Treasure trove

A rich trove of fine thought has been on order at the CPAC conference the last couple of days. There was, of course, Dick Cheney's facile Red Star appearance, but others moved quickly, delivering their own special brand of discourse to the conservative gathering.

Though I try to avoid paying any attention to Ann Coulter, her recent opprobrious remarks about presidential candidate, John Edwards, serve merely to reassert her dominion over foul mouthed bigotry and insipid name-calling. Coulter, always scrabbling to a new and loftier apogee of the petty and profane, delivered this with a sneer and a smirk, much to the delight of a rapt audience.

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

Determined not to be outdone by the heights of such exceptional insight, Grover Norquist told the conservative audience that Republicans would just have to learn to say no.

NORQUIST:Nothing good happens in the next two years out of this Congress. Nothing good.

If you read in the newspaper that there’s a bill with a nice sounding name, and it sounds in the first sentence like the bill is good, you haven’t read the whole bill.

Nothing good happens. They’re not going to cut taxes.
...
Look, get married, develop a hobby, learn to belly dance, learn to golf — you know, we got two years free, but we gotta spend some time and effort playing defense here.

Because the Democrats are going to be like young men on prom dates — they’re gonna keep asking the same question of us over and over and over again. And our job is to say “no, no, no, no” for two years.

It doesn’t do us any good to go “no, no, yes” okay? It has to be “no” for two years in a row. It’s going to be tiresome, it’s going to be boring. People are gonna go, “oh maybe this bill isn’t as bad as it looks.” Don’t eat it, don’t swallow it, don’t touch it. Nothing good passes this Congress.

The meaning here is entirely unclear, perhaps purposefully so. It may sound like Norquist is asserting that a Democratic Congress will pass "nothing good," but it really sounds like he demanding that Republicans allow "nothing good" to pass. It is this interpretation which I prefer because it is simply asking the GOP to continue doing what they have been doing for years. The clarion call for "nothing good" to pass Congress in the next two years is really Norquist advocating a "more of the same" policy for the GOP; the same policy they have had since assuming majorities in Congress. They have passed nothing good and will continue to insist on that.

As always, it is important to remember that it is the Democrats who are not only obstructionists but faggoty ones at that.