You're like a big bear, man...

My last year in grad school, my roommate and I probably watched Swingers at least 10-15 times. At least once every 3-4 weeks, coming home from a bar, we'd grab Taco Bell and stick in Swingers. Let's face it--it's one of the most perfect college-age-guy movie ever, and over a decade later, it's held up quite nicely. Everybody knows a guy like Mikey, the previously witty and together guy who's had his heart ripped out and can't seem to recover; and everybody knows a guy like Trent, the guy's guy who's not emotionally shallow so much as emotionally void. It helped even more that, over the course of a few months that school year, I was Mike...and my roommate that year was almost 100% Trent. I was struggling to get over a breakup, and after a while, my roommate threatened to come into my room when I wasn't around and take away my Beck Sea Change and Dylan Blood on the Tracks cd's...not to mention Norah Jones and Van Morrison and anything else that wasn't hip hop or Incubus. So yeah...we watched Swingers a lot.

One of the most positive, encouraging scenes in Swingers comes directly before The Most Painful Movie Scene of All-Time (if you've seen the movie, you know what scene I'm talking about...the answering machine scene...do NOT click on this link if you're prone to nausea). The boys are at a bar, and Mike was flirting harmlessly with a girl...feeling defeatist about the pursuit until Trent and another buddy, Sue, move in for some encouragement.



Strangely enough, I'm mentioning this to make a political point.

Democrats, you're the bear. You're like a big bear with claws and with fangs...and you're staring at these claws and your thinking to yourself, and with these claws you're thinking, "How am I supposed to kill this bunny, how am I supposed to kill this bunny?" And you're looking at your claws and you're looking at your fangs. And you're thinking to yourself, you don't know what to do, man. "I don't know how to kill the bunny." With this you don't know how to kill the bunny.

Right now, despite a major media structure that is every bit as passive and lazy and cliquish as it was two, four, or six years ago, the Democrats have the claws right now. They have public opinion on their side of the issues. A corrupt administration is being stripped naked as we speak--I'm not sure enough non-bloggers are actually paying attention, but over the next year or so, there will be a legitimate opportunity to impeach the vice president (I'm not going to allow myself to be naive enough to think that impeaching the president is actually possible).

The minority party in Congress is not, as I thought they might, playing the passive, whiny minority oppressed by the majority party...they're actually taking a stand on an issue with which a giant majority of the people in the country virulently disagree (yes, Harry, they indeed most certainly "miscalculated" on this one...now take advantage of it).

The President is unabashedly aiming to attack another sovereign nation, and while the entire idea of separation of powers has been turned into one giant gray area, I'm going to naively believe that he can still be stopped. And no matter what, the public is not on his side...and unlike four years ago, the public is correct this time.

The tape just loops over and over again with every issue--Republican leadership continues to prove itself inept and incorrect on every major issue facing this country. Democrats have common sense, reality, public opinion, and momentum on their side.

I spent some time in January tracking the Dems' "First 100 Hours" agenda and noting that, in the House at least, they were aggressive and successful. That's great. But it's over now. But now's the time to go from third to fourth gear, regarding not just Iraq/n, but everything. Dems have the claws. They've got the fangs. They CANNOT let the bunny go free this time. There is too much on the line here.

Democrats have to realize that they are NOT going to be the guy in the G-rated movie that everybody is rooting for. They are a politicans, part of a political party. They are not going to be loved and appreciated by most people in this country. They are not going to be seen as common folk--they just need to serve common folk well. They don't need to talk anymore about what they "need" to be doing. They just need to do it. They know what is best for this country, and they need to pursue it. Now. You're so money, and you don't even know it.