If Duchamp Were Alive Today, He Could Hang Mitch Daniels In A Museum And Label It "The Fountainhead"

HERE'S the best thing about Mitch Daniels giving the "rebuttal" to the State of the Union address: it got local news hairdos to talk about something other than how many days are left until the Super Bowl.

And the worst thing? I happened to walk through the living room just in time to hear one of 'em say something about what an honor it was for Daniels to be picked.

Because, look: this is one of the many, many things in this country which could be improved by the simple expedient of letting me make the decision. The Official Opposition Party Rebuttal to the Republic-old Tradition of the State of the Union Address is a crock of shit. Every bleeding idiot American, all 300 million of 'em, gets to reply to the State of the Union, at the top of his lungs and while it's going on, if he chooses. The Official Reply is nothing more than the habitual media tendency to fellational genuflection to Power and the two Parties which monopolize it. Was there an Official Democratic Response to Bush's Taliban Out of Town by Sundown speech? Or his bullhorn babbling on 9/16, or whenever it was he came out of hiding? I mean, other than "Hooray for the Glorious Republic!"?

And the damned thing isn't actually a response, of course, but a made-for-teevee taped prebuttal designed to level talking points at what Tout le Beltway knew was going to be in the speech, delivered (for Republicans) by some Tiger Beat jerkoff heartthrob. This is precisely the sort of "honor" Mitch Daniels deserves. The sort that comes in cans, and you buy off supermarket racks.

As for the speech itself, well, do I have to do anything but yawn? Obama's "extremism" "divides the nation", a nation, we might add, in which everyone still enjoys his Bush tax cuts, including, or especially, people in Mitch Daniels' (and Mitch Daniels' bankrollers') tax bracket. (Do we still have tax brackets?) This comes from a guy who gave the big stage wink to "Right to Work" legislation last year (but wouldn't get behind it publicly, since he was"considering" running for President while he was running for President). But who this year is behind it whole hog, after "studying the problem" over the past twelvemonth.

I don't know who this fools, but anyone it does should be legally precluded from ever complaining about our politics. Because this is precisely what's wrong with our politics: our public men have no commitment to the barest requirements of honesty, intellectual or otherwise.

My personal favorite, as always, is Mitch Daniels, Voice of How If We Just Eliminate All Public Responsibilities on the Wealthy, Provided They Agree To Heroically Hire People If They Need To, and Let Them Dismantle the Safety Net in the Name of Saving It, Republicans Will Agree Not To Enact Any Crazy Social Legislation Until They're Done. To The Extent That Mitch Daniels Can Guarantee It, or Be Held Accountable When It Doesn't Happen.

Reader, this is the guy who couldn't run for the Republican nomination because he suggested putting social issues on the back burner, who had to run to Laura Ingraham or one of those other "conservative" transvestites to apologize the very next day, and who, when he was still pretending he wan't running for President but was, had to agree to name Mike "Choirboy" Pence his successor just so he could carry Indiana. Mitch Fucking Daniels has a helluva lot more to fear from Social "Conservatives" than you or I. Spot anyone on the Debate Dais in favor of gay marriage, did you? Heard a Congressional Republican leader touting the Time to Cool It on Social Issues gag? Mitch Daniels is the designated Official Voice of the Non-Existent Republican Party on this. Because it was his best-paying job back when it looked like Sarah Palin was the next nominee, and now he's committed. Have we not spent the last nine months being clearly informed just how much weight Social "conservatives" have to throw around in their own party these days?

Last year Mitch Daniels signed a bill blocking Federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood in Indiana. And his is what passes for a credible voice on cultural détente in the Republican party.

And the guy who wrote the first three Debt-tumefying Bush budgets, and who crafted the blank checks Congress signed for Afghanistan and Iraq II, is now a strict Deficit Hawk. Which is right in line with the idea that The Brain thinks entitlement spending busts budgets it's not a part of, or that capping the amount of income subject to FICA taxes artificially low has no connection to wealthy Americans enjoying excessive Social Security benefits, or that "compromising" for the sake of "jobs creation" just happens to be identical to "giving the wealthy, and the party of wealth, everything they demand".

Y'know Dick "Moderate" Lugar, being threatened, or "threatened", in his reelection bid by Indiana Teabaggers, is running ads (in January!) about how he's fuckin' this Obama guy up but good. Pipeline! Obamacare! Whoo-hoo! Forget how anybody can believe these guys; I can't find anything anyone would claim to believe in the first place.