the donkey punch

With public men’s restrooms now verboten, I recently took a shit in the comfort of my own bathroom and with much ease violated myself with an issue of The Economist, the only far-left periodical I enjoy (particularly for its lack of bylines — how socialistic!).

Anyways, they were analyzing the state of American politics, wondering if our great empire is about to topple into pinkoism. Luckily, they argue, we are safe for now. Their cogent portrait of the probable Democratic nominee, that insufferable whore and her hamburgler husband, pretty much summed up my own feelings:

Mrs Clinton might be portrayed as a communist on talk radio in Kansas, but set her alongside France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s David Cameron or any other supposed European conservative, and on virtually every significant issue Mrs Clinton is the more right-wing.

Strangely enough, this point of debate provides a rare confluence for many on opposite sides of the spectrum. Folks on both Right and Left whole-heartedly declare her liberal (albeit, for opposite reasons) but these people, ill-intentioned ideologues all of them, are stupid, lying to you, or probably a whole bunch of both.

Mr. Robert Novak, that liberal bastard whose attempt to destroy the Bush administration remains a sore subject with me, has found that the responsible members of Ms. Clinton’s own party are, like me and the rest of the cortex-enabled nation, fearful:

Many of the Democratic congressmen who ousted Republicans in marginal House districts last year privately express concern about the impact on their re-election prospects if Hillary Clinton is nominated for president.

Hillary Clinton is toxic. Neither liberal nor conservative, she is an opportunist. Disliked by all, her only hopes are the further collapse of the Elephant party and/or the insatiable desire of millions of left-leaning Americans to continually settle for less than they deserve.

Not exactly a strong platform, but at least it’s something. Take that away and there’s little substance left: no real position on the war, no real position on the economy, no real position on health care. She is Bill Clinton-Lite and it seems to me Al Gore already lost.

I guess New York Times writer Matt Bai has a new book out (its point: bloggers are writing a bunch of words but not doing anything truly constructive and neither are the politicians… a funny thing to publish in a book) and apparently he has a metaphor worth considering:

Just as G.M. couldn’t begin to consider a world without Pontiacs, neither could Washington Democrats and their interest groups envision a world where every single liberal provision of the last 70 years didn’t exist intact. This made real innovation — the kind of innovation that had launched the modern Democratic Party in the first place — all but impossible. There were all kinds of specific new policy proposals on the Democratic shelf, just as there were always new models of Buicks and Pontiacs on the drawing boards. But there was nothing approaching a plan to restructure the modern social contract for an age when Wal-Mart, and not G.M., employed the most Americans, in the same imaginative way that the New Dealers had dreamed up a compact to meet the challenge of an earlier day.

So, yes: if Americans began to demand of their leaders someone who at least believed in themselves, someone who had ideas, wouldn’t that be something?

Failing that, the left could just twiddle down the days to the 2008 election and hope the Grand Old Party’s self-destruction continues and thus no platform is needed, no hard decisions need be made and no real ideas need be formulated. But, sadly, presidential adviser and former GOP chief Ed Gillespie is putting a stop to those chances, vigorously promising politicians unlike any we have so far seen:

“I think that we will not have candidates who have any kind of ethical considerations that will be a concern to the voters come 2008.”

My word! Ethical politicians? Representatives we can feel good voting for?

I don’t know about all that. But I do know this: Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama, John McCain, and the smelly man stumbling around the grocery store could all learn a lesson in leadership — in faith and beliefs — from the man who currently holds the position they all want.

You can hate on George W. Bush if you like, but you’d be a fool to ignore his lessons, to not follow his lead. The Donkey Punch today is a few words of truth:

I have come to understand true leadership leans into the wind. It tackles big challenges with uncertain outcomes rather than taking on simple, sure tasks. It does what is right, regardless of what the latest poll or focus group says.