In well-loved English writer Charles Dickens' A Chistmas Carol In Verse (I think that's the original name) is a scene in which a charwoman, an undertaker and another member of the desperate class of victorian London argue over the possesions of a recently living corpse. The scene was written to horrify us and point up the fact that poverty can lead to the sort of brutish selfishness that disrespects the death of a fellow human.
Flashing forward to the latter half of the next century, after two World Wars in which technology made mass slaughter trivial, Irish writer Samuel Beckett's character Pozzo, in Waiting For Godot proclaims "They give birth astride of a grave." This utterly hopeless attitude about death (separated by less than a century from Dickens' scene of macabre self-interest) has at least the merit of being to the point.
While I understand how the good hearts of many on this site want to allow a time of mourning for the deaths of friends and adversaries, there is no doubt in my mind that one or two or three days from now even the most reflective among us will be clamoring for the defeat of the other side and ready to discuss the political calculus of future senatorial makeup at great length. My question is: what will happen in those one or two or three days? Specifically, how many more humans will die in Iraq as we recoil in disgust at the thought that the death of an opposition senator would cause some folks on this site to immediately calculate possible differences that this could make in the balance of power in the Senate, perhaps tipping in the direction of a quicker end to the fighting?
If we hope to stop the unjustifiable, senseless slaughter in Iraq as quickly as we can, it is my humble opinion that we as Democrats must steel ourselves to the task and pay more heed to the cold reality of Samuel Beckett, rather than the sentimentality of Charles Dickens. Paraphrasing the old adage I'll sleep when I'm dead, why don't we adopt the slogan I'll mourn when we're out?
If anyone wants to discuss the political aspects of the death of the senator from Wyoming in this diary, please feel free. I, for one, will not castigate you. And before you berate me for callousness, my bona fides: My nuclear family has spent the last two and a half years dealing with the life threatening disease of one of us. I know about contemplating the death of a dearly loved one. Additionally, I have two nephews who will, no doubt, be notified of their third and fourth tour, respectively (in either Afganistan or Iraq) any day now. I don't want to be on the other end of a long distance phone call with my brother as I try to offer some ... what ... comfort upon the death of his son?
So ... to those beraters and castigators ... I say f*** you.
And there's my rant.