Post Election Analysis
Oddly I think I’m more pissed off California Prop 19 (Legalize It!) failed than anything because that would have had a direct and pretty immediate positive impact on all of us by shrinking the prisons. Here is a good analysis on what happened by Glenn Greenwald who is an excellent writer and thinker.
Pundit sloth: Blaming the left
By Glenn Greenwald
Ten minutes was the absolute maximum I could endure of any one television news outlet last night without having to switch channels in the futile search for something more bearable, but almost every time I had MNSBC on, there was Lawrence O’Donnell trying to blame “the Left” and “liberalism” for the Democrats’ political woes. Alan Grayson’s loss was proof that outspoken liberalism fails. Blanche Lincoln’s loss was the fault of the Left for mounting a serious primary challenge against her. Russ Feingold’s defeat proved that voters reject liberalism in favor of conservatism, etc. etc. It sounded as though he was reading from some crusty script jointly prepared in 1995 by The New Republic, Lanny Davis and the DLC.
There are so many obvious reasons why this “analysis” is false: Grayson represents a highly conservative district that hadn’t been Democratic for decades before he won in 2008 and he made serious mistakes during the campaign; Lincoln was behind the GOP challenger by more than 20 points back in January, before Bill Halter even announced his candidacy; Feingold was far from a conventional liberal, having repeatedly opposed his own party on multiple issues, and he ran in a
state saddled with a Democratic governor who was unpopular in the extreme. Beyond that, numerous liberals who were alleged to be in serious electoral trouble kept their seats: Barney Frank, John Dingell, Rush Holt, Raul Grijalva, and many others. But there’s one glaring, steadfastly ignored fact destroying O’Donnell’s attempt — which is merely the standard pundit storyline that has been baking for months and will now be served en masse — to blame The Left and declare liberalism dead. It’s this little inconvenient fact:I only have this video to add, maybe this explains it all better. All you wacky liberals “HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE…AND YOU…WILL…ATONE!”
Network is such a good film, despite its not so subtle way of making Arabs seems scary. It’s funny because I can see Howard Beale (the one being yelled at) as Pelosi or Obama at the end of election day yesterday, and I can also see him as a Tea Bagger upstart like Rand Paul the day he is sworn in.