is like trying to read all the postings on the Daily Kos and trying to pick one and responding to it. The degree of difficulty is greater if you are limited to library hours and a laptop battery's short duration for your access to the internet.
Recently, I came across a posting that challenged readers to post their stories about writing their memoirs and that seemed like a very good candidate for a "me too!" comment to be posted. He who hesitates is lost.
It has been reported that President Obama seeks out opposing points of view and we considered writing a column warning him that the Republicans are playing the "sit down strike" card so that they can make him the issue in the 2012 Presidential campaign. If not one Republican votes for healthcare, and they deliver a goal line stand that keeps Healthcare out of the end zone, then who can deny that Obama's legacy will be summarized by Maxwell Smart's famous line: "Missed it by that much, chief."?
The Republican political game plan for 2012, might well be called the "Tora! Tora! Tora!" strategy. They won't have to outline any agenda, they will just keep repeating the "Obama = A Whole Lodda Nada" meme and then sit back while the Democrats explain why Obama and Harry Reid didn't use reconciliation, why Nancy Pelosi held her statistical majority in reserve, and/or why they put all their bets on one issue. Aye, lads, could ye not see it would mean an Alamo moment for Democratic candidates once the Republican Noise Machine had sabotaged the debate?
Who was it that taught the Republicans to boil issues down to a short memorable phrase? Hubert Humphrey used to annoy his staff by giving long and involved answers that attempted to be definitive, authoritative, and comprehensive. He came across as a gasbag and didn't know how to change his image. Any Hollywood script writer knows that the answer is "cut to the chase!" Lord Byron scored big with the zinger about "Explaining Metaphysics to the nation-- I wish he would explain his Explanation."
Someday Democrats will grow to that. It's just a question of if it will be before or after the Obama Healthcare battle is put into the history books.
There is a strategy for the children's game of tick, tack, toe, whereby the first player to make a mark on the grid can only win and never loose. (Put your X or O in a corner box.) The Republicans assume the right to set the agenda for every Presidential Election. Excuses don't win Elections - bumper sticker slogans do!
Before we could write and post this hypothetical heads-up column for the Obama war room team, there was a new elephant in the room; the Supreme Court upset my plans and the free press apple cart and that suddenly seemed like the strongest candidate for winning the "topic of the day" competition on my computer.
If every one is going to try for the most quotable line about this particular case the competition is going to be fierce. What blogger will try to nail it by paraphrasing Lord Grey thus: "I have seen the lights of the free press go out . . ."?
Maybe the challenge will be to go in the opposite direction and try to see the silver lining?
Hey, if this Supreme Court decision unleashes a tsunami of political advocacy ads in newspapers and on TV won't that mean that those folks will soon have an infusion of ad revenue and thereby be able to rehire the investigative reporters and thereby provide a textbook perfect example of "unintended consequences" to the results of the historic decision?
It seems unlikely that the advocacy ads will all be run on Fox News because that would be an example of "preaching to the choir." To deliver conservative talking points to liberals, the ads are going to have to be run where they will reach the biggest (opposing view) audience and thus it seems logical to conclude that liberal newspapers and TV stations are poised to be inundated with a massive influx of cash. Hence, they will have profits available to be plowed back into expanding the news coverage that had recently been shrinking dramatically (add your own "Alice in Wonderland" quote here). N'est-ce pas?
They wouldn't just put the extra money in the bank, would they?
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