George Allen Departs

George Allen, who shares a contrived, phony grits political persona with George Bush, despite their patrician upbringings, will no longer be a Senator come January. Though I say good riddance, as the guy is a real prick, I must say that Allen did the right thing in conceding rather than calling for a recount.

I know that over blown rhetoric is the norm of the election season but Allen, in his concession speech, really over blew the over blown in pronouncing Senator John Warner as the “greatest” Virginian “ever”. Greater than Jefferson, Madison, Washington, or even Lee? Allen apparently paid as close attention in his history classes as did Bush. And the guy was once governor of Virginia. Sheesh.

Though I think that in recent years the republicans and democrats have really been just different wings of the same party, as they are beholden to the same benefactors, I am thrilled that the democrats have gained both houses of congress. I am thrilled, as a stake has been driven through the heart of the Tom Delay, Karl Rove, republican party orchestrated ‘K’ street/Grover Norquist/radical Chrisitian/neo-fascist combine.

Can we please also drive a stake through the hearts of the clichés “seismic shift”, “tectonic shift”, and “sea change”, propagated by TV’s vacuous talking hairdos? And not just in relation to the election results but in all other applications except as applied to the physical phenomena to which they actually refer.

Meanwhile, James Webb, in explaining why he “came to the democratic party” during his victory speech, talked about his desire to promote “economic fairness” and “social justice”. Both of which once were, and once again should be, fundamental principles of the democratic party. Such principles were abandoned by weak kneed democrats, which at the time constituted the majority of federal democrats (call them DLC democrats), in the face of the so called Reagan Revolution” when most federal democrats did their best to position themselves as being republican lite. Hurray for James Webb.