Scotty B.

Somehow, it's difficult to take the Scott Brown victory very seriously. I mean, here's a guy who made it clear that the sole purpose of his becoming a Senator would be to make sure you could still lose your house thanks to a typo on a healthcare form, and "real Americans" all across the country are doing the Snoopy happy-dance. Much like teabaggers who take to the streets to demand CEOs not get taxed heavily, it leaves you with nothing to really do except look quizzically at these people as if you're the dog staring at a radio wondering where the hell the noise is coming from. It's hard to get upset, since all this really tells you is that we're not very serious about solving some of our big problems as a country; we're very happy to stick our heads in the sand and wave the flag around screaming "America is awesome!!!" while simultaneously making "I promise to go to DC and absolutely do nothing!" a winning campaign platform. Hell, I'd like to run for Congress - I promise to simply vote "no" on everything, wear my American flag pin and wear jeans and a flannel shirt to pretend I'm a "real American." Seems easy enough, and it looks like the money's pretty great. Hell, maybe if I can find enough people in my state who are mightily impressed by my refusing to be "labeled" by the very party I am a member of, I can be a Blue Dog, and REALLY tie things up with my own outward consternation and brow-furrowing.

It's even hard to work up the muster to blame Obama, as his favorability polls at 51% right now. Which sounds low, but it's actually 2 points higher than Reagan was at the same point into his first term, and as you know to be considered a "conservative" nowadays you hafta dig up his dick and blow it, so I can't even play into any of that panic.

So while the Democrats quickly succumb to the GOP's -18 seat majority and gleefully throw their hands up in the air, which somehow apparently makes it easier for them to get re-elected, I will hope for incremental change (if nothing else, getting rid of the pre-existing shit would be pretty monumental.) If not incremental change, then I'll wait for things to go TITS UP , at which time I will look like a goddam genius.

One could choose to see the paradox between how we're reacting to the tragedy in Haiti with how we're dealing with healthcare. We speak in solemn, hushed tones about how tragic things are in Haiti, we pass along Facebook notes and text messages about sending money to help them recover etc etc, but we're rather proactive in making sure that the number of people in America that die every year thanks to not having health insurance does not dip below 40,000. Puzzling, at best. But hey, I don't really understand how we have seedless fruit, so what the fuck do I know.