Life imitating art imitating life:
People for the American Way, (PFAW) founded by Hollywood producer Norman Lear, launched a television ad campaign Wednesday featuring a scene from the 1939 movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Jimmy Stewart, as starry-eyed freshman Sen. Jefferson Smith, filibusters on the Senate floor to block a corrupt pork-barrel project...
I'll bet Bill Frist doesn't leap out a window to his death. That'd boost the ratings on CSPAN2. And it's too bad we didn't have CSPAN to record Huey Long's gumbo recipes.
It's hard for me to get excited about the coming Nuclear Option battle. I find it telling that PFAW had to go to the movies for its example of a Good War. Most 20th Century filibusters were by backers of segregation, a far less noble cause than Jeff Smith's boys camp.
But I'm realist enough to understand that in this era of Politics As Total War, the power to stop the US Senate dead in the water is the only concrete, real power in the hands of the Democratic Party. The other team has the ball and we're on defense - and on defense the goal is to STOP `em.
(We male bloggers are accused of making too many sports analogies, and that may be true. But I'm rarely accused of excess machismo, and I have the excuse of being the son of a coach.)
Politics
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