There's an old saying: "When it rains, it pours." Usually, it's a saying that's invoked when a series of unexpected negative events happens in a short span of time. And given some of the issues that have come up recently, Democrats have to feel like they're caught in a monsoon.
Although it may be raining cats and dogs on the Left right now, there is an element of repetition in the bad news that is coming their way. I get the feeling as this election season rolls on, we're going to see more than a few of the following situations come back over and over again.
- Charlie Rangel's ethics violations. When Nancy Pelosi was preparing to take the reins of power in the House, she promised to "drain the swamp" to take a bold stand against the "Culture of Corruption." With Rangel being brought up on a number of ethics violations and welcoming an investigation into said charges in an attempt to clear his name, Congressional Democrats have to be praying that Rangel will either step down voluntarily or that the investigation ends quickly. The longer it goes into the election year, the worse it looks for Congressional Democrats.
I give the president HUGE props on doing the right thing here. His standing up and LEADING in this instance is what we needed. Throw the bum out, and by doing so, you send a signal on both sides of the political spectrum that at least you stand for what is right.
The GOP could stand to learn something from Obama and the way he's handled Jeremiah Wright and Charlie Rangel: instead of embracing whack job preachers and corrupt slugs, Obama threw them both under the bus. The Republicans however defend people like this in their ranks, even elevating them (looking at you, John Ensign).
- Maxine Waters' ethics violations. Same as above, but with Maxine Waters instead of Charlie Rangel. And what's worse for the Democrats is that the Waters situation is just getting started. Not good.
Waters helped an association of minority-owned banks get a meeting with the treasury secretary, and she has a track record of helping build and maintain black-owned businesses. Waters' husband's stock holdings in the bank represent less than 10 percent of their personal assets.
Waters' family assets are invested in her community. Lots of banks were hit hard by the home loan debacle. On the face of it, it seems like she did her job.
The Community Bank bought stock in two supposedly safe assets. If the regulatory agencies were doing there jobs, maybe Fanny and Freddy would not have been sold fraudulent loan packages. It is not like the banks make "risky" investments. Moody's said they were AAA.
Anyway, as far as this story, I treat it about the same as the Chris Dodd stuff a couple years ago where he openly stated his position as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee when getting loans from Countrywide to get good deals, and then when the system was melting down was quick to try to protect Countrywide in particular from crashing. He was doing what anyone would probably try in his situation, attempting to use what influence he had to protect his own interests with the mental justification that it would help others as well, but at the same time we shouldn't just accept this behavior and abuse of power should be identified and called out. In fact, the most offensive part of the Dodd affair was that he tried to plead ignorance that the CEO putting him on the VIP program would suggest that he was getting any preferential treatment.
As far as Waters goes, it sounds like she at least did all her stuff out in the open; these meetings weren't held in secret, and she disclosed her husband's relationship to these entities from the beginning.
But don't worry, Right-wingers will make her the Antichrist. Unless Obama says something negative about her, then she'll be a helpless victim.
- Shirley Sherrod. On the surface, the Left thinks the Sherrod situation is a winner for them, but from a larger perspective, it could wind up being a loser. And the sad thing is that they could have seen this coming if they had paid attention to the red flags that were being raised. When Sherrod couldn't decide whether to take a new position within the Obama Administration but decided to sue Andrew Breitbart relatively quickly, that should have made someone at DNC headquarters say, "This is going to come back to bite us." And I think it will because it reflects a level of incompetence by the Obama Administration that won't help the party make a cogent case for reelection in Congress.
Not just a river in Egypt, folks. The Sherrod situation is not good either way, because it hurt an innocent person (not that right-wingers care about thing like that). But it at least further exposed the more racist elements of the GOP (file that under the "Well, DUH!" category).
- The economy. Joe Biden's overly optimistic (and often contradictory) statements about the economy aside, we aren't seeing much positive activity with the economy. Elections are driven by voters' pocketbooks, and there are a lot of people who are out of work and wondering when the Obama Administration and Congress are going to do something to help them get back on their feet. And they aren't seeing anything happening. What they're seeing is a bunch of promises that aren't being fulfilled. TARP,
Is that why the GOP voted to keep TARP going? Heck, even Palin supported TARP. Bush initiated TARP.
TARP was unpopular, but it was necessary; because the alternative would have been far, far worse given how the recession was.
the stimulus package,
Government did what it could. It put money into the private sector. Now it's up to the private sector to actually create the damned jobs.
3 million jobs were saved and/or created thanks to the stimulus. But no, that's a failure to the right-wingers.
HAMP,
Helping prevent 390,000 foreclosures is "doing nothing"?
nothing seems to be working, and all the Administration and Congress can do is pat itself on the back for averting a disaster that they can't tell for sure they stopped and won't admit they had a hand in causing.
That didn't even make sense. "You can't prove it stopped problems (even though it has been proven). But I'll say you caused problems (based on nothing)!"
- Attacks on the TEA Parties. The Left's attacks on the TEA Parties have gone from the ridiculous (the TEA Parties are whites-only events) to the sublimely ridiculous (the TEA Parties are irrelevant). As it turns out, public opinion is largely in favor of the TEA Party movement because the TEA Parties echo the sentiments of a wide swath of the population. Calling it racist or out of touch or irrelevant is like saying those things to most of America, and the Left isn't going to win by torquing off voters like that.
Yeah! Look at the Teabaggers' latest PR ploy to duck the racism issue: Uni-Tea! That sure proved how diverse you guys are, right? LOL
- Immigration. Although the Obama Administration may have won a judicial victory by having portions of the Arizona immigration law suspended by a judge, there are a number of ways it could come back to blow up in the Left's faces. By standing against the Arizona law, the Left has stood against the opinions of a majority of Americans,
Hey, right-wingers: "Majority rules!" doesn't work when it comes to civil rights. The "majority" were in favor of slavery, remember?
but has also risked losing support of union workers since they will be the ones directly impacted by letting illegal immigrants stay here and take jobs that could go to union workers.
Oh, yeah. Unions are so anti-Democrat. Just like black people! Because Democrats never help those guys!
Aren't you Democrats scared yet?
And that's not counting other ways that the Arizona situation can come back to haunt Democrats, such as whether local and state officials will be allowed to act on potential terrorist activity given the judge's ruling. Let's see how that works out.
Ah, the usual fearmongering from the right. Gotta love it!
- The growing rift between the Obama Administration and Congress. As I stated in a previous blog, the Administration and Congress aren't getting along as well as expected. The health care reform debate exposed a disconnect between the Obama Administration and Congress, much to the chagrin of Congressional leadership. When Obama pushed for health care reform, Congress expected him to take the lead on it, but instead he took his hands off the wheel and allowed Congressional Democrats to try to steer it. As we saw, they didn't do a very good job, which made the approval process that much longer, and did far more damage to Obama and Congressional Democrats. It's gotten to the point that many Congressional candidates don't want Obama anywhere near them, which is something the Left reveled in when it happened to George W. Bush later in his Presidency. Now, they're experiencing what they mocked, and it's not working out well for them.
"They hate him! Really! I can't back it up with anything, just like I couldn't back up that climatologists are all in a big conspiracy... but believe me anyway! They hate him! Wouldn't you hate a leader that's getting more programs through than any other in decades? Huh? Huh?"
These, and others that I haven't mentioned, may become the Left's Waterloo in November.
Ugh, now Lindaman's doing the old "Waterloo" GOP soundbite? NOW? After all this time?
"That's so fresh too. Any Titanic jokes you want to throw at me too, as long as we're hitting these phenomena at the height of their popularity? God you're so funny!"
And I, for one, will be enjoying the fireworks.
Okay, revolving doors... rain/pours...Waterloo... fireworks...
In addition to journalism degrees, you must also have a doctorate in mixing metaphors.
