My Apology For the Last Election
February 10, 2009 07:33 PM EST
I have lived with this shame for three months and don't think I can last another day. Hopefully, owning my mistakes and telling you how sorry I am for them will allow me to hold my head up again. Maybe you will understand, and even forgive me.
I think of all those selfish nights when I slept four - sometimes more - hours, knowing there was work I could be doing. The big problem (trust me, I've learned from this) is that I was overly confident. I trusted the wrong people and I will never do it again.
Sure, I typed a few articles, wrote a few letters to editors, left comments and opinions dribbled all around the Internet, made phone calls, attended meetings, spoke with friends and neighbors, pointed out the dishonesty in his ads, and cried a few times. But many days, I did not leave my home, much less my county, and I didn't post five articles a day like I should have, pointing out every insane thing Mitch McConnell said or did.
On Election Day, I did absolutely nothing to keep uninformed people from voting. Worst of all, I turned in Republican voter registrations - even reminded those people to vote. Sorry.
If it helps any, my heart sinks, my stomach burns, and tears burn my eyes every time I hear Mitch McConnell make a stupid statement, or read where he voted against the best interest of the American citizens. I send him letters, almost daily, telling him where I think he went wrong and how disappointed I am in him. For reasons I'll never understand, he doesn't listen to me.
If you forgive me, I promise I will not sleep a minute during the next campaign. Until then, I will try (there are only so many hours in a day) to apologize for every stupid thing he does.
I also promise not everyone in Kentucky is as misinformed as Mitch McConnell and the people who elected him.
Today's list:
I apologize for this antiquated, violent opinion and volunteer to shake him if he believes that it is the appropriate way to get people to think the way we want them to think: "I think it may be time . . . for the president to kind of get ahold of these Democrats in the Senate and the House . . . and shake them a little bit and say, look, let's do this the right way."
I apologize for this absurd statement, and for the fact that he can't remember (age) that his party caused the mess we're in yet he wants more of the same, and for the fact that he doesn't care that the country (and his state) are in a financial crisis and that people are losing jobs faster than he can spit out his rhetoric: "The president was right to call for a stimulus, but this bill misses the mark." (If he believed in helping others, I would offer to chip in on new glasses so he could see the mark.)
I apologize for the University of Louisville for honoring a man who bungles history this way: "One of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal. And, we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15 percent. And, it's widely agreed among economists, that what got us out of the doldrums that we were in during the Depression was the beginning of World War II."
I beg you to forgive me for not stuffing a sock in his mouth before he uttered this ridiculous statement following President Obama's press conference last night: "The legislation moving its way through Congress bears little resemblance to what President Obama described at tonight's press conference...[It] is filled with unnecessary and wasteful programs that will saddle future generations with massive debt."
I apologize for Ross Douthat's rationalization: "McConnell, like all GOP leaders, is in an awfully difficult spot at the moment: He's heading up a party that desperately needs a new direction, but whose most loyal and vocal members want nothing to do with anything that smacks of compromise or centrism. In those circumstances, the thing for Republicans in Washington to do is to talk an awful lot about how conservative principles don't need to change (and they don't, broadly speaking), while eagerly embracing new policy options whenever possible."
And I apologize for these recent votes:
No on the stimulus package
No on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
No on the confirmation of Eric Holder for Attorney General
No on the confirmation of Timothy Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury
No on Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (SHAME, shame, shame on you, Mitch McConnell, for using your childhood illness in your campaign and then voting against this bill.)
February 10, 2009 07:33 PM EST
I have lived with this shame for three months and don't think I can last another day. Hopefully, owning my mistakes and telling you how sorry I am for them will allow me to hold my head up again. Maybe you will understand, and even forgive me.
I think of all those selfish nights when I slept four - sometimes more - hours, knowing there was work I could be doing. The big problem (trust me, I've learned from this) is that I was overly confident. I trusted the wrong people and I will never do it again.
Sure, I typed a few articles, wrote a few letters to editors, left comments and opinions dribbled all around the Internet, made phone calls, attended meetings, spoke with friends and neighbors, pointed out the dishonesty in his ads, and cried a few times. But many days, I did not leave my home, much less my county, and I didn't post five articles a day like I should have, pointing out every insane thing Mitch McConnell said or did.
On Election Day, I did absolutely nothing to keep uninformed people from voting. Worst of all, I turned in Republican voter registrations - even reminded those people to vote. Sorry.
If it helps any, my heart sinks, my stomach burns, and tears burn my eyes every time I hear Mitch McConnell make a stupid statement, or read where he voted against the best interest of the American citizens. I send him letters, almost daily, telling him where I think he went wrong and how disappointed I am in him. For reasons I'll never understand, he doesn't listen to me.
If you forgive me, I promise I will not sleep a minute during the next campaign. Until then, I will try (there are only so many hours in a day) to apologize for every stupid thing he does.
I also promise not everyone in Kentucky is as misinformed as Mitch McConnell and the people who elected him.
Today's list:
I apologize for this antiquated, violent opinion and volunteer to shake him if he believes that it is the appropriate way to get people to think the way we want them to think: "I think it may be time . . . for the president to kind of get ahold of these Democrats in the Senate and the House . . . and shake them a little bit and say, look, let's do this the right way."
I apologize for this absurd statement, and for the fact that he can't remember (age) that his party caused the mess we're in yet he wants more of the same, and for the fact that he doesn't care that the country (and his state) are in a financial crisis and that people are losing jobs faster than he can spit out his rhetoric: "The president was right to call for a stimulus, but this bill misses the mark." (If he believed in helping others, I would offer to chip in on new glasses so he could see the mark.)
I apologize for the University of Louisville for honoring a man who bungles history this way: "One of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal. And, we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15 percent. And, it's widely agreed among economists, that what got us out of the doldrums that we were in during the Depression was the beginning of World War II."
I beg you to forgive me for not stuffing a sock in his mouth before he uttered this ridiculous statement following President Obama's press conference last night: "The legislation moving its way through Congress bears little resemblance to what President Obama described at tonight's press conference...[It] is filled with unnecessary and wasteful programs that will saddle future generations with massive debt."
I apologize for Ross Douthat's rationalization: "McConnell, like all GOP leaders, is in an awfully difficult spot at the moment: He's heading up a party that desperately needs a new direction, but whose most loyal and vocal members want nothing to do with anything that smacks of compromise or centrism. In those circumstances, the thing for Republicans in Washington to do is to talk an awful lot about how conservative principles don't need to change (and they don't, broadly speaking), while eagerly embracing new policy options whenever possible."
And I apologize for these recent votes:
No on the stimulus package
No on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
No on the confirmation of Eric Holder for Attorney General
No on the confirmation of Timothy Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury
No on Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (SHAME, shame, shame on you, Mitch McConnell, for using your childhood illness in your campaign and then voting against this bill.)
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