How would you like that cooked?

As I've observed before, with Alexander Cockburn one day it's sausage and the next day it's pig anuses.  Happily, today he's got a nice big helping of sausage for us:

Led by Democrats since the start of this year, the US Congress now has a “confidence” rating of 14 per cent, the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 1973 and five points lower than the Republicans scored last year.

The voters put the Democrats in to end the war and it’s escalating. The Democrats voted money for the surge. They voted for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement is to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wire tapping for “foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.” Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush.

The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she’d really wanted to. But she didn’t. The Democrats’ game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base about to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.

Hallelujah!  Testify!

I'd planned to write about this myself, but I'm happy that Cockburn saved me the trouble.  I've watched the Congressional approval rating plummet over the past few months with a genuine sense of awe at the Herculean incompetence of the Democrats.  It's taken real talent to squander the level of goodwill they had in November of 2006, but they've managed it without a single correct step--I literally can't think of anything they've done right.  And they're now the least popular Congress on record.  Given the tremendous unpopularity of Bush, Cheney, and the policies of this administration, that's nothing short of astonishing.

But the really astonishing part will come in November 2008, when--despite this staggering record of opportunistic incompetence on the part of the Democratic Party--50% of the voting population in the US will give them their support at the polls.  After all, what other choice do they have?

Comments

[Save the Oocytes]

Careful! It is quite possible to make pig anuses into sausage—which, in turn, is why it is best not to see them being made.

[John Caruso]

Yep, that was the joke. :-)

Actually there was a bit of thought behind it. On one hand I just thought it was funny because, hey, pig anuses. But on the other hand I've genuinely come to feel wary of Cockburn even when I agree with him, and so in a sense I feel that there's not much difference between his good stuff and his bad stuff except for the appropriateness of the target--which is ultimately just about how an external observer sees it. So the analogy to sausage was quite close.

[Save the Oocytes]

Shit, I'm an idiot. I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise, though. Thanks for your tolerance.

Dennis Perrin has an interesting posts on the man here. myself, as usual, know nothing. I wonder if reading that sort of thing is sort of the equivalent for me of Entertainment Weekly or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous though, in which case I should cut it out.

[John Caruso]

Thanks for the pointer; it's interesting to see that Dennis Perrin's direct experience of Cockburn matches my from-a-distance impressions. I sometimes think of Perrin as a Cockburn Jr. in terms of his ability to carve people up with his writing, but the difference is that he does often pull back from his full-on written assaults and recognize the humanity of his targets.

[Save the Oocytes]

Why are the two associated so specifically in your mind? Surely any number of polemicists can do carving...?

Here's today's: "Shit Sandwich
Open wide, mules. You can deny it all you like, yet, in the end, you'll gladly, happily, take a big, heaping bite. [Clinton campaign video follows.]"

Maybe the truce is over?

I've seen very few "progressives" take his arguments not to support the (D)s as anything but a personal attack. The question is what, if anything, would work.

[John Caruso]

They're associated for me because I found their style of attack similar--apparently with good cause, since Perrin says he worshiped at Cockburn's altar.