When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles, they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle.
– Representative Lois Frankel, D-Florida,The Congressional Record, Saturday, September 28, 2013
Ladies and gentlemen, you can’t make this stuff up. Thanks to the nasty, unremitting squabble over Obamacare, plus the diligent efforts of Representative Frankel and Senator Ted Cruz, the immortal philosophical analysis of Dr. Seuss has joined that of Alexis de Tocqueville as official American history on both sides of Capitol Hill. But before I get started on such burning political issues of the day, I would like to make a cultural note – it was this week, to the tune of considerable media fanfare and hoopla, that the editors of Popular Science announced they killed the comments on their Web log.
To paraphrase their reasons for this, basically the editors at Popular Science at long last realized an important thing. They finally comprehended, based on their experience, that Web log comments tend to make things worse, not better, and not only on the blog in question and on the Web in general, but also in Real Life.
Well, duh. Back in the late Triassic, there was this thing known as Usenet and a fellow named Godwin who saw it all coming and called every shot on the table. How strange that the paleontologists on the staff at Popular Science never informed their editorial board about that.
So, could the closure of comments threads, with all of their inanity, banality, hostility and trolling become a trend? Well, when the Friends of Tom Collins talked me into beginning this Web log, the one thing I absolutely insisted on was that the comments feature be inactivated and kept turned off permanently. That was in December, 2006. So if Web logs without comment threads do, in fact, become a trend, then it will have been Tom Collins’ World Wide Web Log that either predicted it, started it, or was eighty-one months ahead of it – take your pick. And on the Internet, of course, eighty-one months might as well be a geological epoch, if only the early Pleistocene.
Okay, now to this truly extraordinary weekend – where to begin? I worked seventeen hours on Saturday, and as I finish this blog post on Sunday, it’s nearly midnight and I’m ready to drop. Yesterday, House Republicans passed a modified version of the Continuing Resolution that would fund the United States government (or most of it, anyway – those parts requiring appropriated funds, as opposed to those parts which operate using “no-year money”) with additional language that would delay the citizens’ mandate for enrollment in Obamacare / The Affordable Care Act (choose one, depending on your one state, two state, red state or blue state), as specified in that law (and yes, it is a law, not a bill, as some conservative Republicans, apparently living in a parallel universe, so fervently believe) for one year, and also repealing the provision therein to tax medical devices in order to fund the program, all of which, by virtue of those attributes alone, essentially guaranteed complete and utter rejection by the Democrat controlled United States Senate, thus ensuring, short of an act of Divine Intervention, the orderly but nevertheless comprehensive (which is by no means to say complete) shut down of US government operations on October 1, excepting, as would be expected, such vital endeavors as national defense, law enforcement, homeland security, federal prisons and congressional salaries.
No doubt the many international readers of this blog are wondering, Why do the Americans do this to themselves? They wonder that because, unlike the vast majority of Americans, they are aware that no other industrialized country in the world has any provision in its constitution or other basis for governance which would allow forty-odd duly elected representatives of backwoods yahoos, occupying seats in the lower body of the legislature, to hold the machinery of that nation’s executive function hostage to their own peculiar superstitions – ahem – make that ideologies. The United States of America, on the other hand, does, and the reason – dear, erudite, sophisticated, educated, well-read, reasonable and civilized international readers – is that the people who elected those forty-odd backwoods stump-jumping political hacks to the lower body of our legislature have family trees that do not branch, which is to say, they are what happens when cousins marry in the most remote and God-forsaken, ignorant and forgotten corners of the American Republic.
So – how bad is it? Well, I know my posts tend to run a bit long – around five pages of twelve-point Courier type, or about 2,500 words, which, even that, they tell me, sorely taxes the ever-diminishing attention span of the vast legions of morons with smart phones who diddle away their lives with 140 character Tweets and six-second Vine video clips – but tonight, were I to tell all that I have witnessed this week which is absurd, surreal, asinine, ridiculous, risible, ludicrous, hypocritical, avaricious, traitorous, criminal, idiotic, stupid or just plain downright evil, not 25,000 nor even 250,000 words would suffice. It’s just been one of those weeks in Washington, that those of us who experienced them shall never forget – I imagine the folks who lived here when the British burned the place down in 1814 likewise acquired equally indelible memories.
Oh, did I mention that later this month, the same duly elected congressional representatives of those same raving, uncouth, half-witted inbred hicks I mentioned earlier will be holding the USA’s debt ceiling, bond rating, and national credit worthiness (and thus the monetary stability of the entire planet’s de facto reserve currency) hostage to their precious Bible-thumping, Adam Smith-worshiping, nose-picking, relative swiving, Taliban-grade social and economic agendas? More about that juggernaut to come as it runs over us.
Thus multiply faced with such an embarrassment of riches, I must needs be highly selective, and the cream of the crop this week is a telephone call I received earlier today from Bilko, a senior staffer who works for Representative Raul Labrador (R-Idaho).
Bilko: Collins? That you?
Tom: Sure. What’s up?
Bilko: I’m worried about my boss.
Tom: Congressman Labrador? What could possibly be wrong with him?
Bilko: Um… well… you know, how back in January, he was working on… uh… beating Boehner?
Tom: Of course. We discussed it at length – we talked about the best way to handle Boehner, the best way to squeeze Boehner, the best way abuse Boehner until the right stuff came out…
Bilko: Yeah, yeah, and Raul loved that! Beating Boehner was a big thing with him. And not just Raul, either, why, there was a whole crew that wanted to beat Boehner, and I mean beat Boehner big time, no doubt about it!
Tom: Right, I remember, there was Michele Bachmann, Joe Barton, Gus Bilirakis, Rob Bishop, Diane Black, Michael C. Burgess, Paul Broun, John Carter, Bill Cassidy, Howard Coble, Mike Coffman, Ander Crenshaw, John Culberson, Jeff Duncan, Blake Farenthold, Stephen Fincher, John Fleming, Trent Franks, Phil Gingrey, Louie Gohmert, Vicky Hartzler, Tim Huelskamp, Lynn Jenkins, Steve King, Doug Lamborn, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Kenny Marchant, Tom McClintock, David McKinley, Gary Miller, Mick Mulvaney, Randy Neugebauer, Rich Nugent, Steven Palazzo, Steve Pearce, Ted Poe, Tom Price, Phil Roe, Dennis A. Ross, Ed Royce, Steve Scalise, Pete Sessions, Adrian Smith, Lamar S. Smith, Tim Walberg, Lynn Westmoreland and Joe Wilson!
Bilko: Yeah, yeah… and a few other guys and gals, too… um…
Tom: Oh, you mean, Justin Amash, Jim Bridenstine, Paul Gosar, Sam Graves, Bill Huizenga, Walter Jones, Doug LaMalfa, Tom Massie, Matt Salmon, Steve Stockman and Ted Yoho?
Bilko: Uh-huh, yeah, right, them too. There’s nothing any of them would have enjoyed more than beating Boehner, one way or another, any way they could, by any means necessary – beating and beating and beating Boehner until they got complete satisfaction!
Tom: Sounds a bit obsessive.
Bilko: Listen, Collins, you just can’t be a successful Tea Party, Libertarian or Conservative Republican politician these days unless you’re willing to beat Boehner until the proverbial cows come home!
Tom: But cows don’t come home; you have to drive them.
Bilko: That’s my huge, hard and unyielding point – if these politicians want to be a success with the voters back home, they’ve got to absolutely crave beating Boehner – they’ve got to need, and require and clamor for beating Boehner until they’re bow-legged and cross-eyed!
Tom: And they aren’t?
Bilko: No they’re not!
Tom: What makes you think so?
Bilko: Because when the Republicans all got together for a huge, important meeting yesterday, Tim Huelskamp came out of that meeting saying everybody was chanting their approval, not gathering around in a big circle to beat Boehner like we thought!
Tom: Hmmm… do tell?
Bilko: Yeah, and then, Tom Cole told every reporter he could find, “I think everybody was ecstatic,” but when I checked, it turned out that nobody had beaten Boehner in there – that wasn’t why they were ecstatic, oh no, in fact, it was entirely the other way around!
Tom: That must have been very disappointing for you.
Bilko: Disappointing? I was devastated! Then Cole said that Boehner had been very candid that he doesn’t want a shutdown, and thinks it’s a bad idea, and bad for the country!
Tom: You figure he actually thinks that?
Bilko: Of course!
Tom: So you’d be surprised if he said that to the other House Republicans?
Bilko: No, no, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least!
Tom: Then your problem is what?
Bilko: My problem is, my boss and his friends all went along with what he said, instead of proving what great master debaters they are and lining up to beat Boehner!
Tom: So, it’s like, when your boss, Raul Labrador, shows the world what a master debater he is, beating Boehner in public until Boehner’s all limp and flaccid, that somehow… fulfills you?
Bilko: Uh… Jesus… ah… okay, yeah, I guess it does. Is that wrong or something?
Tom: No, no, there’s nothing wrong… all quite natural… it’s not like I’m judging you or anything, just asking.
Bilko: Oh, okay, all right… you were saying?
Tom: What I mean is, it’s perfectly normal for you to feel good when your boss practices his master debating and achieves his… um… objectives. But tell me, how did you feel Saturday after the meeting?
Bilko: I… I guess “frustrated” is the best description I can think of. I was.. totally hot and bothered, really.
Tom: And how about today’s vote?
Bilko: Er… I don’t know… dirty, kind of – like I’d been used… betrayed is the best word for it, I guess… yeah… I felt… betrayed. Nobody beat Boehner this weekend – not Steve Stockman, not Pete Sessions, not Louie Gohmert, not Justin Amash, not… not even my boss, Raul Labrador, the greatest master debater in the entire House of Representatives… hep… hep… bwah-hoo-ha-wah-wha-ha-ha…
Tom: Now, now, there, there – reach down and get a hold on yourself, man. Big boys don’t cry, especially Tea Party Republicans! What would the liberals and socialists and jack-booted IRS thugs and the terrorists and the illegal immigrants and the foreign troops in the UN black helicopters think if they saw you, blubbering away like a jilted school girl?
Bilko: I… oh… I’m sorry… it’s just that here were all these great conservative Republican master debaters who all swore by all that’s holy they were going to beat Boehner like there was no tomorrow and make Ted Cruz Speaker of the House so we could fix everything that all those people you just said to me have done and want to do to my beloved U.S. of A., and how come all the people I looked up to and stuff didn’t strut their skills as great master debaters and beat Boehner like Boehner has never been beaten before on God’s green earth?
Tom: Take heart, conservative patriot, because the master debaters you idolize have not betrayed you!
Bilko: No?
Tom: No – they are only biding their time, waiting for the proper moment to ripen for their great master debate. And then, I assure you, they will have at least even odds of beating Boehner until the wax flies out of everyone’s ears!
Bilko: Even odds? You mean, fifty-fifty? Is that all?
Tom: Sorry, I cannot, in good conscience, quote you any better odds than that.
Bilko: Okay, still I guess it’s still worth a stroke or two.
Tom: Sure. Got a good grip on things, okay and all?
Bilko: Um… now that you mention it, yeah.
Tom: In that case, good night.
Bilko: Sleep tight.
Tom: And don’t let the butterflies bite. ‘Bye