Concerning Trolls

Andrew,

I read with great interest this reader email. If that letter is not the definition of concern trolling then none exists. To wit:

I'm with you in thinking that Obama is the best thing the Democrats have going for them right now. But I also think that in having the supermajority, they actually undercut him. They don't have to compromise and so they don't try to. Instead, what passes as legislation is a horrid mismash of corporate interests and traditional, not progressive, balms of the Democratic Party. I know this country can do much, much better. And I think Obama needs a less powerful Democratic party to make it happen, like Clinton did.

OK. The Democrats are corporate shills so Obama needs fewer corporate shills to get through his progressive agenda. I'm with on that. But, I would quibble that Obama isn't a progressive. He is a center-left pragmatist, but lets not get sidetracked by definitions here. (At least not yet!)

We all agree that the GOP is a mess.

I'm not sure who the author means by we, but I do agree that the GOP is a mess right now.

But we also all agree that we need a stronger GOP.

Um, no. We ALL don't agree. But I will concede that a saner GOP would be more helpful to the country as a hole. We had a strong GOP during the first six years of the Bush/Cheney regime and that didn't work out so well, did it?

And despite the rhetoric, I can't think of a better candidate to help than Scott Brown. He's not perfect, but if he thinks he can go along with the national GOP and keep the seat in the next election, he's going to be out of a job.

You can't think of a better candidate? Do the names Jim Leach and Lincoln Chafee ring a bell? Scott Brown is a malleable, half-bright opportunist who doesn't think that Red Cross volunteers working with the 9/11 recovery effort deserved financial assistance from the state of Massachusetts. This homophobic prick is the answer to the GOP's problem?

He touched off a political firestorm in 2001 when he disparaged Democratic state Senator Cheryl Jacques and her domestic partner, Jennifer Chrisler, for deciding to have children. In an interview with the Globe, Brown said it was "not normal" for two women to have a baby. He also dismissed Jacques's role in the relationship as her "alleged family responsibilities."

But this just boggles.

In voting for him, I hope he'll moderate that party.

So yeah, if that's the kind of person who has the character and political savvy to mitigate the Teabaggers and Christianists I understand the emailers logic in voting against Democrats who bow to the corporate oligarchy by replacing those Democrats with a ... Republican!

Kill. Me. Now. This country is fucked.

Sincerely,
TGP