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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

RUBBER STAMPS

November 5, 2006 by Jan Herman

We’ll see whether the Banana Republicans will be turned out of office — dumped, I hope, like the old rubber stamps they are — or whether they will retain their power as enablers of the Bullshitter-in-Chief and his minions.
David Brooks, in his latest inanity, writes: “You do not want your opponent running ads calling you a rubber stamp, because in this climate that hurts.” Which is to say, in some it doesn’t? (Was he was thinking of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan?)
Not to single him out — although he also deserves it for his previous inanity (bemoaning the expected defeat of Rick Santorum) — Peggy Noonan ought to be cited as well. She, too, sees the defeat of that Banana Republican as “a national loss.”


In her Wall Street Journal column on Saturday, headlined “We Need His Kind,” she writes that she asked a former senator (“a crusty old moderate Republican”) if he liked Santorum. “No,” he said, “I love him.” Why? Because, when the old crust tried to mentor him,

Mr. Santorum was grateful and appreciative, “but he kept speaking his mind!” The former senator: “The political scientists all say to be honest and stand for principle, that’s what people want. And he was exactly that, and he’s about to get his head handed to him.” … It was sad, he said.

So Noonan wants us to believe Santorum will get his head handed to him not for being a rubber stamp — a 98% voting record with the bullshitter, according to his opponent — but for being honest? Now that’s a laugh.

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
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