(Wherein the writer goes utterly bonkers and channels a leftwing Ann Coulter)
So rumor has it that Kerry is backing Tom Vilsack, boring status-quoist, for DNC chair as part of an "anybody but Dean" movement among the Washington Dem "establishment." Also talking up a Vilsack DNC are, not surprisingly, Holy Joe and Bob "Douschebag" Novak.
Vilsack. Say it with me, now. Vil-sack. Conjures visions of infertility to me. Can anybody tell me what the fuck these people are thinking? "More of the same. That's what we need. Don't rock the boat. Why mess with success? We might lose if we change."
Continued...
For 30 years, I've watched from the wilderness as these goddamn fools with their lazy, patrician, appeasing centrism stuck one finger in the stale air and another up their asses and sat around watching their party fall apart, whimpering mordantly to themselves about the dignity of this office or that, and saying, with weary resignation, "Oh, well. Winning isn't everything. Maybe next time." This year, I came in from the cold and committed my meager time and money and hopes to the resurrection of a party and a president I could believe in.
And now they want to make Tom Vilsack DNC chair. Because Howard Dean is, y'know, too radical. Too tight with the great unwashed masses of party activists and all. And besides, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
Lights! Camera! Action! Tom Vilsack is... Count Testicula, the neutered wampire! "Um... I vant to dlink your blood," he says meekly, in monotone. "Blah. Blah." Pause. "Perhaps I could borrow some ketchup, then?"
So here's my ultimatum: if John Kerry, in whom the primary voters of Iowa, in their infinite caution, entrusted the leadership of this doomed party, would reward the loyalty of Howard Dean and me and a good portion of the party base with a desultory "Fuck you and thanks very much," then I'll have no part of it. It's third-party, afterparty or no party for me.
I'm not hung up on HoHo, mind you. The name of NDN's Simon Rosenberg has been bandied about, and I'd happily settle for him or any bright young reformer not beholden to the defeated and defeatist wing of the Democratic Party. But if the long-faced losers, the indefensibly defenseless win the day, led by the ghost of Tom Daschle, then I'm done with them. I shall rant no more now forever. Nor shall I give money and energy and emotion out to these grifters. I'll live out my days as a utopian/apocalyptic hippie crackpot anarchist, convinced that social progress cannot be wrought through institutional politics and can be found only in fleeting moments at times of societal transition or great strain. Is anybody with me?