Friday, April 17, 2020

Hand the baby to Fireman Joe


     You wake to the scream of a smoke alarm in a bedroom filled with dense black smoke. Gasping, you roll onto the floor and belly-crawl to the baby’s room. There, you reach up, eyes stinging, and pluck the howling tot from her crib. Trying to leave, you are driven back by flames sprouting in the hallway you had just left. At that moment an axe crashes through the window, a burst of broken glass, noise, light and air. Through the shattered window frame steps a firefighter in full mask, helmet, and bunker gear. He reaches out his gloved hands. You:
     A) Crawl as fast as you can toward the flames.
     B) Ask him how he scored on his physical.
     C) Hand him the baby.
     If you answered “A” you are a Trump Republican, yearning for four more years of institution- and morality-scorching conflagration that, in some fashion I’ve stopped trying to comprehend, makes you feel good about yourself and your country. You like the flames of American freedoms and traditions burning to ash — they’re pretty — and you don’t perceive any harm because, when you’re not oohing at the fire, you’re gawping at Fox News, lost in the pyrotechnic fantasy display they’re putting on.
     If you picked ”B,” quiz the fireman, you are like many automatic pilot Democrats right now who, slow to accept the obvious situation (house burning down) cling to past rituals of long-vanished normality. (Exactly who is this fellow I’m handing my baby to?) They’re busy kicking the tires of the fire truck, musing: “Fireman Joe ... he’s not exactly young, is he? How is he on ladders? Let’s pick apart that assault accusation from 1993 ...” Parsing the details so closely they never bother to look up at the guy he’s running against, someone accused of worse by dozens of women. Ignoring the flames licking the doorframe, they focus on the carpet. It could use a vacuuming!

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9 comments:

  1. Well said and clever. Let's hope the Bernie Bros. don't sit on their hands at voting time just to be vengeful.

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  2. Although I couldn't read the whole article -- is this going in the paper tomorrow?--, I get the point and agree that Joe Biden is our guy now and fussing over his age, his chumminess bordering on the creepy and his corporation entanglements is self defeating. However, I think AOC is correct that the sexual allegations have to be addressed. I recommend truth serum. Not really, but some all or nothing lay-your-cards-on-table maneuver is necessary not to show the Republicans we're better than they are, but just because we are better than they are. Right now Joe Biden has to prove he's innocent, which isn't all that much different from the standard we would impose on Trump and Kavanaugh, however much it deviates from the sacred tenets of American criminal justice. Destroying the accuser's reputation is off the table as far as I am concerned. If I were Biden, I would tell the world, "I didn't do it, but I can't prove my innocence and if you feel that the allegation all by itself is enough to disqualify me for the presidency, so be it."

    john

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  3. The Republicans are really going to bang on this sexual assault allegation against Biden, calling Democrats "hypocrites" for "ignoring" it.

    To me, the charge of political hypocrisy almost invariably cuts both ways. I feel perfectly justified in saying, "I will take the charge against Biden every bit as seriously as you took the ones against Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and anyone else who supports your beliefs."

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  4. The public often votes for a less than stellar candidate when that candidate is their only option for change. I’m crossing my fingers that enough voters want change.

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  5. If that fire fighter was a Fox addicted, 100% koolaide saturated right winger, they still climb that ladder and risk their life. I don't know if I could. This sh*t is so hard to work through. And Global Warming will become an important issue when its corporate bailout time because of Global Warming.

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  6. Been "Ridin' With Biden" for the last five years, so I was extremely disappointed when Joe declined to run in late 2015, and then relieved as hell last April, when he started his 2020 campaign. Had Biden not lost his son, he might have had a very good chance of defeating Hillary for the 2016 nomination, even though the party bigwigs felt it was "her time." To many rank-and-file Democrats, she was simply unlikeble. Not their first choice. More importantly, a Biden victory would have made recent history a whole lot different, and thousands of dead Americans might still be alive.

    Six weeks ago, I was working at my volunteer gig and more than willing to offer as much time and energy and effort as the Biden folks would allow to a geezer who doesn't tweet or text or own a smartphone. But now my volunteer gig is gone and there isn't going to be any campaign. Not as we've known it. Not in the traditional political sense. No rallies. No door-knocking. Social distancing has put the kibosh on all that.

    So I'm in limbo, like everyone else, and wondering what the summer and fall will bring. Get-out-the-vote e-mails and phone calls from home? Meh. Nowhere near as exciting or as challenging as my experiences in the last three campaigns. But what the hell...whatever it takes to find a vaccine that will eradicate the Orange Plague...even dialing for the donkey.

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  7. I loved the comments of that quack-shill-hack Dr. Oz suggesting schools should be reopened and would result in only a 2-3% death rate. Obviously, he backed off almost immediately; you know: he "misspoke" Always believe the first thing people say; it's usually what they really believe.

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  8. Joe gets my baby because anything to temper fanatics who think a Strike Force to Open Texas is a sane thing to propose during a pandemic that is killing millions has my vote. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-executive-order-establishing-strike-force-to-open-texas

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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