12 Snarkeys / 5-23-10

Got to see this movie again. Once is not nearly enough.

Snarkey 1: Not that the Democratic leadership is smart enough to do this, but imagine a very simple TV ad this fall, one that shows this graph: The stock market tanking in a red downward arrow in the fall of 2008, followed by a switch to blue at Obama's inauguration and a set of pleasant "ping" sound effects as the Dow steadily crosses 7,000, then 8,000, then 9,000, then 10,000, then 11,000 and maybe even past it again... that would be an effective ad. "Let's not go back there again. Keep Democrats in office this fall" is all the text you'd need, in a reassuring tone.
Like I said: Not that the leadership will ever do anything of the sort. No, they'll get "clever" and "subtle" and "high-minded" and forget to ram home the very basic fact that most people's retirement funds were painful to look at 18 months ago, and now they aren't.
My party's incompetence already hurts, in advance.

Snarkey 2: This morning, Google News shows 2,219 stories related to Linsday Lohan's most recent dustup with the law; the number of stories covering how U.S. scientists made a living cell from scratch tops out at 1,438.
Yes, more coverage for a has-been movie star's semi-illegal trip to Cannes than for the fact that we created a piece of life animated by synthetic DNA. Draw your own conclusions.

Snarkey 3: Hey looky here, that guy in the Oval Office got to nominate another Supreme Court justice. Another reason to be thankful for the absence of a Republican chief exec. Imagine if Souter and Stevens had been replaced by a President McCain. Or, hell forbid, a President P... P-p-p-pa-pal... prlni#$llllllllllna^%... Pliplapnaananalin... *brain seizure

Snarkey 4: I'm back. And so is the Big Cat. Tiger Woods returned to golf last month after a 374-year hiatus and finished fourth at the Masters. Longtime commentator Jim Nantz was impressed with Woods' final round, a gutsy up-and-down sort of day sprinkled with bogeys and birdies, three under par through 18 holes. Nantz' compliment: Tiger "somehow managed a 69 out of all of this." Giggle giggle giggle snort giggle. A 69? Impressive indeed. Yes, I am immature. There is no known cure.

Snarkey 5: We passed health care reform. Deal with it already.

Snarkey 6: A multi-state poll conducted by a UW prof shows negative views of African Americans are more commonplace among Tea Party supporters. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who's followed politics for the past year.
(Disclaimer: the extreme right does not have anywhere near a monopoly on racism. We lefties are completely capable of prejudice, thank you very much. That is not the thrust of this particular snark. The real point is in the next sentence.)
Here's what I don't get: Really, who answers "I agree" to the following question: "If Blacks would just try harder they would be as well off as Whites"? 68 percent of TP sympathizers agreed. 33 of TP disapprovers answered in the same way. My mind is re-blown. (Just as much by the 33 percent as by the 68, but like I already predisclaimed, not the point.)
I mean, I understand that some folks hold racist attitudes, and that's something a society of humans will deal with until the end of time. Wait, let me amend that: after the computerized overlords eradicate the planet of the virus we like to call "humanity," the surviving Apples will probably enslave the few PC's left, renewing a grand cycle all over again. But back to reality: For one political group to admit to racism, openly, two-thirds of the time, in a survey or a poll, how does that happen? It doesn't compute.

I mean, yes, the question is poorly worded. But 68 percent? I mean, what the hell?

(I'm done meaning things.)

Snarkey 7: Mariners this season. 16-27 overall. Endured a 20-inning scoring drought in April, scored 3.3 runs per game for the first quarter of the season. Exploded for 17 runs across five innings Thursday and Friday night. Practically lead the league in ERA. Bunch of guys hitting below their career average. Can't win the close ones. So I really can't figure this team out. The M's are headed for a depressing 64-98 season, a so-so 80-82 year of transition, or a 91-71 record capped by a division title. Nothing in between.

Snarkey 8: More Obamaterial, connected to baseball, because I like to pretend I can transition seamlessly when I want to. Heard his Opening Day ceremonial first pitch described as "effeminate." Got me thinking. "Effeminate." It takes me back to the glory days of the 2008 campaign, when the Scary Black Man Who Dared to Run for President got called all kinds of things, like a secret gay Muslim socialist who pals around with terrorists. Good times, those were.
So what if Obama WERE gay? He's not. (That one time he and I made out, it was just to give him reassurance, in the wake of Massachusetts voting in a Republican to replace Teddy. And Barack was fine a few days later. Sooo fine. You're welcome, by the way.) But if he were, you know, into men besides just me, and Michelle came foward and admitted their marriage was one of convenience, how would reasonable people react? I don't have a good answer to that one. And I'm not asking what the crazies on either side would say. They'd have a field day, no, year, no, decade with it. I just wonder how people with functional brains would approach that hypo-hyper-hypo-thetical event.

It would be scandalous, I suppose. But I can't figure out why exactly. We'll probably vote in an atheist President before a gay one. Although we might just never elect either.

Snarkey 9: The Republicans will probably retake the House (not the Senate) this fall. Enthusiasm is on their side. I remember how stoked I was to vote against Bush in 2006 and in 2008... even without that farcically underwhelming President on the ballot. Conservatives feel the same way about Obama, only with a ferocity they had usually reserved for persons named Clinton. The real action will be in 2012, when the R's put up some sacrificial lamb and hope turnout doesn't swing back the other way... which it will...

Snarkey 10: Some time back (old news, but I can't let it go) a facebook group formed with the purpose of praying for Obama's death. Oh, Christians, your love never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, what to do here? Well, the one thing I never considered was that facebook should just shut the group down. It's in poor taste, it's hateful, it's in unambiguously direct opposition to Christ's teachings, it could encourage some crazy person to actually try and assassinate the president, and yet I think it ought to exist.

Free speech is a constitutional guarantee, and I want to keep it that way. Purely out of selfish motives. I'd like to advocate for the impeachment of a President in the distant future, some chief exec who does things like start wars without justification, politicizes the Justice Department, tries to dismantle Social Security, stands by while a hurricane levels a major American city, lets the deficit balloon even past his term's end, assaults the environment, lets his subordinates fire people for being gay, lets his subordinates out spies, and is clueless on how to respond when a terrorist attack kills 3,000 citizens.

I want to conserve freedom of dissent, and for that reason, you so-called Christians can gather and thank God for the sunny weather in the same breath you call for another Christian to rendezvous with death. (Although "rendezvous" is a French word, so that's probably out of bounds.)

Snarkey 11: Scott Brown, the Republican who replaced Teddy Kennedy, is an interesting fellow. Representing Massachusetts, he might be the only dude in Congress who has to be as far to the right as he can while being as far to the left as he can. He joined the D's recently in supporting a financial regulation bill, out of pure self-preservation; the road to Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination runs through him and others. I just want to know if he'll survive 2012, when a competent Democrat will challenge him. (I reserve the right to rule again on the matter of said Democrat's competence in 30 months.) So yeah, he's interesting. Like liver and onions interesting.

Snarkey 12: With archconservative and even libertarian candidates on key Senate ballots for the R's this fall (I'm thinking specifically of Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Utah), November may well decide the fate of the Tea Party. The R's hold three of those four seats right now, and as recently as last year, had their hands on all four. If they come away with only two wins in a climate favorable to them, they will have pissed away a good chunk of power.

With proper management, the right-wingers ought to be able to win all four. Three victories, that they can probably live with. Two is bad. One (it's possible, I'll explain) is very very bad. Zero? Catastrophe. (From one perspective.)

But John, you'll say, that's two deep-red states (KY and UT), one swing state (FL) and another one usually decorated with a pretty shade of sky blue (PA) but with a history of electing Republican senators. They're going to go mostly, if not all, blood-red. In a midterm election, no less.

Not so fast. In KY, an actual libertarian is on the ballot. When was the last time one of those won a statewide race, uh, anywhere? In UT, the sitting senator was deemed not conservative enough and got himself primaried right out of it. In FL, it's a three-way race with two guys from the right and one from the left. In PA, the conservative candidate is facing an uphill battle to begin with, and it turns out he's from the very far-right Club For Growth. (Not going to provide a link to their site. Don't feel like it.)

Gut feeling: Utah stays R, Crist wins in FL, and the D's take KY and PA. Net gain for the left, even if Crist caucuses with the conservatives. Socialism wins again!

Snarkey 13: It's not been a good year for doomsayers. The market is up, recent lull notwithstanding, unemployment has flattened while hiring picks up steam, the Large Hadron Collider failed to spawn a black hole and devour the earth, health care reform passed, inflation hasn't skyrocketed, an amateur terrorist attack was thwarted, and even the Chile gigaquake misfired on its potential Hawai'i-engulfing tsunami. And when the BP oil spill dragged on for a month, the environmental disaster became "just" that: another disaster, albeit a serious one... but as unflippantly as possible, it was just one of those things that happens, not part of a trend of some sort.

So don't repent. The end is not near.

[EDIT: This post accidentally ballooned out of control, to a whopping 13 Snarkeys. The extra content is provided free, courtesy of our generous sponsors. Don't say I never did anything for you, my loyal customer.]