Question For Post-Partisans: Can We Get There By Leaving The Driving To The Same Ralph Kramdens Who Keep Running Us Off The Road?

Gene Sculatti is an old friend of mine. When I first met him he was the subversive executive inside the big scary major record label. He hired me to write articles in the Warner Bros inhouse magaizne and he flew me down to the company's redwood Burbank headquarters to introduce the company's apprehensive senior executives to DEVO. This is the first time Gene is writing for DWT. I'm over the moon.


by Gene Sculatti 
 
I probably shouldn’t be doing this. Writing in the heat of the moment, reacting to the news of Daschle removing himself from consideration for head of Secretary of Health & Human Services. But, jeez, how many times do we have to go through all this-- us, plain Americans, progressives, people of any party or none who want a long overdue turnaround? Is there an endless pool of Daschles out there, smiling pols who just darn forgot to pay a couple hundred grand in taxes, whose living expenses include $200,000 for a car and driver, who, having palmed bushels of healthcare-industry bread, are now to be entrusted with regulating that industry? Just what distinguishes these guys from the opposition party’s charlatan evangelists and Chamber of Commerce boot-lickers? Or is the real distinction not between parties but between all of their class and all of ours? We’re plebes, they’re privileged. One is reminded of Cheney’s rationale for his own right to reckless behaving: “It’s our due.”
 
And where’s Obama? I’m sitting here, like many others, without a full-time job or healthcare, desperate for the changes he and his party promised to implement, and he says he’s sorry, he “screwed up,” that “mistakes were made” in selecting-- or not properly vetting-- Daschle at this critical time. Can you beat that: he screwed up? Hey, pally, we all do, no biggie. (The Apologies of the Week feature on Harry Shearer’s Le Show radio program weekly revels in revealing this kabuki shuck for what it is: Someone’s caught with his pinkie in the Pepperidge Farm jar, he publicly begs forgiveness and it all goes away.)
 
No one’s saying Obama should be infallible in matters of faith and morals. But he did rather advertise himself that way (after one of the most corrupt administrations ever, how hard could it be to do better?). It’s just that so much is at stake now, this time, and he and his crew need to deliver, not dish us the same old slop. Daschle-- and Richardson and Geithner before that-- are black eyes that the Dems don’t need if they’re going to make good on any of their promises to fix things. Here, why not pass Mitch McConnell some fresh ammo?
 
I never thought B.O. walked on water. He made more sense than Hillary, made more of the right points than any Democratic candidate in my lifetime, so he got my vote, and I was touched and energized by his victory.
 
But then, maybe even without drinking the Kool-Aid, I fooled myself anyway.
 
When I was a kid in the early ’60s, growing up in Napa Valley, my dad and uncle used to watch TV wrestling. Sometimes they were joined by Lungo, a wop beanpole inclined toward the gullible. Each week, the villain wrestler would wind up pulling tricks behind the ref’s back and get the best of the hero wrestler. The audience would howl bloody murder. So would Lungo, jumping up and shaking his fist at the screen. Then my uncle would remind him that the whole match was staged, that nothing was really at stake and Lungo would agree, sit back down and settle in for Round Two. As soon as Ray Stevens would clobber Pepper Gomez with a hidden folding-chair, Lungo was up out of his seat, yelling, taken in all over again. 

No matter how hard we want to believe change is here and good’s about to win, we’ve got to be resolute about not being taken in-- by our own blindness or a party or a prez who says we can get there by leaving the driving to the same Ralph Kramdens who keep running us off the road.

UPDATE: Ray and Pepper? Or the real deal?