Rural Ruminations

Originally published in The Herald of Randolph

By Haviland Smith

On August 5, Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, did it again.  He let his mouth get way out in front of whatever brain he actually has. In a discussion of the Tea Party on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, he made the following statement:

“The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual, it doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do.”

Apparently Kerry not only wants the media to ignore the Tea Party, he wants Congress to ignore it as well, for he continued with the following comment on Republican appointments to the upcoming joint debt ceiling committee which will (or won’t) decide our immediate economic future:

“And if the joint committee, the joint committee cannot be, I mean John Boehner, please, Mitch McConnell, please, don’t appoint people with a preconceived idea of exactly what they’re going to do. That will not serve the nation. It may serve Party, but that’s not leadership. They need to put people on that committee who are going to work for the interests of our country so we can decide how to deal with our long-term structural problems and put people to work now.”  In other words, they have to do it the Democrats’ way!

There are two ways to look at Kerry’s statement.  To be charitable, the Republicans and their Tea Party, have completely changed the rules in Washington.  Votes on virtually anything and everything are now political, with little care or attention being paid to the wellbeing of the nation or its people.  Everything is now for the party.  My way or the highway!

In that context, Kerry can be seen bewailing the change to a totally dysfunctional congressional environment, while at the same time not accepting any of the responsibility the Democrats have for its existence.

But what kind of naïve ideological claptrap is that?  Kerry, in the eyes of the Tea Party, can be added to the list of Americans who have not found their truth, i.e. that U.S. debt problems have to be solved now, irrespective or what the Democrats and over half the country want, or of any harm that solution may bring to the wellbeing of the country.

National polls now indicate that a solid majority of Americans would like to see more immediate Federal investment in job creation, greater taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and continued support for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – all of which programs are on the Tea Party death list!

Quite apart from the absurdity and unconstitutionality of Kerry’s position, has it not occurred to him that if those polls are true, he and his fellow Democrats desperately need the Tea Party?   In the Tea Party, we have a new political movement that is challenging everything we know about the state of the world and the conduct of government.  Fiscal policy, immigration law, gay and lesbian rights, climate change, the role and intentions of government, tax policy and foreign policy have all come under the scrutiny of the Tea Party, almost invariably producing new policies at odds with Democrats as well as many Republicans, not to speak of science and reality!

If poll results hold where they now are, frightened Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, should want to be sure that absolutely nothing inhibits the Tea Party, or particularly, its leaders.  If you are not a believer in the Tea Party platform, you desperately need the active, involved presence of people like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and just now, Governor Perry from Texas.  You need their informational and intellectual shortfalls. They are the Tea Party equivalents to Kerry, but without much feel for history or reality and without his Yale-trained eloquence and respect for English language and grammar.

No, at a time when nothing much of interest is coming from their leadership, Democrats are in desperate need of political help.  President Obama is increasingly viewed as weak and ineffective and Pelosi and Ried seem unable to accomplish much of anything for their party in the Congress.

The best hope Democrats have of holding what they now have, or of even regaining political power in Washington, lies very much in the ability of the Tea Party to display itself as the twenty-first century “know-nothings” who are out of step with facts, reality and, incidentally, grammar.

Without such Republican candidates, the Democrats haven’t much hope.  Eloquence alone never wins the day!