Something unexpected happened on Morning Joe. Pat Buchanan and the rest talked about McCain's and Lieberman's idea fixe (def: a usually delusional idea that dominates the whole mental life during a prolonged period (as in certain mental disorders)—called also fixed idea) with war.
I was not surprised at Lieberman holding fast to his belief about WMDs in Iraq. The surprise? I would never have expected that understanding to have come from Pat Buchanan. Click on "next" on the video and you get to a second segment. Suffer through the inanity about NY and you get to where Pat is talking about this. And during that segment you will hear (to my huge surprise) Joe actually hearing the disdain that Lieberman instills in the word "sweetheart" directed towards Arianna Huffington and Joe actually talks about the "endless" war.
Something unexpected Saturday, Jan 8th. Yes we had the crazy soul emptying out his cartridge of bullets seeing the people fall around him in a haze of blood and chaos. But that wasn't unexpected. We've had crazies like Beck and O'Reilly and others pumping out hate and crazy like a maddened calliopes. Since they have managed to pump up crazies up before, (think Tiller the baby killer) and the guy now sitting in jail talking about Beck as being a teacher of conspiracy theories!) having a crazy with his gun was not unexpected. Sometimes even unprompted the crazies pop up with their guns. And we do not know which is true in the Tucson shooting.
No, what was unexpected was that a fairly new employee rushed TOWARDS the gunshots and saved his boss by holding her head and keeping her blood loss minimal. What was unexpected was that a couple rushed TOWARD the gunfire and looked to triage the wounded and the dead and begin getting others to help hold the pumping blood back. What was unexpected was that people WORKED TOGETHER to pin the madman down. Strangers working in tandem they kept the losses to just one cartridge full of bullets.It took three (2 men and a woman) of them and they managed to get the madman harmless and keep him under control.
What was unexpected was that Tuscan came together. The memorial service was large as people needed to feel close to their home, their tribe, their community and mourn and praise together. The PRAISING was unexpected. Staid stoic pundits who are very loathed to move more than their lips and that only to get those well modulated tones were shocked at the energy that was felt within that memorial. Energy that they hadn't engendered by pushing themes and memes was totally not understood by them and they sneered at it. But that was expected.
What was unexpected was that Congress was put on hold. No yelling, no screaming at each other, no talking about targets and such. The fund raising by the house leadership and the tea party was tasteless and clueless but that was expected.
And something else unexpected: we hear that Rep. Giffords can stand up with help and can scan through pictures on an iPod. She was struck down by a gunman just a couple of feet away from her and yet she has survived.
For this moment in time, something seems to have slid back towards bearable. Something in our national discourse seems to be heading towards reasonable.
Polls are showing that Fox is losing amongst the independents:
anything but Fox. And independents don't trust much of anything. For Democrats 73% trust PBS, 64% NBC, 61% CBS, 60% CNN, 56% ABC, and 22% Fox. For Republicans 67% trust Fox, 29% PBS, 22% CNN, 21% NBC, 17% ABC, and 15% CBS. For independents 44% trust PBS, 36% Fox, 34% CNN, 33% NBC, 27% CBS, and 26% ABC.
The repubs are still slavishly tuned into Fox, but the weight of opinion is against them.